Finlayson Christopher: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Defamation Action Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Agreements for Policing Execution of Search Warrants and Collection and Retention of Information by the NZSISText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Defamation Action Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Agreements for Policing Execution of Search Warrants and Collection and Retention of Information by the NZSIS[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11076. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):I moveThat the House take note of the interim report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege concerning the agreements for policing execution of search warrants and collection and retention of information by the NZSIS.I emphasise that it is an interim report.As is well known the Speaker on behalf of all members of this House exercises control over the parliamentary precincts and the reason for that is to ensure that the House can properly function as a legislature on behalf of the people. Over the years various Speakers have signed up to three agreements. I will briefly refer to them but then focus in particular on one of them.The first was when former Speaker Jonathan Hunt signed an agreement with the Commissioner of Police on policing functions within the parliamentary precinct. That followed an examination of a draft agreement by the Privileges Committee and that agreement was revised and signed in 2007.The second one I wish to refer to is that in 2006 the then Speaker Margaret Wilson presented an agreement to the House. It was one that she had entered into with the Commissioner of Police setting out some interim procedures for the execution of search warrants on premises that were occupied by members of Parliament. That was very much an interim agreement. It could not be finally resolved until the prosecution of and all the appeals relating to Mr Field had been dealt with. A final order in relation to that former member was made on 3 September 2012 and it was that order that concluded those proceedings.The third agreement was that in 2010 the former Speaker Sir Lockwood Smith entered into a memorandum of understanding with the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Minister in charge of the service on the collection and retention of information on members of Parliament.Last year in September 2012 the Speaker referred those three agreements to the Privileges Committee and asked that it take a good look at them as they involved questions of privilege. This is an interim report because in the last couple of weeks some amendments to security legislation have been introduced and those matters are currently being considered by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.The critical issue that has arisen is in relation to the proposed amendments dealing with oversight capability of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The committee took a good look at those proposed amendments and thought there was an issue that arose about whether or not they provided clearly for oversight of the intelligence agencies in circumstances where a person such as the Speaker may wish to complain to the Inspector-General on behalf of members of Parliament—that is the House of Representatives; not a particular person within the House but on behalf of theHouse of Representatives—that it had been or may be affected adversely by the actions or procedures of the intelligence services.So it is a very limited inquiry unlike the previous report that we have been discussing this afternoon. It focuses on those amendments and suggests that the issue of oversight in relation to a person such as the Speaker in the circumstances I have outlined could in fact be looked at by the Intelligence and Security Committee to determine whether some tweaking of some of the clauses of that legislation is required. That is all this report deals with. The other substantive matters in relation to the three agreements that I have referred to will be the subject of a separate report to Parliament in due course.