Power Simon: Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Power Simon: Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12291] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 On behalf of the National Party I would like to commence the third reading of this bill by saying—as we have through all stages of the bill—that we support the Minister’s legislation. I am pleased to hear the Minister say that we had a robust and reasonably good debate on the issues contained in the bill. I think that is true. I am a bit disappointed that the Minister did not take a call during the Committee stage when members raised two or three issues of a technical nature in particular around the ministerial exemption. But putting that aside I think it has been a debate that has at the very least put on the record a range of concerns and views that various parties have had over the passage and the content of this bill. 
Just by way of recapping some of those issues in the third reading style I think it is worth saying that legislation like this is finely balanced. It is a fine balance for members to pass legislation that on the face of it appears to interfere with the privacy rights of individuals and their ability to communicate directly with each other via telecommunication devices such as landlines telephones email and the Internet. But that is not what this bill does because as the Minister rightly pointed out—and those are not words that fall easily from my mouth—this bill does not increase the powers of various surveillance agencies. It requires telecommunication providers to meet certain standards in respect of interception capability. 
A number of issues have been raised in the bill about the costs of those interception capabilities. Issues have been raised about whether the Minister should have powers to grant exemptions at various stages throughout that process. I refer to the comments made by my colleague and friend Mr Ron Mark who said: “Well Mr Power don’t worry there’s a panel of Ministers who have to be consulted.”—a panel of what the legislation describes as responsible Ministers who have to be chatted to when these decisions are made. 
 I say to Mr Mark that that does not satisfy me. If members look at who the responsible Ministers will be in light of the current Government they will see that the Minister in Charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service is one and the Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau is another. Presumably that is just the Prime Minister. Lastly and this is the really concerning bit I see that one of the responsible Ministers includes the Minister of Police. It gives me no confidence that the Minister in charge of this bill acting alone will be curtailed by that “panel of Ministers” as Mr Mark described it. 
There are some other matters contained in Part 3 that members did not debate at any length but are interesting issues that relate to the matter of costs and where those costs are picked up for those particular surveillance agencies and telecommunications companies. Clause 18(2) specifies that a surveillance agency must pay the costs referred to—that is the costs incurred by the network operator in conducting a surveillance—on “a date no less than 1 month” and I see that the select committee changed the period from 2 months to 1 month “after the date of the invoice or other appropriate document”. 
I am pleased to see the razor sharp minds of members on the Law and Order Committee picking up on that. Had that point slipped by the chairman and his diligent team network communication providers might have been out of pocket for 2 months. Lord knows it is unlikely that those companies would have been able to sustain that in their cash flows but I see that the costs are now required to be paid within 1 month. Well done to the select committee and its chairman for picking up on that point! It will be helpful to the telecommunications industry. 
More important though—and I think this is quite interesting because it is a Government-driven requirement that the standards of surveillance must be met—the select committee has deemed it appropriate to retain a clause in the bill that deals with the resolution of disputes over costs. I would have thought that that was slightly unusual. I would have thought that legislation that included such a clause was slightly unusual. Presumably the usual common-law remedies would be available to a telecommunications network company in the event that a surveillance agency did not meet its debts on time. However in this case we see that the select committee has deemed it appropriate to place in the legislation a particular provision relating to the resolution of disputes over costs. 
I guess the overall theme of the bill and what the House and the Committee of the whole House spent most of their energy on was whether the Government’s implementation of a bill such as the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill and the framework contained within it being that of national security was consistent with the assertions of the Prime Minister the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of Defence pre- and post-September 11 that New Zealand continues to live and operate an incredibly benign strategic environment. I know that many members in this House from the United Party New Zealand First the ACT party— and to be fair the Green Party—addressed this issue during their second-reading contributions. 
But the Government cannot at a policy level have it both ways. It cannot assert in face of the evidence of Baghdad Spain Jakarta Bali and New York that we live in an incredibly benign strategic environment. It cannot deploy troops to Afghanistan and Iraq and still tell New Zealanders that we live in an incredibly benign strategic environment and then tell them that it needs legislation to help it collect information for national security. It cannot cut both ways. If we do not live in a benign strategic environment—which is what the National Party has asserted from a position long before September 11—then legislation like this would have been necessary back then as well. 
When it is clear that we do not live in a benign strategic environment any longer it seems to me that the Government needs to take stock of the way it produces its foreign policy statements. The best manifestation of that assertion is the bill before the House itself. If we did live in an environment where terrorism was not a reality then presumably the fears that Mr Locke brought out about the provisions of this bill and its workings would not be valid and this bill would not be necessary. In fact this bill is very necessary. National has supported it from start to finish and will continue to do so through the third reading.