Brownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — Government Communications Security Bureau—Review of ComplianceText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — Government Communications Security Bureau—Review of Compliance[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9231. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): This is a serious issue but that was a very sad speech from Phil Goff. It was a sad speech on a number of points. Firstly a great deal of it was simply fanciful made up by Phil Goff to suit the mantra of the Labour Party. He is a man who was formerly the chairman of the Cabinet external relations and defence committee and who also sat on the Intelligence and Security Committee and therefore for a very long time presided over the illegal activities that have affected 88 New Zealanders since 2003. He comes into this House and starts pointing the finger at the current Prime Minister who has had the courage to say: “No more. We’re sending in someone to make an inquiry so we find out exactly where the weaknesses are so we can sort it out.”The Labour Party knows that this is a minor issue. It knows that it is a fine point of law that we are dealing with and if Labour was really serious then today it would not have had Grant Robertson request the special debate; it would have had its leader David Shearer request the special debate. Why did Labour not get David Shearer to lead the debate today? Well the problem is that the first speech is a 15-minute speech and Labour could not guarantee that by the time David Shearer got to the end of it he would remember what the debate was about. Phil Goff over there talks about forgetfulness and about omissions and all the rest of it. Well the biggest forgetful moment in this House—the greatest omission in this House—demonstrated this year is the secret bank account of David Shearer which he still will not tell New Zealanders about.What you have got is essentially a party trying to create a degree of outrage over what is a very fine point of confusion between the two spy agencies in New Zealand. The Security Intelligence Service can with a warrant spy on New Zealanders. It can intercept. It can surveil. What it has done for years for decades is in fact get hold of the Government Communications Security Bureau to do that listening capability. That is where the problem has come from because the Government Communications Security Bureau does not have the legal right to do that. That is what this report from Rebecca Kitteridge makes very clear and the Government response is that that will be cleared up.I want to turn also to a couple of points that Miss Kitteridge has put in her report that I think are particularly important. She says: “The time I have spent within GCSB has left me in no doubt that New Zealand needs this organisation now more than ever. The increasing threat of cyber attacks and the protective role GCSB plays is one part of this story but GCSB does a wide range of other things that are essential to the well-being and prosperity of New Zealand.” That is a very powerful statement from someone who went into the organisation wanting to know where the bad bits were and what the good bits were. When the report is boiled right down we get to that very fine legal point that can be fixed up.What we have heard from the Labour Party is it is throwing in all sorts of other red herrings particularly around the appointment of the new chief executive—the chief spy if you like—of New Zealand Mr Ian Fletcher. Can I say for a start that I was fascinated by the speech from Russel Norman where he decided—Chris Auchinvole: Ha!Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well it does not happen very often but it did on this occasion. He decided to quote from David Lange’s book where he said in that book effectively that when he was Prime Minister he had no idea what theGovernment Communications Security Bureau was up to that it would not tell him anything and that it just went about its business as if he did not exist. Well the odd thing is that he got to appoint the chief spy. So I want to know why he appointed someone who would not tell him what was going on. What that shows I think is a general omission that you get from the left of politics in New Zealand which wants to say that the rights of criminals are just as great as the rights of those who are offended against. I for one do not accept that.When it comes right down to it the appointment is made by the Prime Minister. I cannot for 1 minute believe that Helen Clark did not make a personal approach to Sir Bruce Ferguson. I believe that Mr Key has in identifying Mr Fletcher recognised that he needs someone from way outside the system not someone who is sort of in the club and part of the network but someone who is very very far and remote from it who has an excellent Public Service record in other jurisdictions and who can come in and clean up the outfit. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is an essential organisation for New Zealand and that it must continue to exist.I think the other things that have been mentioned this afternoon have all been designed to perhaps get the media excited about little bits of this and little bits of that losing sight of the big challenge that this organisation has. I turn again to Miss Kitteridge’s report at point 183 which says: “My belief in the importance of the work carried out by the men and women at GCSB has only increased as this review has proceeded. The world is becoming more complex and physical borders are less relevant. The nature of the threats to national security is shifting so rapidly that keeping up with them is a challenge—let alone getting ahead.”So let us be clear. We have the Security Intelligence Service surveilling some New Zealanders because presumably they were identified as being ratbags and up to things that were not good for this country were not good for our economy were not good for wider prosperity and were unreasonable for New Zealanders to have to put up with. To help it in that work the Security Intelligence Service effectively contracted the Government Communications Security Bureau to do the listening side of that surveillance.That was not legal. That is well accepted. That is noted. The Prime Minister knew formally of that on 19 March this year and I think has acted appropriately ever since. The outrage that you get from the other side of the House is somewhat laughable.Can I just point to the comments that came from the New Zealand First Party. There has never been a party in this Parliament that has been softer on crime than New Zealand First—utterly pathetic always on the side of the criminal always wanting to put forward the rights of the so-called oppressed in the justice system. The member who spoke Andrew Williams talked about the lack of memory that seems in his opinion to have characterised this whole saga. Well I have simply got to say one thing to him. Go back to the office Mr Williams. Go into Mr Peters’ office and say: “What was it that made you forget a $100000 donation to the New Zealand First Party and then go out publicly and say that you forgot about it?”. This is a serious issue of the pot calling the kettle black.No one’s history in this particular issue is good. Since 2003 when the Government Communications Security Bureau was finally put into a legislative framework there has been a series of illegal surveillances carried out. No one denies that but it is quite reasonable that there could have been a mistake or a misunderstanding between the two sides the two agencies of State in this particular case.In conclusion my point is simply this. The Labour Party has had an enormous amount of fun over the last few weeks trying to ramp this up into something that it is not. It is one of those things that has unfortunately happened but it has been exposed and made certain only by the fact that Rebecca Kitteridge was sent by the Prime Minister into the Government Communications Security Bureau to investigate what the situation was. There is a commitment from the Government and a commitment from the Prime Minister that he will talk to other parties. We know that the Labour Party will not support the legislation New Zealand First will not support the legislation and the Greens do not want anybody who does anything illegal to be confronted at all so they will not support the legislation but the sensible parties in this House will pass the legislation in order to make it clear that this sort of activity cannot continue in the future. I think this is all summed up by the fact that the leader of the Labour Party was himself not prepared to lead this debate this afternoon.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.