Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGovernment 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:12585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment BillInstruction to CommitteeHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I moveThat it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it reconsider Part 1 of the bill for the purpose of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in the name of David Shearer set out on Supplementary Order Paper 331 . The Supplementary Order Paper will prevent access to the content of New Zealanders’ emails unless absolutely necessary under section 8A inserted by clause 6 of the bill. I think we could probably give a signal that this is a debatable motion. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just carry on.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I was just being kind to the staff. Otherwise they could be there for an hour or so.Mr SPEAKER: I will equally assist there. That is not the member’s job. Would the member continue with his contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you Mr Speaker. What this Supplementary Order Paper will do is it will prevent access to the content of the emails under section 8A of the bill unless absolutely necessary. Neither the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003 nor any of the amendments that are currently in the Prime Minister’s name offer such a protection. This Supplementary Order Paper would legislate to make Parliament’s intent clear and New Zealanders’ expectation that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. Point of order the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assume that we are entering into this debate on the basis of Standing Order 173 which does make it clear that someone can move that an instruction is given to the Committee of the whole House. What it also says is that any debate on the question for an instruction is restricted to the subject matter of the motion not in this case the Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Mallard is speaking on. It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill or any other matter to which the motion relates. That makes it very clear that Mr Mallard’s current content is well outside the Standing Orders. He shouldsimply be making a case for the House to consider his motion as it is written not the various reasons that might be behind his choosing to move this today.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order that is exactly what I was doing. What I was explaining to the House was what was in the Supplementary Order Paper. I was not debating the merits of it—I was not debating the merits. I was speaking exactly to the question that I had proposed to the House. Mr Speaker if you remember exactly what I said it was—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need to hear that. Can I say to the member that Mr Brownlee is right to point out that this is a very narrow debate. I will follow very closely the contribution from the member and will expect that he will be within the Standing Orders. I invite the member to continue.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I agree with you Mr Speaker that it is a relatively narrow motion it is a relatively narrow question and it is actually quite a narrow amendment. It is a very specific amendment. The reason that we need to deal with the question now rather than previously is that it has become clear from the statements of the Prime Minister including a very good article by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  where the Prime Minister’s lack of understanding on the bill and on this specific question became clear. What the Prime Minister has indicated since the last time the House was in Committee is that there was an arrangement whereby he would be trusted in order to—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This strays once again well outside what is permissible for a debate of this nature. I say again that the subject matter of the motion—the subject matter of the motion—is what this is all about. For Mr Mallard to start straying into what he believes is some particular revelation from aNew Zealand Heraldarticle etc. does not meet the test for the Standing Orders.Chris Hipkins: Mr Speaker I have had a chance after Mr Brownlee’s first intervention to look at the relevant Speakers’ rulings. I refer you particularly to page 81 and the first ruling on that page which makes it clear that “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So therefore it is perfectly in order for a member moving such a motion to outline the reasons why the Committee should have the power to consider that Supplementary Order Paper.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member to refer to that Speaker’s ruling again.Chris Hipkins: Speakers’ ruling 81/1. The procedural motion which is the second part of it states: “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So it is important therefore that the amendment needs to be able to explain why the Supplementary Order Paper should be debated.Mr SPEAKER: I think in fact the point raised now by Chris Hipkins has very much strengthened the point made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. The Hon Trevor Mallard must remain very tight in his debate and frankly tighter than he was before he resumed his chair.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am going to try to take the point that I had begun to make to the point where you and the rest of the House can understand its relevance. The situation has moved since the House last debated this issue. That is why I am suggesting it and why the Leader of the Opposition has a Supplementary Order Paper that involves reconsidering Part 1 of the bill for the purposes of considering the Supplementary Order Paper. I am explaining how the world has changed. The world has changed with two points. First of all the Prime Minister made it clear in theNew Zealand Heraldthat there was an element of “trust me” in this—Mr SPEAKER: Tighten the contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —and what the Opposition is saying is that given that that is the Prime Minister’s approach we will accept him at his word and we will reinforce that with the Supplementary Order Paper.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are straying into a justification for the Supplementary Order Paper. The question is simply: should the House recommit time or go back to consider a bill that was given a considerable amount of time last week because of some revelation that Mr Mallard and his colleagues seem to have woken up to—or more important have decided to make some interpretation of? It is absolutely essential that for matters like this where the House is extending the right under the Standing Orders to recommit the House to a particular course of action—to instruct the Committee of the whole House—we do stick tightly within the rules of debate. Mr Mallard is not doing that.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the Hon Trevor Mallard to now continue his contribution but he must tighten it up. Otherwise I will have no choice but to end the member’s contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: OK. The reason the House needs to reconsider Part 1 is that since it considered Part 1 new information has come to hand. That new information came to hand in two ways. One was a statement quoted by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  from the Prime Minister as to his understanding of the legislation. That was something that was different. It differed from what had been said previously about the legislation by the Government. The second was the indication that the Prime Minister has made that it is his opinion that a comment that he can make at the third reading will be something that is interpreted in the court over and above what is in the substance of the bill. That comment has also been made since the House was last debating this part in Committee.On the latter point I think I am probably one of the few members who has been cited in the court as a result of comments made in the House as to the interpretation of what was a bill at the time but which is an Act now. What the court made clear at that time was that the comments were useful in interpreting a particular section of that Act but what is also absolutely clear is that that section of the Act has to actually exist in order for the courts to interpret it. The proposal here as part of the reconsideration that is being suggested by the Labour Party—and which I understand is being supported by a number of other parties—is that because this new information is available what we should do is put in front of the House a question on which the House can decide and possibly I think even unanimously agree.I want to make it very clear that nothing I am saying now will indicate that the Labour Party will support the bill. Even if this amendment—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Just to make it clear this is a reconsideration of a particular matter to improve the bill to pick up the Government’s suggestion made since the House was last in Committee. We want to pick up the Government’s suggestion and get something—you know we are from the Opposition and we are here to help. What we are trying to do is get the bill into the form that the Prime Minister indicated over the weekend or certainly in the period since the Committee last sat was how he wanted the law to be in. So what this Supplementary Order Paper does and it is Supplementary Order Paper 305—Grant Robertson: It’s 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Grant Robertson: 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I apologise. In fact I am sure my colleague will move an amendment to my motion because somewhere between the morning and theafternoon the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of David Shearer changed its number from 305 to 331.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s called snapper.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re just calling it snapper now.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well really they are different sizes of snapper. I am sure Mr Brownlee does not think it is fair that commercial fishermen—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now we are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well if I am not allowed to respond to an interjection from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Oh—Mr SPEAKER: The member has responded adequately.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —that was an invitation from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has responded.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —to focus on the question of snapper.But the point I am making is the same point that the Prime Minister has alluded to since the House last sat. The question was whether Kiwis are worried about this and in particular about the very narrow narrow question about whether when their emails are picked up as a result of the cyber-surveillance—the cyber-space surveillance and that is the area that we are talking about—there should then be the right to open them. So there is a Supplementary Order Paper that sits in there. I will not go into the merits of it but what the Supplementary Order Paper does is make it clear that that is not a ground for opening those particular ones and that consent is necessary. I just again want to somewhat go back over the area that I have traversed and say that this is exactly the practice that over this last weekend the Prime Minister said that he wanted. The Prime Minister said that he wanted the legislation to be interpreted in a way so that New Zealanders’ consent would be obtained before their emails that were obtained as a result of the mega-data cyber-surveillance clauses in the bill could be looked at.Again it is relatively unusual for the Opposition to be tidying up after the Prime Minister. I think that we had some debate about whether we should just leave the question for the courts to interpret. As I indicated earlier—and I am absolutely certain that the Attorney-General will have advised the Prime Minister that it is better to have something in the particular Act that goes through rather than just a comment in his third—[Interruption ] Well this is exactly the point Mr Speaker. I know you are telling me to come narrow but I am being very very specific about the comments that were made over the weekend by the Prime Minister about this intention in this particular area to have this clause—this very clause—not written into the bill but written into his third reading speech.This is Parliament. This is the Parliament of New Zealand. We pass the laws. They are not dictated in a speech by the Prime Minister.Mr SPEAKER: Just in relation to that last comment by the Hon Trevor Mallard it was not that I was telling him to get narrower; it was just that the speech was becoming highly repetitive and I give that as a warning to all other people who are contributing.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):The reality of everything that Mr Mallard has said in support of his motion is that nothing has changed in the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill or otherwise from last week when the Committee of the whole House gave this particular part of the bill Part 1 a very considerable amount of attention. To make acase that effectively says “Over the weekend we woke up and had another good idea and therefore we want to delay the passage of this bill as long as possible by instructing the Committee to go back on to areas that it has previously covered.” is completely inappropriate.One of the things that I think stands out here is the claim by Mr Mallard that any comment made in a speech in Parliament has no relevance to any piece of law. He is not the only member who has found himself quoted at various times by judges who have considered how a piece of law is to be interpreted so that is a spurious argument that is being mounted in favour of reserving the Committee an additional amount of time for consideration of Part 1. I would also say that when the Committee does spend so much time on one part of one bill and when the speaking arrangements for that part are so heavily weighted toward those who are opposing the part it seems quite unreasonable that when the House has made a decision in favour of that part those who oppose it should come back in here and say “Look we want to have another go. We want to take some more time.”What this is all about essentially is trying to back up Mr Shearer who found himself last night in front of a crowd who for once was interested in what he might have to say and then overstepped the mark by indicating that he was going to take this matter back to Parliament. [Interruption ] Well using the provisions of Standing Order 173 to try to achieve a bit of face-saving for the Leader of the Opposition is not acceptable either. I do not believe that any case has been made at this point for the House to consider supporting the motion moved by the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’ve finished now.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I know.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): A point of order the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am just making it clear to the Leader of the House that I was being polite and waiting until he had finished. I just want to seek from you a ruling with regard to the numbering within the motion that I moved. I used a piece of paper that had been supplied to me which noted that the motion related to Supplementary Order Paper 305 when in fact it should have been Supplementary Order Paper 331. The question is whether under the typographical error clause you will just change what I moved or whether it is necessary for an amendment to correct that to be moved. It is a matter I have discussed with the Clerk but I think we had better get—Hon Gerry Brownlee: You’d need the leave of the House for that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am happy to seek the leave of the House if members opposite are willing to substitute Supplementary Order Paper 331 for Supplementary Order Paper 305.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say that it had been read into the minutes of the House but a typographic mistake does not make the instruction invalid. I call the honourable member Russel Norman.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):Thank you Mr Speaker—Grant Robertson: I don’t know about that Mr Speaker.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: Mr Robertson I hope will get his opportunity very shortly. This is an important motion and I speak to the motion. It is an important motion and I say this as someone who has sat through the whole of the Committee stage and all of the other stages of this bill and who has sat here as we have worked our way through the parts of the bill. Essentially what this motion does is empower theCommittee of the whole House to go backwards back to Part 1. I think it is actually essential that we do go back to Part 1.For those who do not know the structure of the bill Part 1 is the kind of substantive amendments to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) Part 2 is about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and Part 3 is about the amendments to the Intelligence and Security Committee. Parliament is currently on Part 3. The Committee of the whole House is currently dealing with Part 3 which is of course in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee. So it is very difficult when we are dealing with the Intelligence and Security Committee to move the kind of amendment that Mr Shearer has proposed because clearly—Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s why we had the debate last week.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: —that amendment needs to happen under Part 1. Mr Brownlee has said it should have been done last week under the Part 1 debate. I assume that is what the member is arguing. Am I correct?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Of course.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: That is right. He may well have a good point were it not for the Prime Minister’s intervention. The reason this is significant is that the Minister in charge of the bill the Prime Minister of New Zealand has made some very large and controversial statements and assertions around the meaning of the legislation. Mr Shearer’s amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 331 is to try to put into black and white law those kinds of assertions. So the reason we need to go backwards in time for the Committee of the whole House to be empowered to deal with Part 1 again is so that we can deal with the issue that was raised by the Prime Minister himself which Mr Shearer’s amendment tries to deal with.This debate is obviously very constrained to the procedural issues around the motion that is in front of us and I appreciate that but of course the reason we are having to go through this procedural process is that the content of the amendment itself on Supplementary Order Paper 331 cannot be considered under Part 3 of this bill. Simply if we tried to put this amendment which I think is a legitimate amendment into Part 3 it would clearly be in the wrong part of the bill. So it is I believe a perfectly reasonable procedural motion to say that we should go back to Part 1.This amendment by Mr Shearer is probably one that most members of the Committee I would hope could agree with. The Prime Minister has told us that the bill already means this so I cannot see what the possible problem is—well he has told us it does mean this and it does not mean this; he has told us both things. But anyway most members of the Committee surely can agree with the amendment that Mr Shearer is moving which is essentially to put into black and white law the Prime Minister’s interpretation of the legislation.There is an issue around interpretation and this relates to the Interpretation Act itself. The issue is whether the Minister’s speech in the third reading will carry as much weight in front of a court as black and white law—that is the question. We all know those of us who have read the Interpretation Act that black and white law always carries the day against a Minister’s speech. If the black and white law is clear—in this case in my opinion enabling access to the content of emails under the cyber-security function of the GCSB under this bill—as I believe it is then it does not really matter what the Minister says it means in his third reading speech. The judge will make his or her own mind up based on the black and white law.That is why it is important that we empower the Committee to go backwards to Part 1 in order to put into black and white law the interpretation that the Prime Minister has apparently taken to what this law means. I cannot see why anyone would have a problem with that given that it is the Government’s own position that the law alreadymeans this—well sometimes it says that it does not mean this but put that to one side—and why anyone would have a problem with us empowering the Committee to consider Mr Shearer’s amendment so that the black and white law can sync with the—Hon Dr Nick Smith: You had your chance. You missed it. You filibustered.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: I am not filibustering. This is a very simple procedural issue. It is great that the Hon Dr Nick Smith accuses us of filibustering because we are attempting to put into the legislation the very point that the Prime Minister says is what it means. What exactly is the problem here? Sorry I should not be responding to the provocative comments of Mr Smith over there.What we are trying to do is simply do a procedural motion that would enable the Committee of the whole House to put into black and white law the interpretation that the Prime Minister has introduced. Why time is very important in this—because it is all about time the order in which things happen—is that the Prime Minister made these statements after the debate on Part 1 had already happened. That is what is significant. If the Prime Minister had made this statement before Part 1 then the Government would I believe have a legitimate gripe with us as to why we did not move this amendment when we had the Part 1 debate. That would be a legitimate criticism. But the Prime Minister made these statements after we had completed the debate on Part 1 and we cannot move this amendment in the current part we are on which is Part 3. If the Prime Minister had made those comments before then I think Mr Brownlee would have a legitimate complaint.Hon Gerry Brownlee: This sounds so whiny Russel—so whiny.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: But Mr Brownlee I am afraid the Prime Minister made the comments after we had completed the Part 1 debate and that is why it is a very reasonable proposal that the Labour Party is putting for us here—to go back so that we can consider this clarification amendment—because it has to be included within Part 1. So that is why I think this is a reasonable motion and the Green Party will be supporting it.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I rise to speak in support of Mr Mallard’s motion. I am going to make three points around the three parts of the motion. The first part of the motion is the notion of an instruction to the Committee of the whole House the second part of the motion is around the question of that instruction being the reconsideration of Part 1 and then the third part of the motion is the specific amendment for which there would be a motion of reconsideration. To talk to the first of those three elements of Mr Mallard’s motion the instruction to the Committee of the whole House it is unusual for Parliament to issue an instruction to the Committee of the whole House. The Committee as most members will be aware and people watching may be aware operates quite independently from the operations of this House when we sit here with the Mace in place ready to do our work as a Parliament. We act as a Committee. In order for this Parliament acting as it is now with the Mace on the Table to issue an instruction as Mr Mallard is asking in his motion is unusual. That is because the business of the Committee of the whole House normally takes place in an orderly fashion and in such a way that it proceeds through and returns to us with a report back to this House on the activities of the Committee.The reason an unusual event like this instruction occurs is that often something occurs between when the Committee deals with something and then when the House next comes to deal with the matter. That is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today where it is necessary to undertake the unusual move of instructing the Committee because in the time since the Committee dealt with Part 1 the Prime Minister has made a very definitive statement about the meaning of a clause within Part 1—section 8A inserted by clause 6 within Part 1 of the bill.Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s right and he’s correct.GRANT ROBERTSON: He has made a very definitive statement. That definitive statement was not made before the Committee considered Part 1. So the unusual experience—and I can see it is disturbing for Mr Brownlee—of the House issuing an instruction to the Committee has to be justified. It is not something we would undertake lightly but we do so because there has been a significant development in the meaning and the interpretation of a clause within Part 1. Therefore Mr Mallard’s motion to move an instruction to the Committee is justified in this instance in my point of view.The question then in the instruction is should we reconsider Part 1. Just to recap—and it is important to do this—Part 1 of this bill is the substantive section of this bill. It is the part of the bill that amends the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. The other two parts of the bill actually amend other Acts so Part 1 is the substance of this bill. The section that is addressed within Supplementary Order Paper 305 is around the functions of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) so it is absolutely core to the purpose of this legislation to the whole legislation itself. This is not a trivial matter we are asking to be reconsidered by the Committee; it is the core of the functions of the GCSB. So when we are issuing here the idea to reconsider Part 1 the only way that we can provide clarity about an essential part of this bill is to go back and reconsider Part 1.We are unable now—as we are in the Committee of the whole House up to Part 3—to amend Part 1. There is only one option for this and that is to go back and reconsider Part 1. When we were considering Part 1 there was no definitive statement in the public arena of the fact that the content of New Zealanders’ communications including emails were not able to be looked at under section 8A inserted by clause 6. That statement was made by John Key to Audrey Young—Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s in the bill.GRANT ROBERTSON: Gerry Brownlee interjects and says that it is in the bill. It is not in the bill. That is the whole point of this exercise. It is not in section 8A. It does not make that clear. It is not in section 15A inserted by clause 14. It is not in section 15C. It is nowhere in those places. When John Key makes a definitive statement that New Zealanders’ communications—the content of them—cannot be accessed we on this side of the House say “All right. Put it in the law. Do not just say it to Audrey Young in an email; put it in the law. Make it clear.”Hon Anne Tolley: It is in the law.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not in the law Mrs Tolley.Hon Anne Tolley: It is in the law.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not in the law. What clause? What clause is it in Mrs Tolley? What clause? She cannot answer because it is not. That is why we have to ask the Committee of the whole House to reconsider Part 1 because the Prime Minister has moved from a situation when this Committee was originally debating Part 1 where there was no definitive statement about whether or not the content of New Zealanders’ communications including emails would be possible. He made those statements after the Committee went through Part 1 and then said it on television after Part 1 had been debated. He then repeated it. It was then printed in the newspaper on the basis of a written email—a communication from John Key to Audrey Young. That is new information about Part 1. That means that the Committee of the whole House has not been able to fully consider Part 1 when the Committee went past that last week. That is why our submission and Mr Mallard’s motion say that we should be reconsidering Part 1.It is not good lawmaking for this House to find out that there is something definitive about Part 1 that is not expressed in the law at this time. Mr Mallard and others havealready mentioned the fact that Mr Key has subsequently said that he will make statements in his third reading speech and that that will make sure that the interpretation of Part 1 is clear. That is not good lawmaking. It is a far better practice and a far clearer practice to write down in law what is meant. The Prime Minister could not have been more definitive over the weekend when he said the content of New Zealanders’ communications would not be accessed as a result of section 8A. He made that clear after the House had gone through Part 1 and we on this side of the House submit that that means we should be reconsidering Part 1 because we cannot do that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: 8CA covers it.GRANT ROBERTSON: Gerry Brownlee has found 8CA. I very very much doubt section 8C could have anything to do with this because that is not about cyber-security Mr Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not. Section 8C is about assisting other agencies. It is a different clause Mr Brownlee. Section 8C is a different clause. We are talking about section 8A. Mr Brownlee has no idea about the structure of this bill whatsoever—no idea. Section 8A is cyber-security section 8B is the foreign intelligence function and section 8C is assisting other agencies Mr Brownlee—Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it’s not.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes it is. That is what it is. Gerry is wrong once again.I come to the third point which is the specific amendment that is included in Mr Mallard’s motion. The need for the specific amendment is because the people of New Zealand have been told by John Key that we have to trust him in order for their communications including emails to be protected. Mr Mallard’s motion says that we need to consider the Supplementary Order Paper from David Shearer that says that just having someone like John Key say “Trust me.” is not good law. What we need in the law is a statement. David Shearer’s Supplementary Order Paper 331 begins with the words “For the avoidance of doubt …”. It is quite clear that there is considerable doubt. John Key claims that it is all fine—trust him the content of communications will not be looked at. The Law Society Geoffrey Palmer and all sorts of other people have come forward and said: “We are seriously concerned here about whether the content of New Zealanders’ communications including email can be accessed.”This Supplementary Order Paper 305 covered by Mr Mallard’s motion says that for the avoidance of doubt let us say once and for all that the content of New Zealanders’ communications is not covered under section 8A. That is a perfectly reasonable suggestion—to go back and do something that apparently the National Government already agrees with. Well for the avoidance of doubt let us put that into the law. Mr Mallard’s motion should be supported. The Committee should reconsider Part 1 because John Key cannot make up the law as he goes along.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First does support the motion. We think that there are good grounds for a reconsideration of Part 1 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I agree with the Hon Gerry Brownlee that there has in fact been a very long debate. But in fact there has been a very great amount to debate on this bill and I for one did not get a full opportunity certainly to discuss all of the matters that I would have wished to debate even during the debate that we have had. It did take quite a long period to get through it as far as it has gone. But there remain a lot of issues that are un-debated so I do not accept the argument to begin with that the fact that there has already been along debate necessarily means that all the issues that members wish to debate have in fact been debated. That is a very important consideration for us.But there are some good reasons as I have said for reconsidering Part 1. The most important one of these is uncertainty. We have heard the Prime Minister today answer some very good questions I felt about Part 1 of the bill and that resulted only I believe in even more confusion and even more uncertainty than before those questions were asked and answered. Having regard to what the Prime Minister said and then rereading the clauses that were referred to both by those who have been asking the questions—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know you are a stickler for parliamentary procedure particularly good behaviour from members. It is very good behaviour for members to stick to the Standing Orders and the member speaking is straying well wide of Standing Order 173(5): “It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill [itself]” which the member is now doing. It is simply confined to the subject matter of the motion—in other words the question of should we or should we not open up Parliament. It is deliberately restrictive—there is no question about that—because when these Standing Orders were written as you are probably well aware there was a desire to terminate some of these interminable debates that Parliament had seen before on these sorts of motions.DENIS O’ROURKE: Speaking to the point of order I made it very clear during what I was saying that the reason why we should be considering this motion is the uncertainty around Part 1 specifically relating to the answers and questions in the House today. It has got nothing to do with the substance of those things. It has got to do with whether there is a need for further debate because of the uncertainty that has been generated by what has been said by the Prime Minister today and also at other times. It has got to do with that not the substance of the sections themselves.Hon Trevor Mallard: You probably do not need a lot of assistance here because the width of this debate I think was pretty well established during the contribution of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. He—as I am sure you are aware—substantially broadened away from what would otherwise have been considered appropriate. As you are aware once a debate has been broadened then members are allowed to respond as long as they do not get further outside and as long as they stay within the then broadened debate. As I moved the debate I worked quite hard to stay narrow. That was undone in the contribution of Gerry Brownlee.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just remind members that this debate is a very narrow one and it is on the reasons why we need to go back. I want to refer members back to Speakers’ ruling 81/1 which states: “(1) This is a procedural motion … and it is a narrow debate. The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper. (2) Members cannot debate the content of the amendments; they are tabled for members to look at.” Just to remind members I say that it is a very narrow debate and it has to be on the reasons why we need to go back.DENIS O’ROURKE: That is exactly what I was saying. The reason for us having to go back is that what we have already debated has been called into question in terms of whether what the Prime Minister claims the bill says and what it does say are the same thing. That is the uncertainty that I refer to because the Prime Minister has said in the House today that the bill says certain things especially with regard to section 15B inserted by clause 14 and section 8A inserted by clause 6 concerning the purposes of the bill. That has introduced a high level of uncertainty I believe and any of the public watching this debate would not have had any confidence that the National Government actually does know what this bill says and yet it has accused the Opposition of notunderstanding the bill and I think the reverse is the case. That level of uncertainty means that this motion is what we should be passing today so that we can deal with exactly those issues.A second issue is this: there has been concern expressed in the public even by those who purport to support this bill about the process for the passing of this legislation if indeed it does pass. That would be allayed significantly if the Committee of the whole House were permitted to look again at Part 1 which is the substance of this motion and is the substance of the bill as a whole. I believe that the people of New Zealand want to hear this Parliament look again at Part 1 so that we can make good law that is certain and that the people of New Zealand at least understand whether they support it or not.Finally what harm would it do for the Committee of the whole House to take another hour or two to look at a piece of legislation that has gained significant notoriety out there in the public arena? We need to look at that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it hasn’t.DENIS O’ROURKE: The opposition says no. Rather the National opposition says no but everybody in this country does feel—Hon Anne Tolley: You’re the Opposition.DENIS O’ROURKE: I said “the National opposition” the National opposition to us—Hon Anne Tolley: No no. We’re the Government the National Government.DENIS O’ROURKE: The Minister is wasting time. The issue is that people in this country want to hear this debate held again because they do not understand this and we should look at it again for those reasons.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I moveThat the question be now put .The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is a very narrow debate but I will take one more.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):For a start can I deal with just a couple of points that have been raised by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. He said that because the Part 1 debate on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill was long we should not be able to recommit.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t say that.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well I heard you say that. I might have misunderstood what you said but I thought you were saying that because there had been a long Part 1 debate it should have been raised as part of that debate and we should not go back. I think that is wrong. There was a long Part 1 debate because this is a serious matter and there are lots of hooks in it.The second point I would make is about this reference we have had that since that debate has concluded the Prime Minister can somehow fix this legislation in the third reading debate. That is a misapprehension of the relevance given to third reading debates by the courts. The courts only ever have regard to third reading debates in the event of ambiguity. They do it to cure ambiguity; they do not do it to rewrite the law. In this case it is clear that there is not ambiguity but that the Prime Minister wants to read this law in a different way to that which it naturally reads.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!Hon DAVID PARKER: “Rubbish!” says Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t say that.Hon DAVID PARKER: You did. You said: “Rubbish!”.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t. If it had been me I would have said “Utter rubbish!”.Hon DAVID PARKER: OK “Utter rubbish!” from the Leader of the House.The problem arises from the fact that the definitions in respect of what the Government Communications Security Bureau can look at are so broad as to include the content of emails. That is the essential problem. It is not ambiguous. That is what the law says in this bill. The Prime Minister since we had the Part 1 debate in the Committee stage has said that he is not going to interpret it that way. When he is called to grant warrants he is going to—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I think I can—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well you probably can anticipate what I am going to say. The Hon David Parker is beginning to stray very very wide of the motion. You were good enough to allow him to make a contribution to outline why he thinks the Committee should put more time into a part that has been previously been decided upon but to start arguing the merits of the decision as he is now doing is not appropriate inside Standing Order 173(5).Chris Hipkins: Speaker’s ruling 21/2 stresses that it is the right of a member to raise a point of order but once a matter has been raised and has been ruled upon it is disorderly to continue to raise that matter. I have lost count how many times Mr Brownlee has raised the matter of relevance in this debate and each time the matter has been ruled upon therefore he must be getting into the area where he is becoming disorderly by continuing to interrupt members to question the relevance of it. The Chair is the judge of relevance. There can be no doubt that Mr Brownlee has a view of how the Chair should be interpreting the relevance of this debate but continuing to raise it with the Chair is disorderly.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just advise members that it is a narrow debate. I have been generous in my calling and I just caution members that we actually do need to debate this in the narrow way in which the Speakers’ rulings allow us to do so.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well the point as to process is driven from the fact that a third reading speech cannot fix legislation that is flawed. A third reading speech can be in very limited situations—Grant Robertson: That’s why we need this.Hon DAVID PARKER:That is why we need to recommit it.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s not.Hon DAVID PARKER: I am afraid it is Mr Brownlee. That is exactly the point. We have heard the Prime Minister say he is going to fix this in a third reading speech. A court can have regard to third reading speeches only in the case of ambiguity. We are saying it is not ambiguity; it is something that needs to be fixed in Part 1.In terms of the Leader of the House’s contribution that this was going to lead to a very long open-ended recommittal to Part 1 the motion itself says that the reconsideration of Part 1 is limited to the consideration of this one Supplementary Order Paper. It is not all Supplementary Order Papers. It is not the whole of Part 1. This motion if passed would allow the House to recommit to Committee stage “for the purposes of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in David Shearer’s name set out in Supplementary Order Paper 331”—I think it is meant to be read—“to prevent access to the content of New Zealanders’ emails unless absolutely necessary under section 8A.” So it is not an open-ended recommittal of Part 1; it is the committal of Part 1 for this very narrow consideration of this issue which since the Committee finished its consideration of Part 1 has been raised as an issue by the Prime Minister through the media.We are dealing with civil liberties. We are dealing with the power of the State to intervene in the private lives of New Zealanders. It seems to me that this is a very appropriate case—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Read the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: I have read the bill Mr Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Not well.Hon DAVID PARKER: I suggest I understand it at least as well as you—at least as well as Mr Brownlee. I am going to end my contribution there because the other points have been well made but this assertion by the Prime Minister that somehow a third reading speech can fix a flaw in the legislation is wrong.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country):I moveThat the question be now put .A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it reconsider Part 1 of the bill for the purpose of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in the name of David Shearer set out on Supplementary Order Paper 331.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.In CommitteeDebate resumed from 8 August.Part 3 Amendments to Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996(continued )Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I want to talk to Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Part 3 of the bill deals with the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. What this part of the bill should be about is providing proper scrutiny over an agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) which in this legislation is being given more power—considerably more power—and indeed power to actually intercept the emails of New Zealanders on cyber-security even though the Prime Minister denies that but will not let the House put explicit safeguards in place to ensure that that spying does not happen.Hon Anne Tolley: Just not telling the truth.Hon PHIL GOFF: The member has been challenged to nominate the clause in the bill that explicitly stops the Prime Minister allowing the GCSB to spy on the emails of New Zealanders in relation to cyber-security. It is not there. The Prime Minister knows it is not there and in fact the Prime Minister said to the papers on the weekend that he would say something in the third reading of the bill and that would fix it. He does not understand how this House works and neither does that member.Hon Anne Tolley: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are on Part 3 I think which is a very narrow part and has nothing whatsoever to do with the third reading.Hon PHIL GOFF: Speaking to the point of order the member has a cheek in raising that point of order because I was responding to the interjection where she sought to interrupt my speech which was on Part 3 of the bill and I paused for a moment to make a lie of what she was telling the Committee.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! You were going so well Mr Goff and then you used a word that we cannot use in this Chamber. When Ministers interject that invites further comment. But Part 3 is debate on clauses 37 to 40.Hon PHIL GOFF: As I was saying this is the part that should give real powers to the Intelligence and Security Committee to exercise oversight of the GCSB and the Minister responsible for the GCSB. What this part does not address is the fundamental conflict of interest that you have in having the Minister in charge of the GCSB not simply on the committee—that would be unusual in any other select committee—but actually chairing the committee. So the Minister who is supposed to be the subject of scrutiny in his oversight of the GCSB which has been very poor on his track record is actually chairing that committee and ensuring that that oversight does not take place.The Attorney-General had the effrontery in his speech on this part of the bill to say that the Intelligence and Security Committee was modelled on a select committee. It is nothing like a select committee and the Attorney-General understands that. The first thing a select committee would do when hearing a piece of legislation like this is it would call in the department that the legislation was about. Did the Intelligence and Security Committee call in the GCSB to question the GCSB about legislation that pertained to it and its activity? No. Why not? Because the Prime Minister is the Minister in charge of the GCSB and he forbade the committee to have the GCSB come in to say how its powers were proposed to be expanded under this legislation what its actual competence and effectiveness in exercising its current powers were and whether there was sufficient oversight over the select committee.I have been on this committee. This committee meets rarely—at best a couple of times a year. This committee when it meets meets briefly. The Prime Minister chairs it and shows his absolute boredom with the proceedings very obviously and sends through his body language a signal to the officials who are appearing before it that they had better not say anything about the committee. The officials get the clear message from the Minister that anything that they say that could lead to other questions by the Opposition would not be appreciated by their Minister. It is a total farce. It is a total facade to say as this part of the bill says that we will fix that by taking the Prime Minister out of the chair for part of the proceedings if it is about the financial review. Who is the Government going to replace him with? It is going to replace him with the Attorney-General or the Deputy Prime Minister. I have real confidence in the independence of those members to chair the committee in a way that gets the truth out and embarrasses the Prime Minister! Yeah right! It is a Tui billboard absolutely. That proposal is paper-thin. It has not even the pretence of producing oversight and accountability.If the committee was to work properly then maybe it should take its functions from the Regulations Review Committee. As you are aware Mr Chairman the Regulations Review Committee by tradition is chaired by a member of the Opposition. The member of the Opposition listens to the official advice and asks the hard questions. So why not have a member of the Opposition—in fact the Leader of the Opposition who is actually the Prime Minister in waiting—chair that committee? Then you might have some grounds for public confidence that oversight was taking place and that accountability was being enforced.You know I have looked at a range of other Western democracies around the world that have committees like the Intelligence and Security Committee. One point that both the Australian committee and the United Kingdom committee make absolutely clear in their rules is that no Minister should sit on the committee overviewing the intelligence agencies. What have we got from the National Government? We have got three Ministers on the committee. In the United Kingdom or Australia not one of those Ministers would be eligible to sit on it. If you look at the United States the President exercises executive authority over the National Security Agency. He is scrutinised by two committees—one in the House of Representatives one in the Senate—both separated constitutionally from the executive wing and often chaired by a member of a party that is not the party of the President. If you look at the Norwegian example it goes a step further. Its oversight committee actually does not even have members of Parliament on it.But the Attorney-General brings this fraudulent piece of legislation in Part 3 to the Committee and says: “Trust us we have strengthened the oversight.” He has done no such thing. He has done no such thing. New Zealanders—40 percent in the TV3 poll said they do not trust the GCSB and 89 percent said last night they do not support this legislation—will not be fooled for a moment by this legislation. This legislation does not give oversight. It is farcical in the pretence that it makes that it might do so.The fact is that both the Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Human Rights Commissioner have made it clear in their submissions to the committee that the oversight provided by the Government is inadequate. Both of those people are appointed by the Government and are appointed to protect the rights of New Zealanders and their reasonable expectation of privacy. Marie Shroff who is the Privacy Commissioner was Secretary of the Cabinet for 10 years. She understands about the workings of Government. She says we should not go ahead with this bill that it needs more work and that there is not much oversight. The Government has changed the membership of the Human Rights Commission completely to put its own people in. But even its own people say that these measures of oversight do not work that these measures of oversight are not sufficient and that the Government is giving enormous powers to the GCSB to intrude into the private lives of New Zealanders.We do not have accountability. The media cannot report because it does not have access to the information. There are not parliamentary processes. The Official Information Act does not effectively apply to what is happening in the GCSB. The Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission and the Law Society all say that we should go back to the drawing board. The protections are not sufficient. Yes we need a security—LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. This is an important part because it deals with the question of accountability and oversight of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Iwant to speak to my amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 313. I have moved this amendment in order basically to give the committee greater ability to inquire into these agencies. Currently the committee has a lot of constraints on it. If you think about a regular select committee if it is to be able to do its job it needs to be able to inquire into an agency to ensure that it is working.Currently under the Intelligence and Security Committee Act there are all these constraints—for example the functions of the committee do not include inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive. What this means is that basically the Minister can say that this is something that is operationally sensitive so you are not allowed to look at it. You might think that is OK and you would not want the secrets to come out. But if the Intelligence and Security Committee—operating essentially in secret because it meets in a closed session—cannot inquire into the operations of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the SIS then nobody else from the democratically elected Parliament outside of the Prime Minister can inquire into the operations.This is particularly important for the issue that was raised in Parliament today which was around whether the GCSB is in receipt of money from the United States Government. When I have asked written questions of the Minister responsible for the GCSB as to whether the GCSB has received money from the US Government and particularly the National Security Agency the Prime Minister has refused to answer those questions on the basis that these are operational matters and he does not comment on operational matters. We know from the United Kingdom that the equivalent of the GCSB the Government Communications Headquarters has received something in the order of £100 million from the US Government in order to do the work of the US spy agencies in Britain. We can only assume that the New Zealand spy agency the GCSB is also in receipt of money from the US Government. We cannot prove it. We do not have the evidence. We do not have Snowden’s leaks to show that it has been getting money from the US Government. But when we have asked questions about it the Prime Minister has blocked us on the basis that it is operationally sensitive.That is why my amendment on this part—which basically gives the Intelligence and Security Committee the ability to ask questions about things that might be operationally sensitive—is important. If we cannot even ask whether the GCSB has been getting money from the US Government—if that simple question is blocked by the Prime Minister on the basis that it is operationally sensitive—then we cannot ask some basic questions about the GCSB. If the GCSB is in receipt of many millions of dollars of US Government money—and we cannot prove whether it is or it is not but clearly the equivalent agency in the United Kingdom is so why would not the equivalent in New Zealand also be receiving US Government money?I mean there is a logic to this thing—that the National Security Agency is giving out large amounts of money to its Five Eyes partners. It has given a whole bunch of money to the UK. It makes sense that it has also given a whole bunch of money to the GCSB in New Zealand. And if we cannot ask those questions because they are blocked by the Prime Minister on the basis that they are operational matters then it becomes incredibly difficult for the Intelligence and Security Committee let alone Parliament as a whole to do its job of keeping the GCSB accountable. That is why I have moved an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 313 to basically give more power to the Intelligence and Security Committee to ask these questions.Obviously I cannot talk about what happens inside meetings of the Intelligence and Security Committee because under the statute under which it operates it is an offence to reveal anything that happens inside the meetings even though I have been on the committee for 5 years now. But essentially if you look at the statutes under which weoperate the GCSB can always block us asking questions on the basis of operational sensitivity. That is why it is very important that we remove this section from the Intelligence and Security Committee Act so that we can ask those questions.We cannot even get into the basic financial situation of the GCSB. You might think that the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot ask questions about whom the GCSB is bugging but surely the committee should be able to ask questions about the financial situation of the GCSB. But we cannot even ask questions about the financial situation of the GCSB—for example whether it is in receipt of large amounts of money from the US Government—because when we ask those questions as I did in my written questions to the Prime Minister he blocked the answers to those questions on the basis that they concerned an operational matter. It seems to me that the question of whether the GCSB is in receipt of large amounts of money is an issue of financial review as much as anything else. How are we meant to operate the powers of financial review over the GCSB and the SIS if we cannot even ask questions as to where their money is coming from—that is whether it is coming from offshore or whether it is coming from the New Zealand Government? We are not allowed to ask those questions.Under some of the improvements of oversight—and there have been some improvements some minor improvements and I have acknowledged those previously—one of those minor improvements is that the financial review sessions are meant to operate in public. This is an amendment that Peter Dunne managed to get up and it is a small improvement. But you realise how small the improvement is when in the financial review discussion of the GCSB which is meant to be happening in these public sessions we will not be allowed to ask—or at least we will not be able to have answered—some basic fundamental questions about where the money comes from even under the marginally expanded financial review powers that Mr Dunne has got put into this bill because we cannot ask the GCSB the question of where the money comes from and where its income comes from.You might think that it is just an act of generosity by the US Government that it gives the GCSB a whole bunch of money and it is an act of generosity that it has given £100 million to the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom. But if the GCSB is to be truly accountable to the New Zealand people this is in fact a critical issue. There is a saying is there not? He who pays the piper calls the tune. That is one of the sayings. When we—that is the taxpayers and people of New Zealand—are the ones who pay the money then it gives us some control over the purse strings of the GCSB because we are able to say “No we are not going to give you money for that.” if we do not like what “that” is or “We will give you money for ‘x’.” if we do like what “x” is.The problem is that if the US Government is a major funder of the GCSB—and based on the evidence from the United Kingdom and the Snowden papers it may well be true. Who knows? The Prime Minister will not answer questions on it. If the US Government is a significant funder of the GCSB then we lose that level of control over the GCSB’s functionality because if it wants to install a particular system that the New Zealand Government and taxpayers simply do not want to pay for then it can get funding from offshore to install those surveillance systems.I give you that on first hearing this may sound extraordinary. When I first heard that the National Security Agency had been funding the Government Communications Headquarters in the UK I could not believe it. It was only when it was confirmed by the papers that Edward Snowden released which obviously revealed the true extent of what is really going on with the surveillance state that we were able to establish that these large amounts of money were flowing from the National Security Agency in the United States into the other Five Eyes agencies and presumably into the GCSB. That is whythis amendment which might seem relatively small and perhaps not relevant to issues of financial review actually is entirely relevant to the financial review function. We cannot perform even the financial review function of the GCSB properly because the Prime Minister is using the defence of operational matters as a reason not to answer basic questions—for example the question of whether the GCSB is receiving money from offshore.There are a number of other issues that are related to this and I think Mr Goff has done a good job in covering those. They include the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee is dominated by Government Ministers when in other jurisdictions Government Ministers cannot be on such an oversight committee; the fact that the committee has limited powers of inquiry and this is a significant restriction; and of course the fact that in other jurisdictions members of Parliament are not on the committee which gives it much more independence. All of these things could have been dramatically improved in the way that we dealt with this had we gone through a proper process of holding an inquiry into these agencies so we could actually start from a sensible starting point of asking what kinds of agencies we want and what kind of oversight they should have. Then the law would follow from that including the oversight of the Intelligence and Security Committee which we are dealing with under this part. The law would flow from such an inquiry rather than our dealing with this bill in front of us which the Prime Minister and the Government are very keen to push through this Parliament.I would say to the National members of the Committee that you should support this amendment to the bill. It is a constructive amendment to the bill so that we can do proper financial reviews of the GCSB. Currently we cannot because the Prime Minister will not answer questions on them.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I moveThat the question be now put .Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):Thank you for this my first call on this third part of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Can I begin by referring to section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. This is the Act that is amended by clause 38 of the bill. The Prime Minister has been telling members of the New Zealand public that they should not be too concerned about changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation because the oversight powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee are being changed and expanded. I want to explain why that is in practice no solace at all. It is because this legislation does not change one iota the limits to the jurisdiction of the Intelligence and Security Committee.I am going to read from section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. It says: “The functions of the Committee are—(a) subject to subsection (2) to examine the policy administration and expenditure of each intelligence and security agency:”. So subject to subsection (2) the Intelligence and Security Committee can examine the policy and administration of the GCSB. But then you read subsection (2) and it specifically excludes from the functions of the committee the very thing that the Prime Minister suggests we should take solace from. Subsection (2) says: “The functions of the Committee do not include … (b) inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive …” then that is defined by saying that operationally sensitive includes “any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information;”. So there is absolutely no protection in the functions of the oversight committee—the Intelligence and Security Committee—into what the GCSB might be doing whether it is looking at just metadata or whether it is looking at the content of emails because the legislation of that—Hon Anne Tolley: It’s no different from the law that the Labour Government passed.Hon DAVID PARKER: What is that?Hon Anne Tolley: It’s no different from the law that the Labour Government passed.Hon DAVID PARKER: The difference is that we were not giving the GCSB the power to look at the content of New Zealanders’ emails.Hon Anne Tolley: Neither are we—not without a warrant.Hon DAVID PARKER: You are—you are—and the Prime Minister is now saying that he is going to read something into the third reading debate that is meant to somehow limit the effects of the earlier parts of the law which have already gone through the Committee stage. Then he says that we should take solace from the fact that the oversight committee’s powers are being extended. Well they are not being extended in any material way in respect of their oversight function of what the GCSB does operationally because subsection (2) of section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act says that the functions of the committee do not include “inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive including any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information;”.I want the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General to take a call and tell me whether I am wrong that somehow I have misread the Intelligence and Security Committee Act and that there is a real oversight function of that committee that extends into looking at intelligence collection or production methods that are being used by the GCSB because my reading of the subsection that I have just read out is that that is expressly put beyond the jurisdiction of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There is no way that the Prime Minister even if he wanted to could allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to have a look at whether the GCSB was going too far in its oversight of information systems going so far as to look at emails and whether it could look at them.This should be contrasted with the protections that we have where other arms of the State do this sort of thing. There are occasions when the police want to have a look at the content of emails. They get a warrant. They have to go to an independent judge.Hon Anne Tolley: As it does under this bill. They have to get a warrant.Hon DAVID PARKER: Under this bill whether a warrant is granted or not remains ever secret. Under the—JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): When I look around I see quite a few people calling and I am going to call—this is hard. Oh all right. I call the honourable member Jacinda Ardern.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):Thank you Mr Chair. That became quite the bidding war in the end. I just want to clarify that as we are debating Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill there seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding on the Government benches that this overall bill extends the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to essentially spy on New Zealanders and of course that then extends to the oversight provisions that sit in Part 3. But overall that is a fundamental change to the way that the GCSB operates in New Zealand and to have members on that side of the Chamber try to claim that that is not case seems absolutely absurd. This is an incredibly short part of this bill but it is an incredibly important part because New Zealanders are seeking reassurances around the oversight of the GCSB which will hold this grand extension of powers. Unfortunately these oversight provisions are grossly inadequate and if anything would add to the nervousness of New Zealanders. That was certainly the case I think at the public meeting last night where these provisions were discussed at some length.I think it is helpful if we perhaps delve into the differences that you might see in the way that the Intelligence and Security Committee operates versus the way that any other committee that exists within a parliamentary context operates and the transparency—or the lack of it—that applies across these committees because that is essentially what Part 3 deals to. Well firstly this provision sets out that the Prime Minister is able to relinquish the chairmanship of the committee when it discusses the performance of the agency. This is meant to be the first element that is meant to give us great comfort.When we are looking at the performance of the GCSB do not worry because the Prime Minister who is involved in the appointment process of the head of the GCSB and who is the Minister responsible for the GCSB will relinquish the seat. Let us be clear. It would be the same if for instance we were to have Paula Bennett sitting as the chair of the Social Services Committee when it was about to review the Ministry of Social Development. It is an absolutely shameful suggestion to imply that that somehow gives us any sense of comfort that it will be a transparent examination because it essentially examines the Minister’s own performance by the performance of their department.But do not worry the Prime Minister will relinquish the chairmanship and will hand the chair over to—whom? Well potentially the Attorney-General or the Deputy Prime Minister. To again extend the example to another committee it is the equivalent of having Paula Bennett say: “Don’t worry I won’t review my own department. I’ll get my associate to come in and review the department.” What comfort can we as New Zealanders take from that level of transparency? Absolutely none. That is why again I do not think that New Zealanders can take from that any sense of security that this grand sweeping broadening of provisions will have at the very least the oversight that they deserve. However it is our contention that they should not exist at all.But then what is the second provision that is meant to give us comfort? Well the committee will be required to table its reports in the House and make them publicly available. The problem is that you know only what you know when you are a member of a select committee. I am able to scrutinise the Ministry of Social Development only to the degree that I understand what is happening within the Ministry of Social Development. That requires me to be able to extract information primarily through written questions for example or perhaps through the financial review process or by asking the Minister questions directly. What we have seen through the example laid out by my colleague Russel Norman is that we have got a case of the Prime Minister simply refusing to answer those questions. He is simply refusing to say for instance a pretty key piece of information around the revenue source of and potential payments received from external sources by the GCSB. I would consider that to be much more fundamental than an operational issue. I would consider that to be fundamentally an issue of our national security and yet that is something that we will not get any transparency around. So how can we have any degree of confidence that an annual report would require that kind of information?A second point—and I would love to hear from the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General on this issue—is that as a member of Parliament I can ask a chief executive directly through an Official Information Act request for operational questions to be answered if the Minister refuses to answer them. As it is our expectation that we can seek that operational information—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No—Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This is a bill of fundamental constitutional importance. The Committee has only recently embarked on it. I do ask your consideration of this.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well the member is trifling with me so he ought to be brief.Hon David Cunliffe: Yes Mr Chairman. In no way would I trifle with the Chair or with you. To my understanding there have been only a limited number of speakers on this part—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well let me clarify that. Please sit down. Let me clarify that. Part 3 has four clauses. There have been 16 calls on this particular bill. I have been listening off air. There have been a number of closure motions. There is a degree of repetition. All of the measures that I say the Committee needs to determine whether it wants to continue or not have now been met. So I am putting the question.Hon David Cunliffe: A fresh point of order Mr Chairperson—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): A fresh point of order.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are accepting everything that you have said. I seek your guidance in the situation where members of Parliament have only recently had the opportunity to come to the Chamber and have not had the opportunity to make a contribution on this part or on the previous one. Although this part is a short part by the number of clauses it goes to the heart of the issue that is the most controversial in this bill which is the degree of the independence of the oversight and the scrutiny of functions which it is accepted are in many ways important but are highly controversial. So I would again submit being one of those members who has not had an opportunity to speak to this part of the bill—and I know there are other colleagues here around the Chamber who are finding themselves in the same situation because of other duties—that you would use your good judgment and your balance—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): And that I have done and I will now put the question.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 305 in the name of David Shearer to insert new clause 37A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 308 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to insert new clause 39AA and to add new clause 41 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.add to section 6(1) the following new paragraphs:(g)to examine the policy and the operation of each intelligence and security agency on the receipt ofintelligence from foreign security agencies in circumstances where it would be unlawful for the intelligence and security agency to gather such intelligence:(h)to inquire into the extent of surveillance by the intelligence and security agencies including whether mass surveillance has occurred:(i)to inquire into the operations of the intelligence and security agencies as much as is necessary to determine whether the intelligence and security agencies look into the content of emails:(j)to allow the Committee to look into operational matters as much as is necessary to discharge the functions of the Committee notwithstanding section 6(2).A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes50New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 313 in the name of Dr Russel Norman to clause 38 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 3 as amended be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Part 3 as amended agreed to.ScheduleThe question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 306 in the name of the Rt Hon John Key to the schedule be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 in the name of Dr Russel Norman to the schedule be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes50New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the schedule as amended be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Schedule as amended agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I rise to speak on the title and commencement clauses and in particular in the first of my contributions to these two clauses I want to speak to my typescript amendment to the commencement clause. For colleagues who have not had the opportunity to see it yet the amendment that I am proposing to clause 2 reads: “This Act comes into force on the day that is 12 months after the date on which it receives the Royal assent and only after a full independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agencies has been completed and recommendations from the inquiry have been considered by Parliament.”The reason I am proposing to move that amendment in the Committee is that the haste and the rush that the National Government has been in to push this legislation through means that New Zealanders who are rightly concerned about the law balancing security and privacy have not had the opportunity to have those issues fully explored. It is unreasonable and unacceptable of this Government to trample over the rights of New Zealanders in order to see created a law that covers the intelligence agencies that act on their behalf go through in this haste. New Zealanders want to see a law that reflects our values and New Zealanders value privacy. They also value security. And it is quiteclear from the views of New Zealanders right across this country that they do not believe that the law as it has currently been drafted by the National Government creates that balance.What it does is grossly expand the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) tinker about with the oversight mechanisms and create a situation where New Zealanders continue to lose trust and confidence in their intelligence agencies. So that is why my amendment to clause 2 would say let us take the 12 months to have the full and independent inquiry that so many people want before we allow this bill to come into force.It is not just the Labour Party it is not just the Green Party and it is not just New Zealand First or Mana or the parties in this Parliament that are asking for this review; in fact the Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission eminent theorists like Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Law Society are all asking that there be a review because people are uncertain about the effects of this bill. They are uncertain about whether or not there is a balance in this bill to protect both privacy and security.This is relevant in terms of the commencement clause because we all know that the world has changed since the 2003 legislation went through. There are different kinds of threats to New Zealand’s security. That is absolutely true. But equally people all over the world are making much greater use of technology to communicate. People all over the world do their daily business keep up with their families and do all of the things that we do to communicate with one another in cyberspace. Therefore on both sides of the coin we need to see a balance of security the protection of New Zealanders and the protection of New Zealanders’ privacy.We have not through the process that this Government has undertaken given sufficient time to consider how the world has changed. We have not given sufficient time to create a law for our intelligence agencies that reflects New Zealanders’ values that reflects our commitment to democracy that reflects our commitment to transparency and that says we will have intelligence agencies that New Zealanders can be proud of not some model from overseas and not some model that panders to the interests of other people. That is why we must delay the commencement of this bill. We must delay it until there has been a full independent inquiry and the recommendations of that inquiry have come back to Parliament.In the end National can pass this law by one single vote. Well what does that do to New Zealanders’ confidence in security and intelligence? What it says is that National will politicise these agencies. It is prepared to do a “willing buyer willing seller” deal with Peter Dunne to push through something as significant as the powers of our intelligence agencies. This bill cannot commence until we go beyond the partisan politics of John Key and Peter Dunne until we get to the point that we can actually say that New Zealanders have a reason to be confident about this legislation. They cannot be confident that a bill that passes with a vote of 61 to 60 and commences 1 month after the Royal assent will give New Zealanders the ability to restore their confidence in this law.The proposed commencement date in my amendment is not only 12 months after the bill receives the Royal assent but also after we have the inquiry and that inquiry’s recommendations have come back to Parliament. It is important to know that the language of my amendment is that the intelligence agencies are subject to that inquiry. The intelligence agencies are not just the GCSB; they are also the SIS. It is very important that the SIS is included before this legislation commences. The Government actually had a review of the SIS under way and recommendations to change the law were ready to go and they got pulled. The Prime Minister has never satisfactorily explained to this House why suddenly the SIS was off the table and we wereconsidering only the GCSB. So my amendment to clause 2 is not just about whether or not we can get the GCSB into a shape that New Zealanders can have confidence in but actually that we understand all of New Zealand’s intelligence agencies and how they interact together. That is why I have moved an amendment to the commencement clause in order to delay that commencement date for 12 months and only after that inquiry is completed. I believe that that represents the will of New Zealanders that they understand the need for these agencies but they want them to operate in a way that is transparent that is accountable and that reflects the values of New Zealanders. Those kinds of principles have been sorely missing from the way that John Key and National have gone about this change and the way that Peter Dunne has presented himself as a “willing buyer willing seller”.My other comments that I want to make in the last couple of minutes of this call are around the title of this bill. The innocuous-sounding “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill” sounds technical. It sounds like a title you would give to a bill that would breeze through this House and New Zealanders would barely notice. It is an inaccurate title because fundamentally the title of this bill should mention the expansion of powers of the GCSB because that is what lies at the heart of this and John Key has consistently misled New Zealanders about that. This bill includes whole new powers and functions for the GCSB. The bill expands the functions that already exist around assisting other agencies. It includes New Zealanders in what was once a foreign intelligence agency. It puts New Zealanders right in there. It puts the content of their communications right in there. So the title of this bill should make reference to the expansion of the GCSB’s powers. That would be an honest title for this bill.The other title that members of the Committee might like to consider is the “Damage to Democracy Bill” because the process that John Key has gone about of finding a “willing buyer willing seller” with Peter Dunne and of pushing this legislation through the Intelligence and Security Committee without even hearing from the GCSB or the SIS or the police or the Defence Force damages our democracy. The dismissive way that John Key treats anyone who is a critic of this bill damages democracy. He threatens the Human Rights Commission’s funding. He says the Law Society does not know what it is talking about. He said today that if there was a terrorist threat David Shearer would run for the hills. Well David Shearer rightly said that he is the one who knows about terrorist threats. When he faced one in Iraq he ran in to help the people. He did not run for the hills. It is John Key who is doing the running. It is John Key who is running from his press conference because he does not want to answer the questions. It is John Key who is avoiding the questions in this Chamber.This bill should be titled the “Damage to Democracy Bill” because John Key has done huge damage to the way New Zealanders view our intelligence and security agencies—right from the Kim Dotcom affair to appointing his mate Ian Fletcher to run the GCSB to running this bill through the House so quickly that New Zealanders do not understand or know what this bill really does. But they know they are worried about it because they know that it is about the expansion of powers. The title of this bill is wrong. This bill is not a technical amendment to the GCSB legislation; it is a massive expansion of the powers of the GCSB without New Zealanders being given a say. This bill should not pass. The title should be changed. The commencement date should also be changed.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn):I rise to take a short call in this title and commencement clause debate on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I accept that it will be the last opportunity I have to speak to this bill before the vote is put. To echo the words of ourdeputy leader who has just spoken this bill is a travesty in terms of its title. It is not a clarification; it is a gross extension of the range and powers of these agencies. To be clear the Labour Opposition has never stated that we believe this State should be without these capabilities. But we are extremely clear as were the 2000-plus people who crammed into the Auckland Town Hall last night to make their heartfelt opposition known that it is not sufficiently balanced by proper and adequate safeguards of civil liberties and personal privacy.Let me summarise why that is the case. There are no protections against the mass surveillance of metadata because they are not included within the definition of “personal communications” as set out in the bill. Rather they fall within the definition of information infrastructure in the cyber-security provisions that include “all transmissions” including anything that goes across any electronic or wireless network. That means that every email every text message every phone call and every website visit of every New Zealander is able to be surveilled firstly in terms of its metadata without a warrant and secondly to establish a basis—and it may already be the case—for full interception without those warranting provisions at least through the cyber-security clause.The Prime Minister said on television and has repeated in this Chamber that he would personally rather resign before that happened. Well why would he not write it into the bill? The fact remains that New Zealanders will never know because there is no adequate oversight on this bill. There is no adequate oversight through the Intelligence and Security Committee. At best it will get a compendium report at the end of the year which will not include the details of what has been intercepted; merely the number of cases. That is not good enough. If the Prime Minister wants New Zealanders to accept his word then he should put an amendment in his own name to this bill that gives effect to what he has said on nationwide television. At the very least he should stand and face a press conference without scuttling for the door when the heat gets turned up and not have the temerity to insult our leader and other members of this House as being cowards when it is that member who has not completed his own press conference.But that is small beer alongside the true nature of this bill. This bill opens a door that will be difficult ever to close. To think that it is being done by the merest wafer-thin margin of one vote bought and sold for 30 pieces of silver and an overseas posting I find absolutely reprehensible. It flies in the face of decades of bipartisan handling of intelligence and security matters. It is not good enough for New Zealanders. It is not good enough for our ancestors who fought for the freedoms that this House is blithely putting aside—the Government is blithely putting aside—at the behest of one vote between a willing seller and a willing buyer a buyer who was willing to trade New Zealanders’ privacy down the river but was not willing to come to this debate and was not willing even to answer the questions in a press conference. But he was willing to insult David Shearer and other members of our party.This is a sad day for the New Zealand Parliament. This is a sad day for our democracy. This is a day when the New Zealand Government can hang its head in shame. It will be a day that New Zealanders remember when they go to cast their ballots in what is left of our democracy in next year’s general election. There are issues that come and go but they will remember that their freedoms have been compromised unnecessarily by a Prime Minister who may be adept at sleight of hand but is clearly not deep in principle.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I rise to speak on the title clause of this bill the Government Communications and Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Before I start I would just like to acknowledge the death a week ago of Bob Leonard who was one of the founders of the Anti-Bases Campaign. He will bewell-known to many people for dressing up as Uncle Sam at many of the Waihopai protests. It was people like Bob Leonard who drew attention to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the role of the GCSB long before many in the mainstream had perhaps picked up and understood its full significance. I think he would have very much appreciated the fact that the GCSB is now front and centre of the national debate as indeed it should be.In this title clause debate I would just like to talk about some aspects of the bill that have not come up so much before and one of them is its impact on New Zealand’s information and communications technology sector which I think has not been properly covered. Ian Apperley has written an article in theNational Business Reviewin I think just the last couple of days. He is a cloud-computing expert and he has talked about the impact of both the GCSB bill and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill or the TICS bill—which is its partner bill if you like—on the New Zealand information and communications information sector. Why this is important is that the GCSB bill will affect not just the Government but will also have a big impact on particularly cloud computing.The reason why it has a big impact on cloud computing relates to the access it provides to Government agencies to intercept all of the data that companies and individuals might be putting up into the cloud. The Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill the parallel bill to this one requires that providers of such services as well as internet service providers install a back door into their services through which the Government can simply help itself to the information contained. What this means is that instead of the Government having to go through the front door and make requests present warrants and so forth the Government can simply stick its hand into the cloud or into the data that is stored and take it without having to go through the front door of the company. What this means is that the GCSB bill empowers the Government to acquire all this information and the telecommunications bill which runs parallel to it makes it technically possible and very simple for the Government to get the information. That bill is interesting as well because it can also gag the companies from telling anyone that the Government has installed a back door on their systems.What this sort of legislation means is that there is a flood of companies leaving the United States now. So with the PRISM system which has been established in the United States you have probably got—I mean the article in theNational Business Review said that 10 percent of all the contracts have been cancelled across the United States. Many tens of billions of dollars’ worth of business is now leaving the United States because the United States is no longer a secure environment in which to store data because of the PRISM system and because of the back doors that have been installed in all these data storage systems. This is a very significant development and what we have seen in Switzerland which bases itself on a secure data model is that it has had a doubling of its cloud-computing services and the money that is being spent in Switzerland on cloud computing as it has established itself as a secure location for information.This is a very significant development for the information and communications technology sector in New Zealand. What we do not realise is that this Government’s attempt to cripple the New Zealand information and communications technology sector will cost the sector somewhere in the order of $2 billion over 3 years in terms of lost business as estimated by the article in theNational Business Review . This is a sector that is growing rapidly and it should be part of New Zealand’s future. It is part of a smarter greener economy for New Zealand. It deals with some of the issues around the distance from our markets because of course information is gravity-free so it is a greatway for us to make money while being a long way from our markets. And of course we have access to renewable energy so there are some real advantages for New Zealand in the information and communications technology sector in terms of building a smarter greener economy.But the bill that the National Government is supporting will cripple the information and communications technology sector. That view is coming from the experts themselves in the cloud-computing area and in the New Zealand information and communications technology sector and that is why we have seen such strenuous opposition coming from many of the leading companies involved there. What this means is that the Government which prides itself on economic policy and tells us how great it is in that regard is in fact passing a piece of legislation that cripples one of New Zealand’s growing and quite important sectors and I think that that is a little-understood part of this whole debate.The other part that I think is important if we are debating the title which is supposed to include the words “Government Communications and Security Bureau” is the question of who on earth this agency really works for. There is this whole issue about the global framework within which the GCSB operates. The issue that I have been raising is around the issue of funding but it also relates to the issue of the “Five Eyes” network.So the GCSB is a member of the “Five Eyes” network which is essentially run by the United States but has a number of smaller of countries of Anglo origin involved in it—that is Canada New Zealand Australia and the UK. What has become clear during the revelations from the Snowdon leaks is that these five countries working together as part of “Five Eyes” have been spying on a lot of other countries which are now extremely upset with the “Five Eyes” network and are very unhappy—particularly the European Union countries—that the United States and the United Kingdom have been colluding to spy on all their internet traffic. That is why the issue of the US Government’s funding of the GCSB is critical to this whole debate and why it was such a scandal in the United Kingdom when it was revealed that the US Government the National Security Agency had provided about £100 million in funding to the equivalent of the GCSB in the United Kingdom—that is the GCHQ or the Government Communications Headquarters.If these agencies are working independently of the Governments that they are supposedly reporting to because they have independent sources of funding—because the US Government will fund them in order to do activities as we saw in the United Kingdom—then who on earth do they work for? Do they work for us? Is it really the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau or is it some part of the US Government? If it is taking large amounts of money from the US Government in order to do what the US Government wants it to do that gives it an element of independence from New Zealand citizens who are supposed to be controlling it via the elected Government. And of course if it has its own sources of income that gives it an independence from the New Zealand taxpayer who provides the money.The Prime Minister said that under various circumstances he would resign if it turned out that theGCSB was involved in mass surveillance and so forth. Well my challenge to him is this. Will he resign if it is discovered that the GCSB is in receipt of foreign money? That is my challenge to the Prime Minister. He has said: “Well this mass surveillance thing. That won’t happen and I will resign if anyone finds out that I have been engaging in mass surveillance.” But of course how would we find out? It all operates secretly. So he does have that very important caveat. But will he resign if it turns out to be the case that not only was the National Security Agency providing £100 million—which is hundreds of millions of New Zealand dollars—to the equivalentagency in the United Kingdom but it was also providing millions of dollars to the GCSB in New Zealand or some other such support? Will the Prime Minister resign? He refuses to answer the question as to the funding of the GCSB and whether it takes foreign Governments’ money.For which other Government organisation would we think it was acceptable for it to be working for another Government? In respect of which other Government organisation would we say: “OK that’s OK. You are funded by another Government a foreign Government and you are working for that other Government. That is acceptable modus operandi and you won’t even tell us how much money you are taking from the US Government.”? It seems to me that it is fundamental to our democratic structure and the accountabilities to this Parliament that the GCSB and the Minister responsible for it should be forced to tell us as New Zealand citizens whether the GCSB is in receipt of money from a foreign Government but the Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to answer the question.My suspicion is this: if he could deny it he would. If the Prime Minister could deny that the GCSB was in receipt of money from a foreign Government he would deny it because it is very damaging. But he refuses to deny that the GCSB has been in receipt of money from a foreign Government. That leads me to the conclusion that it is more than likely that the GCSB just like its equivalent in the United Kingdom has taken money from the US Government and hence it does not work just for us. In fact it also works for others and that is entirely the problem with the oversight function.When you have a rogue agency like this which is not only breaking the law repeatedly but also possibly or quite probably in receipt of money from the US Government it is very critical that we have proper oversight in place and we do not have that kind of oversight. It is for that reason that the Green Party has consistently supported the call for a proper inquiry and we will be supporting Grant Robertson’s amendment to the title clause so that there is a proper inquiry before this legislation ever comes into force. Thank you.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I want to support the amendment in the name of Labour’s deputy leader Grant Robertson that this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill should not commence should not come into effect until after there has been a full and independent public inquiry. The reasons for that I think are obvious even to the Government members who are supporting this legislation. First what we have had is a poor process and a rushed process that has given the New Zealand public no confidence that the case has been made out for the significant expansion of the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). We have a public that has no confidence that the oversight mechanisms proposed in this legislation are anywhere near adequate to protect the privacy of New Zealanders living in a democracy and to stop the unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of individuals by an agency that works in secret and is being given more extensive powers.There is another reason that there needs to be a full independent public inquiry into this legislation. The tradition in this House has always been that consensus is sought because of the importance of democracy and because of the fundamental powers that can be exercised in secret by the security agencies. Consensus has never been sought by the National Government. It is a fact that John Key said to David Shearer that he was not interested in Labour’s support because he could get support from Peter Dunne. This legislation will go through on the vote of one discredited and disgraced member who was sacked—Hon Trevor Mallard: Two of them.Hon PHIL GOFF: —I will come to the second one in a moment—because he leaked the report on the GCSB. It is going through on the vote of one discredited member who said “under no circumstances” would he support giving the GCSB the power to spy on New Zealanders. That is what the strength of support for this legislation is: a man who broke his word who broke his promise that he would not support it—a man who leaked the report and was sacked by the Prime Minister for doing it.We want to talk about the second member whom Mr Mallard mentioned. He is the man who was intimately involved with Kim Dotcom but could not remember the helicopter ride could not remember the XL-sized person whom he went to visit in the biggest house in the country and most of all could not remember the $50000 that he asked for in the form of two cheques of $25000 each. I say to you that what this legislation needs is the basis of consensus of support across the House and the National Government has not even made the effort to do that—has not even made the effort to do that. There will be no confidence among the New Zealand public in a piece of legislation that is rammed through this House on the vote of two people in whom the public has no confidence who are disgraced and discredited members.I want to say another thing about why we need the full and independent inquiry. We need it because not only does there need to be a consensus of support across this House for such legislation and the extensive powers that it confers but also there needs to be a basis of trust and confidence by the New Zealand public and the New Zealand public has no trust and confidence in our security agencies. That was proven in a poll that was done by TV3 that showed that 40 percent of New Zealanders did not trust the GCSB and in a more recent but perhaps less scientific poll that showed that 89 percent of New Zealanders—50000 of them who gave their name and address in their email—said that they were against this legislation. It was 89 percent. We do not have the basis in this House or in this country for this legislation to pass. It is a disgrace that the Government is ramming it through against the wishes of New Zealanders and without proper process.The Government would not even let the GCSB give evidence and be questioned by the Intelligence and Security Committee. What sort of legislation is it that we are passing where the agency that we are giving extensive power to is not allowed by the Prime Minister to appear before the select committee? How do we know how efficient and effective that agency is when it is not allowed by the Prime Minister to be subject to scrutiny? How do we know whether those powers are justified or not?The Prime Minister in his panic talked about the Boston bombings and al-Qaeda. The Prime Minister knows as I know and every member of this House knows that those terrorist agencies and individuals can right now be placed under the scrutiny of both the SIS and the GCSB. Those sorts of scare tactics do no credit to the Prime Minister. The legislation is in place. What we do not have is legislation that also gives the GCSB which shares its intelligence with overseas agencies the power to spy on New Zealanders.You have got to think about the origins of this legislation. We are discussing this legislation because the GCSB acted illegally in the first place. It subjected Kim Dotcom to scrutiny for which it had no legal authority. Then when the Kitteridge report was produced it showed that the GCSB had put another 85 New Zealanders under surveillance for which it had no legal authority. You would think that this legislation would have responded to those two incidents by strengthening the safeguards that New Zealanders have against the abuse of power. You would think that that would happen particularly when the National Security Agency in the United States has been found to have illegally subjected tens of thousands of Americans to surveillance and when theGovernment Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom has been found to have been spying on its friends not its enemies. You would think there would have been caution. You would think that the Government would have reached out to the Opposition and said that yes we need security agencies—and the Opposition agrees with that—but we need them to be subject to proper protections of the rights and privacy of New Zealanders. That is not in this legislation.This legislation is patently inadequate. That is not simply the view of this Labour Opposition; it is the view of the New Zealand Law Society. But what does the arrogance of the Prime Minister tell us? That the Law Society does not understand what is in the law. Some of the top Queen’s Counsel in this country have condemned this legislation but John Key—minus “QC” or any other law qualification—says that they do not know what they are talking about. Then the Human Rights Commission which was established by the Government to protect the rights of New Zealanders says that this legislation will not do it gives intrusive powers and it does not provide safeguards against abuse. What does our Prime Minister do? He threatens the funding of the agency for having the temerity to do the job that under statute it is required to do in this country.Then there is the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner a woman who was the Secretary of the Cabinet for over a decade says that this legislation is not ready is not adequate and needs to go back to the drawing board. The Government ignores that comment from a woman who understands very well what this legislation could and should but does not provide. It is abundantly clear to the country and to this Committee that this legislation is not appropriate will not survive in this form does not do the job expected of it and does not protect the essential rights of ordinary New Zealanders to be protected against the abuse of powers by agencies that act in secrecy and have no scrutiny over them.Then we have the other problem. I do not know how you deal with this problem in legislation. The Prime Minister has enormous power of oversight and control but he misuses that power. He appointed the Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau by an appointment process condemned by the State Services Commissioner. He said when it was finally extracted from him: “Oh yes I do know this person but not very well.” He has known him since they were both children at school. They had dinner together which he did not ever admit and now the Prime Minister wants us to believe that we should pass a piece of legislation that will say something not because it is written into that legislation but because he will give a speech in the third reading debate and say “This is what I intend.” We do not need legislation that is what the Prime Minister claims he intends. We need clear specific and good legislation that says what this House means and this legislation does not do what the Prime Minister says that it does. There is every reason why this legislation should be reconsidered.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):This Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill undermines trust in our parliamentary democracy. It reduces the power the ministerial accountability and the oversight from what it could be. The lack of consensus around the bill which my colleague Mr Goff has drawn attention to places public trust on the line and puts it in jeopardy. That is not acceptable.This bill fails some simple tests of some simple management principles. I think that it could be renamed or more accurately named the “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment (Failure to Apply Simple Management Principles) Bill”. This bill does not clarify sufficiently the lines of accountability. That is a simple management principle. When you have set yourobjectives—and we do not quite know whether those have been adequately set either—then you have some clear lines of accountability for delivering them you have transparency and you have sanctions and rewards. Those are four simple management principles: you have a clear goal you have lines of accountability you have transparency around reporting and you have sanctions and rewards. Those are simple management principles. This bill does not adequately address these principles. It does not provide for them.The way to get adequate provision for these simple principles would be to have a full and independent inquiry. We know that that has been ruled out by the Prime Minister. He does not want to see the 88 illegal spying incidents that the Kitteridge report gets into to be looked further into—the leaked report I might add. He does not want to answer more questions about the journalist’s emails that were released or were not released—we are not sure quite whether the email was recalled or who was looking at what and why. He does not want to get into the Henry inquiry. He does not want to front up on this issue any more because it has been an embarrassment from start to finish.Everything to do with the Government Communications Security Bureau has been an embarrassment from start to finish for a Prime Minister who does not have adequate oversight of his department. That is where these simple principles if they were outlined clearly would make it much clearer whether the Prime Minister was doing his job—were he to be doing his job. They would I have no doubt be the recommendations of a sensible independent report that looked at these agencies. These particular principles ought to be strengthened. We ought to have clear purposes and goals we ought to have lines of accountability we ought to have transparent reporting and we ought to have sanctions and rewards for a Minister as to whether they are doing their job correctly. That is the job of Parliament. But what we are increasingly seeing here is a Prime Minister who does not know—or does not want to know—what is going on under his watch. He cannot duck this ministerial responsibility and nor should we put through legislation that allows him to do that when we know that New Zealanders are losing their faith in this agency that he is responsible for.Instead we should have the opposite. That is why the call has been put out by the Labour Party for a full and independent inquiry—to restore trust in these agencies. The Labour Party believes that New Zealand needs adequate security arrangements. In fact it wants the best possible security arrangements with the best possible guarantees given to New Zealanders that the powers of our intelligence agencies are exercised and not misused and that the surveillance that is done is properly and appropriately targeted.New Zealanders as a whole accept the need for security agencies but they do not accept that they should be snooped on without due cause without warrant and without clear lines of accountability back to the Minister responsible for these. That Minister is John Key the one who was running for the hills when it came to press conferences yesterday—not running in to help but running for the hills. That is our Prime Minister running away from these responsibilities. The bill that is here in front of us enables the Prime Minister to run further so we repeat our call for a full inquiry into the intelligence services.This bill also snubs the experts and could also be titled more accurately I would suggest the “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment (Snubbing the Experts) Bill”. We know that the Human Rights Commission exercised its powers and took the unusual step of exercising a statutory power to issue a report directly to the Prime Minister because of the seriousness of the issues raised in this bill. John Key rubbished it tried to downplay it and threatened the commission’s funding but the report stated clearly “that a full and independent inquiryinto New Zealand’s intelligence services [should] be undertaken as soon as possible.” That is the first expert.The next expert the Privacy Commissioner suggested that because of the complex and dynamic environment this topic needs to be considered in further detail. The commissioner said: “The effects on individuals are potentially very significant and it is important to get the legislation right.” That comment by the Privacy Commissioner is backed up by New Zealanders. They believe that too. Likewise the Law Society—JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):I moveThat the question be now put .ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):The reality about the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is that its name is totally misleading because this is not some sort of benign and innocuous reconfirmation of an existing piece of legislation or for that matter an affirmation of an existing organisation in its current form. This legislation makes radical changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) as we presently know it and to the powers that it will be allowed to exercise. The name of this bill is very important. What we call it will be very important. And it is very important because of what we know. The way that this debate has been conducted—not so much in this House but in other forums around New Zealand—has been to mislead many New Zealanders about the reality of what is happening.The truth about it is that the way the bill is drafted gives extraordinary extensions to the powers of the GCSB not the least of which is its change in definition from “computer system” which is the language presently used and is the area in which the GCSB is statutorily mandated to operate to “information infrastructure”. The definition of “information infrastructure” is as wide as you could possibly imagine. It includes “electromagnetic emissions”. It includes “communication systems and networks”—entire networks. It includes what is described as “information technology systems and networks and any communications carried on contained in or relating to those emissions systems or networks”. There could not be a more comprehensive definition of the way that information and communications are carried and conveyed in New Zealand today. That sets the scope for what the GCSB is now going to be allowed to do.So to say or to give the impression in its title that this bill is simply about reaffirming or tidying up what the GCSB presently does is just totally misleading. On that basis the GCSB is given the power to intervene into intrude on and invade the privacy and the protections that every citizen would ordinarily expect and is entitled to expect when it comes to communicating and storing digitally information about themselves. That is one of the critical things about the way this debate has been conducted.It is not just peculiar to this legislation but certainly peculiar to this Government that basic citizens’ civil or human rights which we have enjoyed which are confirmed in legislation that we have and which are confirmed in international agreements are continually put up now as conditional on some other agenda or objective that this Government has. It is no longer enough to claim an inherent right to privacy. That is now dependent upon something else that this Government might put up like an economic or corporate condition that might be overlaid with it. This is the insidious thing about this piece of legislation.We are entitled to a basic right of privacy. We do have a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure which this bill compromises. We do have a right to freedom of expression. Those rights are not dependent upon anything else; they stand on their own. We are entitled to claim those and we are entitled to have those rights protected and this bill fails to do that. So the name of this bill and the impression that has been given from the outset and throughout has been misleading.The scope of this bill is now extended to intruding on New Zealand citizens. It was originally confined—and all the drafting of the present Act makes it very clear—to foreign intelligence and intelligence on foreign citizens. Now this bill makes the giant leap and gives the power and the scope to the GCSB to intrude upon the privacy and the protections of every New Zealand citizen.The safeguards that we would ordinarily expect in a piece of legislation like this are non-existent. There is an attempt at providing safeguards but the exclusions and the exceptions make them a nullity make them nugatory and proposed section 14 as set out in clause 12 is the classic. There is a loophole there in the protection against interception of New Zealand citizens’ communications and digital information and that is not good enough. It goes on to say that anything that is incidentally obtained by the GCSB is not to be considered as having been obtained unlawfully. [Bell rung ] That is the—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The member needs to seek a call if he wants another one.ANDREW LITTLE: Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have probably implied that it is Andrew Little so I will give him the call.ANDREW LITTLE: Thank you Mr Chair. I apologise. I was thrown by the bell and it was happenstance as we discovered earlier today. I say that without wanting to accord any undue levity to this piece of legislation because this is a grave matter and despite every effort by this Government to reduce its significance and to minimise it to the citizens of New Zealand the reality is that citizens have woken up to the insidious powers contained within this bill. One of those aspects is that it goes on to say that even though there is a defined scope of the information that the GCSB can secure and the level of interception that it can indulge in there is a proviso that says that anything obtained outside those powers is not to be regarded as having been obtained unlawfully. Well that is no protection at all. That is like all of the so-called safeguards in this legislation—that is there are exceptions to them that mean that they mean absolutely nothing at all. And that is what is so frightening to those who have looked closely at the legislation—those who do not sit inside this Chamber but those institutions and organisations on whom this House routinely relies to provide independent scrutiny of legislation and give advice to us.The Intelligence and Security Committee heard from submitters not the least of which was the New Zealand Law Society and let me be very clear about that. The original submission from the New Zealand Law Society was drafted by probably one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent human rights lawyers Dr Rodney Harrison QC—in fact not just one of but the pre-eminent New Zealand human rights lawyer.Hon Trevor Mallard: He got his Queen’s Counsel for good reason too; not because his mates gave it to him.ANDREW LITTLE: He got his Queen’s Counsel because he did what most Queen’s Counsel are required to do and that is to take difficult unpopular cases and argue them through the full hierarchy of the courts and he did very well. He was very clear about the extraordinary encroachment on citizens’ rights that this bill represents. Then when the Prime Minister introduced his Supplementary Order Paper 306 it was not Dr Rodney Harrison QC who commented on that but another Queen’s Counsel Austin Forbes QC a former president of the Law Society and a man of great eminence in the legal community and in the New Zealand community generally. He said that the Supplementary Order Paper that the Prime Minister put up provided no further safeguard than was there before and he reiterated and confirmed what the Law Society had said—that nothing less than a full inquiry into the need and the rationale for thechanges to this bill and an investigation into its impacts was required. That was a point taken separately and independently of the Law Society by the Human Rights Commission and by the Privacy Commissioner as well which are statutory bodies we look to in order for them to give us advice about the legislation that is passing through this House. It is wrong for their advice to be treated as dismissively and as derisively as it has been by this Prime Minister and this Government.This is a very sad day for New Zealand and this week will be a very sad week for this House as we pass this legislation in contempt of those with great authority and wisdom who are telling us it is not the right thing to do. No one is arguing against the need for good security agencies—well-supported and well-resourced security agencies—but when we take a step in this House and pass legislation that intrudes extraordinarily on the basic rights and protections that every citizen in this country is entitled to have and to have upheld by this House and the enforcement agencies of government then that is a step that we should take very very cautiously and very very carefully. We should take it with full knowledge and understanding of the impact that we are making. We do not have that luxury with this piece of legislation because it has been rushed through pushed through and bulldozed through by a Government that is no longer listening to the people of this country. People are concerned and they are right to be concerned because whichever way you read this legislation it is simply cause for great fright and fear.This legislation should not be named the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. It should be the “Unfettered State Security Agency Bill” or it might be called the “Government Communications Security Bureau (Extraordinary Powers) Bill” because that is what it is and that is why New Zealand citizens are concerned. Not a single member of the Government has stood to defend it today and that is even more outrageous in terms of this important and very sensitive piece of legislation. Every citizen is entitled to look to every member of the Government and ask: “How do you defend this bill?”.NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central):I moveThat the question be now put .KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Thank you very much Mr Chair for the chance to speak to the title and commencement clauses of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Just as my colleague Andrew Little finished off in his speech by giving an alternative title to this piece of legislation I would also like to offer up an alternative. I would like to scrub everything other than the word “Security” and have the words “Peter Dunne Retirement Plan Security Bill” because the only reason that this piece of very important legislation is going to pass through the House is Peter Dunne. He is someone who went to speak to the media and said “I will never ever fathom voting for a piece of legislation where New Zealanders are spied on by the GCSB.” and no more than a week later changes his mind. I hope that the good people of Ōhariu take a look at the performance of Mr Dunne in this respect because he was someone who entered that “willing buyer willing seller” scenario and has bought himself a situation where I think we can ably call this bill the “Peter Dunne Retirement Plan Security Bill”.This bill has been rushed and has been pushed and has been bulldozed through this House and will pass with a wafer-thin majority of one vote: 61 to 60. I do not think that most New Zealanders are very impressed at the way this Government has gone about trying to get this legislation through the House this very important legislation with such a wafer-thin majority given the major concerns that people have about it. We certainly saw that in the protests 2 or 3 weeks ago and in the public meeting that washeld in Auckland last night with a turnout of somewhere between 1500 and 2000 people.I want to talk about an amendment in the name of our deputy leader of the Labour Party Grant Robertson which is looking to amend clause 2 the commencement clause within this bill. For the benefit of those listening and watching at home—and I think seriously there will be a sizeable audience of people watching this debate—Hon Maurice Williamson: Don’t kid yourself.KRIS FAAFOI: —not for any contribution from Government members who are so proud of this piece of legislation that the best that we get from across the Chamber is a closure motion. They are so proud of this bill that all we get from that side of the Chamber is a closure motion—that is the sum of the contribution.Hon Maurice Williamson: The last three viewers turned off when this member started speaking.KRIS FAAFOI: Get up and take a call then Minister. Get up and take a call and just show us how proud you are of this legislation. You are quite happy to interject. I would quite happily see you get up and take a call. But I doubt that you will get up and speak to it because none of the others have gotten up and had the—Darien Fenton: Gumption.KRIS FAAFOI: —gumption to get up and take a call. Getting back to before I was interrupted by the member who will no doubt not take a call and who will stay silent in theHansard  Grant Robertson’s amendment does look for this legislation to come into force 12 months after the date of Royal assent and only after a full independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agency has been completed. This is something that Labour has found fundamental during this debate around this bill. Some people at home may say that this is just political and that the Labour Party wants to see an independent inquiry just for political reasons.But let us just have a look at who else wants an independent inquiry: the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission said in a report that it put forward off its own back: “a full and independent inquiry”—Hon Trevor Mallard: Is David Rutherford a National Party member?KRIS FAAFOI: I do not know the answer to that question Mr Mallard. The Human Rights Commission said: “a full and independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence services [needs to] be undertaken as soon as possible.” I also want to give some context to those comments because when David Rutherford made those comments off his own back he got attacked by the Prime Minister. The Human Rights Commission office got attacked by the Prime Minister not just because of what it said but the Prime Minister said that it should watch out for what it says because its funding may be at stake—it should watch out for what it says because its funding may be at stake.But the Human Rights Commission went on. It said: “What we cannot be certain of without an inquiry of this nature is that the correct balance is being struck between protecting national security and the personal security of New Zealanders and protecting the other human rights of people in New Zealand and what diversions from the correct path may have been taken or could be taken without adequate safeguards and oversight in place.” The Human Rights Commission has serious reservations—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s ridiculous—a total lack of democracy in Parliament. This is just outrageous. This is outrageous.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The Clerk will conduct a party vote.Hon Trevor Mallard: That is outrageous.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Does the member not want a party vote?Hon Trevor Mallard: Yes of course we want a party vote—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): We will now have a party vote.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I moveThat progress be reported in order to request from the Speaker a ruling as to whether seven calls on the first three clauses of this bill are sufficient for democracy in New Zealand.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): You are moving that the Speaker be recalled?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the Speaker be recalled. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption ] Is the member seeking a party vote? That is a departure from what normally happens. I have declared—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Before you do I raise a point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No no we are now—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Well that creature should apologise for what he said.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The Speaker shall be recalled.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Mr Speaker you have been recalled to pass judgment. I believe that the motion said it is on whether seven calls were sufficient on the first three clauses of this bill. Let me put that in context. We have been debating this issue for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. It is clauses 1 and 2 of the bill. There have been 15 calls 12 of them from members of the Opposition. Can I also say that from a Chair’s point of view there have been a number of calls before new information was brought in. I determined that it was time for the Committee to decide whether or not it wished to continue the debate so after three closure attempt calls I did accept the closure motion. Furthermore a party vote had been agreed and we were very close to calling the result of the party vote when the point of order was made and a motion was moved to recall you.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I think that a relatively accurate summary of the situation has been given by the Chairman. The debate had been going for about 1 hour rather than 1 hour and 10 minutes according to our record. Six Labour members and one Green member had had the opportunity to speak. There were a number of members who were going for the call. Mr Speaker I have asked for you to be recalled more in hope than expectation because this is a very important bill. It is one for which I think there is no doubt—there is unanimity in the Chamber—that at issue are the liberties of New Zealanders and that is a reason why this bill should be treatedin the Committee generously rather than in the tight manner that it has been. As part of this and probably in the House rather than in the Committee I want to apologise to the Chairman for the rather intemperate comments that I made to him during the party vote because they were not appropriate but they were a result of my surprise at the closure being called so quickly.My expectation for this sort of debate would be that it would go on for at least 50 percent longer and probably twice as long as it has given the importance of the bill. This is not a minor fisheries regulation fixing up - type bill. It is not a Statutes Amendment Bill. It is probably the most important bill affecting the liberties of New Zealanders that we will be dealing with in the term of this Parliament. Therefore to cut out members when I think at least six members were prepared and wanting the call appears to me not to have the fairness that we expect in a Chamber and in a democracy.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):We are dealing with clauses 1 and 2. I was sitting in the Minister’s chair throughout. The last contribution from the member for Mana focused mainly on why Government members were not taking a call. It was becoming very repetitious. As the Chair of the Committee said the question that the motion be agreed to had been voted on and just as he was about to begin voting on the substantive motion the point of order was raised but not before the member for Hutt South had screamed out hysterically that the Chair of the Committee was patently biased. That was a comment that at least he has had the decency—well it would be hard to say that he has had the decency because he has none but the semi-decency—to apologise for.Dr Russel Norman: Mr Speaker—[Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. Dr Russel Norman.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):From the Green Party’s point of view this is a very important bill and there has been only one Green speaker on the title clause although I do acknowledge that the Chair gave me two slots and I appreciate that. My colleague Mr Browning has been seeking the call for some time and as the third-largest party in Parliament we would expect to get more than one speaker on the title clause of such an important bill. So we were quite disturbed when the Chair accepted the closure motion.Mr SPEAKER: I thank all members for their contributions. I have been watching the debate from my office anyway. I certainly want to acknowledge the apology from Trevor Mallard for the way it was raised. I do appreciate that this has been a lively debate. It is one that people clearly have very deep feelings and beliefs on and that is fully accepted. However I want to refer to two Speakers’ rulings that might assist in making my decision: Speakers’ rulings 64(4) and 64(5). Speakers’ ruling 64(4) which has been reinforced a number of times by different Speakers clearly says that the Chairperson is in the best position to judge. He is the person who has listened to the debate. Speaker’s ruling 64(5) of course says that it is not for the Speaker to second-guess what might happen if the question is put. So I accept and thank members for their contributions. The question has been put. It is now for the Committee to determine whether it is accepted.In CommitteeDebate resumed.Clauses 1 and 2(continued )The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House is in Committee on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Can I respond to the member who apologised. I did not hear the member. Had I heard him Iwould have required him to apologise. I will just make it clear that there was a bit of noise. I think it probably best that we cast the votes again because I am not sure what stage we were at. So I will ask the—[Interruption ] Oh we have cast them all. They are all here. The Clerk has done a sterling job. In the closure motion the Ayes were 61 and the Noes were 60 so the motion is agreed to. I will now put the questions.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 1 agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): There is an amendment in the name of Grant Robertson a typescript amendment to clause 2. This is out of order on two conditions. Members might like to have a look at Speaker’s ruling 117(2). I think members might be aware of this Speaker’s ruling which requires that an amendment cannot be determined on an indeterminate event. Secondly it is against the will of the Committee expressed when the Committee voted on clause 25A which required the provision of an inquiry.Grant Robertson: A minor detail.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): A minor detail. So we will put the question on clause 2.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 2 agreed to.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):I moveThat the Committee divide the bill into the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Billpursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 307.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):The Labour Party is going to oppose this particular Supplementary Order Paper because it is our view that it will be appropriate to have such a confused such a badly drafted such an ill-advised bill in the most confusing form that it can be and that will be as a result of having a stand-alone piece of legislation rather than having this in the various bills as is the intention of the Prime Minister. The really important point with legislation is that it is well drafted that it is well understood and that people can easily go from part to part of it. It is really important that as legislation is drafted and as it is divided properly the particular sections have in them exactly what is meant to be there. To do that what is required is for a proper motion for the division.Grant Robertson: There isn’t one on the Table.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I just want to question the order of the debate that we are now having in that it is my understanding that in order for a Supplementary Order Paper to be debated there is a requirement for it to be on the Table of the House. It is my understanding that there is not one of these currently on the Table of the House.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member is correct. As we speak copies are being prepared. It is a debatable motion and I ask for a bit of forbearance while that actually happens.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am seeking a bit of advice on the matter. It is customary to have papers on the Table. It does not prevent the debate from occurring. The member may continue.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the issue now I think the last time that I can remember an issue being debated in Parliament without it being on the Table of the House was in the time of Muldoon. A tradition of the New Zealand Parliament is that if you are debating something you have the courtesy to tell the House what you are debating. Here we have the principal law officer of Parliament sitting in for the Prime Minister who does not have the fortitude to come to the House because the Government does not get itself properly prepared and have the requisite motions sitting here. It is a hopeless disorganised useless Parliament. And what is so silly is that anyone would think that a damn QC would be bright enough to get out a pen to write something down to send it out and get the 10 copies and put it on the Table of the House. But—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come to suspend the House in Committee for the dinner break. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House in Committee on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is resumed. The Committee is considering the motion of the Minister responsible for the GCSB to divide the bill set out on Supplementary Order Paper 307. For some members who may not have been part of this debate before let me just say this is the narrowest of all debates. It is whether the bill should be divided or not and the debate should relate and pertain to those matters. The Hon Trevor Mallard has the call. He has about 2½ minutes remaining.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you—I am on my first call Mr Chairman. I do want to compliment the Minister currently in the chair the Attorney-General for at last getting the Supplementary Order Paper that we are debating on to the Table. I see that the Attorney-General the one with the various jurisprudential fetishes is waving his finger around. Of course he knows what that means. He gets off on technicalities. In this particular case what we have is a motion to divide the bill and a Supplementary Order Paper to do that but unfortunately the ill-prepared ill-disciplined and generally useless Attorney-General who is sitting in for the Prime Minister on this particular occasion did not have the foresight to make sure that this was on the Table of the House at the appropriate time. It is a pretty basic job for the Minister who for the time being is in charge of the legislation in the House to ensure that this particular Supplementary Order Paper that we are debating is available. It was not available.The Minister got up and moved a vague motion—and in fact it is interesting now that you Mr Chairman have stated a motion that the Minister did not state when he actually moved it. So we are in an interesting position now but I accept that maybe you have in your very generous way done the work for the Attorney-General in getting himback into line when he was so far out as a result of his lack of preparation. I think that generally on this side of the House we will almost certainly vote for this Supplementary Order Paper when and if—tomorrow or the next day whenever—we get to the decision on it. But we do so only to have a very disorderly bill a little less disorderly than it would otherwise be and to make it slightly easier when—well I suppose it is mainly done online now—the poor people have to go around sticking the amendments into the various hard copies of the legislation and to make their job somewhat easier than it would otherwise be.I think it is fair to say that getting this bill divided in the way that is proposed will be useful. I think everyone should be aware of the fact that this will be legislation that is looked at much more—I was going to say much more than a fisheries amendment Act but of course with snapper that is probably not quite the case. These Acts will be looked at much more often than will be the case for the general run-of-the-mill legislation that this House considers from time to time.The proposition is from the Prime Minister and I will be interested to see whether the Prime Minister decides to take the chair for this particular debate. It would be precedent setting. He does not appear to want to take the chair for any part of the Committee stage of this bill. Of course being across the detail of legislation is something that he does not want to do. But Supplementary Order Paper 307 is in the name of the Prime Minister and what he is proposing to do is to drop out a number of words and to put in some new headings. What the headings effectively do is divide the bill into three. That is exactly what we are debating and whether in fact the title—I mean one of the questions I have is whether even at this late stage it is amendable. Well I am not sure.If one looks at the name of the legislation there is the title of the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act 2013. Like a number of people over the dinner break I have had a look at this area. I can see thatMcGeeis open not far to your left Mr Chairman. To be fair to Mr McGee he should be right in front of you. To suggest that Mr McGee is to your left or to your right would be something. Although I think the last time we had this approach it was from—just a slight diversion—the Rt Hon Sir Muldoon before he was knighted. He declined to appoint Mr McGee—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Come back to the debate.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —to the Clerk-Assistant position because he did not like Mr McGee’s rulings. But that is not to suggest that Mr McGee should be placed to your left; he should be front—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The debate—Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is right. The point that I am getting to is that not only shouldMcGeebe considered on this question but I am looking for and cannot see that you have referencedErskine May . If we are actually going to look carefully at the appropriateness of this particular Supplementary Order Paper—and what I have said is that the Opposition is ready to be convinced. If the Attorney-General or the Prime Minister if he decides to take the chair comes to the Chamber and makes an argument I am certainly prepared to vote for this Supplementary Order Paper.Darien Fenton: Eh?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: For the Supplementary Order Paper only—to divide it. I am prepared to be convinced. [Interruption ] No it is not a conscience vote but the question is whether this will make a disorderly bill slightly more orderly than it would be.Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s a harm reduction.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well you know I am not sure. The depth of the debate around it and the points that should be raised and should be looked at—later onin my next call and future calls we can go more deeply intoErskine May  although I think it is fair to say that the position in the British Parliament and the relation between the House and the Committee is somewhat different. Although the Attorney-General may think he is a lord I note some of the detailed discussions that are had in the British Parliament. Is the Attorney-General mute in the British Parliament? It would be a great thing. I know that the whips are mute. The whips are mute in the British Parliament.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):I moveThat the question be now put .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.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):I moveThat the question be now put .IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):We are debating Supplementary Order Paper 307. Interestingly the debate on the question of whether or not we should adopt the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 307 began before this Supplementary Order Paper was tabled so we started the debate before we even really knew what the question was. I think people who are watching the passage of this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill who are fearful for what this legislation does to the principles underpinning our democracy in New Zealand will question how it could possibly be that this Government would propose that we should debate something in Parliament when we have not even had the question put down on the Table before us. That is a fundamentally anti-democratic act the kind that people have come to expect from this Government.But I want people who are listening to this to understand that in all of these things it is always a question of whether it is a cock-up or a conspiracy. I think there is no doubt that this is a cock-up. The Government had only a week of adjournment to prepare this Supplementary Order Paper so it is understandable that it was not able to get it on the Table in time for the debate this evening. It is a 1½ page Supplementary Order Paper. Iam sure it took a considerable amount of work to add the words to the template which there will be for these types of Supplementary Order Papers because they occur so often. A whole week of adjournment on top of all the other time that we have been debating this legislation probably was too short a time for this dysfunctional and disorganised Government to prepare the words for this Supplementary Order Paper in time for us to begin debating them.As to the substance of the Supplementary Order Paper we have heard two different views from this side of the Chamber. One was from Trevor Mallard which was that this is a form—Hon Trevor Mallard: Open liberal and prepared to be convinced.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes I have always thought that Trevor Mallard is open liberal and prepared to be convinced. He takes the harm reduction approach and says that this is a Supplementary Order Paper that will make a bad bill slightly better because it will be slightly less incoherent than it currently is. On the other hand I heard a convincing argument I have to say from Grant Robertson that what we should do is vote against this bill. Trevor Mallard has also been convinced that we should vote against this bill.What we really ought to be doing the ideal is that we should not be debating the separation of this bill into three bills. We should actually be debating one of two singular pieces of legislation. The first that we could be debating is a piece of legislation that initiates an inquiry into our surveillance agencies. The Inquiries Bill I understand is now a matter of urgency for the Government even though it has been languishing on the Order Paper—Hon Trevor Mallard: Since 2008.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —since 2008. But post the Fonterra scandal it is now a matter of urgency for the Government. If the Inquiries Bill had been passed we would not need a separate piece of legislation to establish an inquiry into our surveillance agencies but it has not been so we are debating this. That would be the first piece of legislation we could—[Interruption ] There could be a royal commission. It is a matter of debate.Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s all nonsense.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Trevor Mallard says it is nonsense. I am sure he will get up and offer a different point of view.The other way we could go is to have a single piece of legislation that would be the result of that inquiry and that would be legislation that establishes our surveillance agencies and sets the parameters for our surveillance agencies in the 21st century. Let us face it: 1976 which was the last time our surveillance agencies were comprehensively reviewed from a first-principles basis was an awfully long time ago. It was an awfully long time ago. I was minus 2 when that was carried out.Hon Trevor Mallard: I was resident upstairs during the debate.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well you can tell us some more about that as well Mr Mallard. But anyway it was a long time ago and it is fair to say that the environment in which information can be gathered has changed a bit since 1976. So we should be debating a single piece of legislation that establishes the parameters for our surveillance agencies in the 21st century.The alternative way to go would be to split this piece of legislation—ad hoc inconsistent and ill-fit for purpose as it is—into the six or seven pieces of legislation that would accurately reflect the number of different agencies and the number of different Acts that it is amending. As it is what we have again—ALFRED NGARO (National):I moveThat the question be now put .STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):I rise to speak to the motion to divide the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge Bob Leonard of the Anti-Bases Campaign as well when I talk of this division. Bob passed away exactly a week ago. He was a founder of the Anti-Bases Campaign and fought vigorously against the Waihopai spy base—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! This has got nothing to do with Supplementary Order Paper 307. The member should be debating whether or not the bill is to be divided.STEFFAN BROWNING: In terms of the division I think that with respect we should be able to talk of someone who has been closely involved with this whole issue of the Government Communications Security Bureau and this division is just another aspect of it. I think it is very disrespectful to someone who passed away just a week ago—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! This speech is terminated.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Committee divide the bill into the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 307.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I moveThat the report be adopted.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the report be adopted.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Report adopted.