Delahunty Catherine: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12372. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):I am delighted to have this opportunity to take a call amongst many others. We have a lot to say. There is a lot to say about this bill the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I think the New Zealand First speaker Tracey Martin’s identifying the issue of trust is a very important part of the context. Part 1 is about whether we—and I mean the citizens of this country—trust the Government in the context of the debacles that are going on around here to actually write a law with sufficient justice and lack of bias that will actually protect the rights of citizens. When 40 percent of people say no even though supposedly they are too confused to understand it I think there is a message in there.The other message around Part 1 is that people like Dame Anne Salmond New Zealander of the Year have come out and said clearly that this—and if we look at Part 1 we can see why—is electronic McCarthyism. The younger generation does not really know what that means but we older people can remember it and the stories get passed on. Some of us are students of history and do not want to see it repeated just because we are in an age of cyber scrutiny and mass surveillance.So let us reflect on the fact that Dame Anne Salmond and 40 percent of New Zealanders do not support this and that the Law Society along with other people came before the Intelligence and Security Committee and clearly identified clause by clause issues in Part 1 that were problematic. Not all of them can be stupid—not all of these people who operate as watchdogs on us. We do not get it right all the time in this House even though many people other than me are fantastic lawyers. We are deeply political. This is deeply political and that is why we need the oversight of people like the New Zealander of the Year and people like the Law Society’s members. It is very disappointing to have those people treated as if they are idiots who are being confused and misled by what is a disingenuous piece of legislation.Clearly everyone agrees it was time for a change and Part 1 was supposed to be that change but this is not it. I reject the Hon Peter Dunne’s suggestion that so long as things are looked over and signed off by the SIS the Defence Force and the Police everything will be OK. My personal experience was that I was spied on by the SIS when I was 15 years old for being an education activist—scary terrifying a terrorist.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well you were terrifying. You terrified me!CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: It is true. I was at school with the Hon Trevor Mallard and I think I was terrifying at the time. However I have mellowed and he has changed. What I would like to say about the SIS is that basically if Part 1 relies on the Thomson and ThompsonTintin people in the SIS you are going to find a level of incompetence that is not to be relied upon for sign-off. The police as we know have not properly apologised as has the Government not properly apologised toTūhoe for what happened atRuātoki. This is the context of Part 1. It is a context of lack of trust. I think it is important to talk about that context in relation to the Supplementary Order Papers that Dr Norman has put up to try to improve this dog’s breakfast although in our hearts we know that this bill needs to finish it should be over. We need a complete review of the entire situation not a bad bill that will get looked at every 5 years which is what is suggested in Part 1.The Government is saying that there are sufficient safeguards in the key clauses. If you look at new sections 7 and 8 in clause 6 of the bill these have raised major concerns around the formation of the bureau the idea of cooperation with other agencies and the links with foreign agencies such as the “Five Eyes”. Why would we worry about that? Part 1 is supposedly addressing terrorism. I ask this Committee what is terrorism? I am terrified of drones that can be sent from the United States of America to kill off children in the Yemen Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is terror. There are many forms of terror in this world. If we are serious about stopping the fundamentalists on all sides of the political spectrum we are not going to increase mass surveillance of our citizenry—we are not going to do that. We are not going to turn people who simply want to exercise dissent into terrorists. I would argue that the history of spying in the world—and this Part 1 reinforces that by the breadth of the clauses—is always about spying on people who dissent from the Government of the day. That is why we cannot right this by ourselves. We need the Law Society we need Dame Anne Salmond and we need my hairdresser who told me today she was very unhappy with this bill. We need everybody to have a proper say.