Robertson Grant: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12626. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):It is a pleasure to take a call on this Supplementary Order Paper 307 which divides the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill into three bills. For me this Supplementary Order Paper sums up what might be called an existential crisis for this bill—that is the extent to which this bill is able to change the nature of our security intelligence agencies. The fact that in doing so it has to divide itself into three at the end point to me describes the existential crisis that this bill and the Government has when it comes to its security and intelligence agencies. One of the reasons why I am not of the same view as my colleague Mr Mallard about being able to vote for this Supplementary Order Paper is that for me this sums up what is wrong with the whole process—and that is that because the Government has failed to look at New Zealand’s wider intelligence network in putting together this legislation the division into three bills just makes it all the more obvious how stupid that is for New Zealand.We should perhaps not be creating three bills out of this but be creating one single piece of legislation that covers all of our intelligence agencies. That would be the outcome of the kind of review that the Labour Party has been proposing for many months. We simply cannot consider three individual pieces of legislation titled the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act 2013 the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Act 2013 and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act 2013. To have three bills divided in that way—Hon Trevor Mallard: One bill divided.GRANT ROBERTSON: —one bill divided into three parts thank you—exemplifies the problem that we are not looking at the whole of New Zealand’s security intelligence agencies. We should have been debating through the Committee of the whole House the role of the SIS within intelligence agencies. There is no SIS bill among the three—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Come back to the debate.GRANT ROBERTSON: No I am very much on the debate in that I am searching among the three divided bills here for some reference to the Security Intelligence Service which is referenced within what will now be the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act the first of the three divided bills. The first of the three divided bills has to talk about the SIS because it is one of the organisations—Hon Trevor Mallard: Why only divide into three?GRANT ROBERTSON: That is where I am getting to. It is one of the organisations that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is now committed to assisting within this divided bill. That is the problem.Dividing up the GCSB bill into three new separate bills as this Supplementary Order Paper does highlights the problem that many New Zealanders are raising which is that they want to have trust and confidence in our security intelligence agencies but that trust and confidence has been undermined through the actions of the Minister responsible for the GCSB John Key over the Kim Dotcom affair and over Ian Fletcher. When it comes to creating some new piece of legislation here was an opportunity for the Government to bring together all of the intelligence agencies under one piece oflegislation that New Zealanders could play a part in shaping. If there was a review they would have been able to play a part in shaping that legislation in asking what is the New Zealand way when it comes to security intelligence. What is the kind of legislation that would sum up the values of New Zealanders about privacy about security and about accountability of Government?What I fear is that in these three divided bills we highlight the ad hoc divided and in some ways incompetent approach that the current Government has towards security intelligence. In particular I want to highlight the two bills that do not actually have the same title as the one that we have been debating all the way through over the last couple of weeks. They are what will now be the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Act and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act. They highlight the fact that both of the organisations covered by these two divided bills the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the committee actually have oversight over a wider set—[Bell rung ] He has given the call to me. They actually have a wider ambit than just the GCSB. So the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security under the new approach that is being proposed in what was previously the single bill now has a wider ambit.The Intelligence and Security Committee which is the subject of the third of the divided bills now not only looks at the SIS which it always has done but has an expanded role in providing opportunities for the public to hear and see the reports of the SIS and the GCSB. So in many ways that committee is an even further example of the divided and ad hoc nature of the way in which this Government looks after intelligence and security. The proposed Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act as divided really does highlight for me why we should not be looking at three divided bills. We should have been looking at a single piece of legislation that actually enabled Parliament to be able to say that we now understand how our security agencies sit together.In addition to the SIS—if we want to take the approach laid out in this Supplementary Order Paper there actually should be six or seven bills. There should be a bill to cover the SIS there should be a bill to cover the GCSB there should be the Intelligence and Security Committee bill and the inspector-general bill but there should also be a bill covering the police and the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand because under new section 8C inserted by clause 6 of the bill that we have been debating they are regarded as security and intelligence agencies. There should be another bill covering the Defence Force and defence intelligence which are also named in the legislation. So if we were to take this approach in this Supplementary Order Paper to its logical extension there should be six or seven bills and that frankly would be—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I have been listening very carefully and I believe that the member is trying to develop the argument that the bill should have been expanded to cover other issues. The question is whether or not this bill should be divided.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. With respect and taking some care because of the discussions earlier in the day I think you have it wrong. What the member on his feet was saying was that these issues are already in this legislation not that there should be more legislation to cover them. These are already in the legislation and if it was properly organised then it would be divided into more than three bills.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well then I misinterpreted the member. I shall watch him very closely.GRANT ROBERTSON: And I would expect nothing less. Mr Mallard’s interpretation is correct. The point I am trying to highlight is that there are a number of agencies within the security and intelligence structure in New Zealand that are mentioned in the legislation—Hon Trevor Mallard: Whose roles have been changed.GRANT ROBERTSON: —yes—whose roles have been changed or in fact have never actually been even covered in legislation before in many cases. So what this Supplementary Order Paper does is say: “Well there are three subjects here and we’re going to divide them up into three.” There are actually more than three subjects. There are six or seven subjects. That is one point I am trying to make.The second point that I am trying to make is that what is needed here is one piece of legislation that can give New Zealanders confidence about the arrangements for security and intelligence in New Zealand. All that dividing this bill into three does—as this Supplementary Order Paper does—is highlight to New Zealanders the incoherent ad hoc divided nature of the way the Government is approaching security and intelligence measures.I would favour a Supplementary Order Paper that actually looked at a quite different approach—one that actually came off the back of a review of all of that architecture of security and intelligence that gave New Zealanders the chance to have their say about what that would look like and that was done on the basis of a review that had at its core the values New Zealanders hold dear which are privacy security transparency and accountability.Hon Trevor Mallard: They’d all be in one bill.GRANT ROBERTSON: Exactly. They would be part of one single bill. So I cannot share Mr Mallard’s enthusiasm that he had for the potential division of this bill. I think I will have convinced Mr Mallard now that it is not possible. The Government side of this debate has not taken a single substantive call today. I predict it will not on this Supplementary Order Paper which is its own. I strongly believe that this Supplementary Order Paper should not pass because all it does is highlight the mistakes that the Government has made and the cover-ups that it has attempted through this GCSB process. I do not believe that this Supplementary Order Paper deserves the support of the Committee.