Shearer David: Intelligence and Security Committee — MembershipText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1718. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Underlying the issues that we are discussing today are the issues of basic rights and basic principles—that is New Zealanders’ right to live securely the right to life and the right to be able to prosper. Those are protected by our security services our police force and obviously our intelligence services as well. On the other side there is the balance that we also expect between those rights and our right to privacy and to have our human rights respected in terms of not being for example listened to and there is also our right to be able to confer with others and not have that interfered with secretly as well. That is the balance that we are trying to establish.We are living in challenging times at the moment. We have seen right across the world an increase in the amount of terrorism that is focused basically on innocent civilians for political and religious purposes mainly stemming out of the Middle East region. I do not want to talk those up too much. When you look at the threat that they pose versus what we faced in the 1960s and 1950s during the Cold War we are talking about very small numbers versus the possibility of human extinction. Nevertheless they are still conflicts that we are seeing that are impinging on our rights and our right to life.For those reasons we need to have good solid expertise within our intelligence services to ensure that we are well protected. At the same time we cannot just rely on our intelligence services to rectify the possible threats that are coming from within our society. It is also about reaching out to those very communities from which some of the threats might come and in my view we have not done that adequately enough. We have talked about in a sense the security which often tends to be the bottom-of-the-cliff response and not the other and we need to take much more care in dealing with the issues that underlie some of the grievances that might lead to terrorist activities occurring here in New Zealand.Two years ago the Labour Party announced that we should have a review of our intelligence services. That was largely ignored by the Government. It wanted to push through changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation. It was prepared to do that without cross-party support. It was going to do that with only the barest majority of one member of this House which it had and it went and did that. Now 2 years later I would say that those 2 years have been wasted because we could have had that review done and dusted. I remember talking to the Prime Minister and suggesting that the review be done over the course of the election so that whoever was in power after the election would actually be able to pick up that review and put its recommendations in place. That did not happen and now we are facing the situation where a long way further down the track we are looking at having a review of our intelligence services and I welcome that.I think there are a couple of other things that we insisted on as part of that review that I would hope that the Government would take up. One is that the terms of reference of that review be shared right across the entire House. We should all have confidence that that review is going to be a thorough and robust one and that we will have a say in the terms of reference. Second is that we should have a look at the people who are going to be conducting that review to ensure that they are of the highest calibre and again have the confidence not only of this House but of New Zealand as a greater whole. So my firm recommendation before these terms of reference are completed and handed to any of us as a fait accompli is that those two things are seen to.Last year we had a very interesting exercise with regard to the way that we dealt with some legislation designed to combat a terrorist threat. We went into a truncated select committee process which none of us were very happy about. But nevertheless we worked very hard and collegially in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to make sure that we had the best possible outcome from it that we could possibly achieve. We did do that. It was a robust process that was much too short and we have talked about that at length but we had a wide range of people coming into that select committee speaking openly in public. It was reported on by the media with the exception of some of the proceedings that we heard when we heard from the SIS and that was for very good reason.I think that this serves to act as a model for what we can expect in the future. Andrew Little talked about this in his speech. I believe that we should not send this review to the Intelligence and Security Committee; it actually should be sent to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee because I believe that it is open. Frankly it has got fewer logistical problems about hearing evidence due to the composition of that committee. It is composed right across the board of members from all major parties on that committee as well. So I would make a third suggestion in addition to my others that the terms of reference be consulted on the membership of that review again be consulted and that the review itself be heard in public in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and not in the Intelligence and Security Committee.There have been some changes made and some very good changes made to our intelligence services in terms of the oversight that we place on them. Certainly from what we understand—and having been a former member of that Intelligence and Security Committee—I can say that the operational procedures within the SIS and the GCSB have improved. We have made some changes in the judicial overview which is what I would call the second level of oversight with the appointment of Cheryl Gwyn to the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the power that she holds and that she is free to wield is important as well.The area where we are missing proper oversight is the area of our political oversight and that comes down to the actual composition and the functioning of the Intelligence and Security Committee itself. This review must take on this responsibly and look critically at the way that this committee functions. It is unlike any other committee. It is unlike any other committee in one important way and that is that the Minister in charge of the SIS and the GCSB is also the chair of the committee that looks into the oversight of those departments. That is a direct conflict of interest. There is no other place in Parliament where that occurs. If we compare the way that that occurs in New Zealand with the political composition of the committee in Australia we find that it is made up of non-Cabinet members. When we look at the composition of the committee in the United Kingdom it is also made up of non-Cabinet Ministers. These are people who are very respected and who have generally been in Government and have served their country but who are no longer Cabinet Ministers and therefore they no longer have the direct conflict of interest that our committee in New Zealand has. We have one of the most conflicted intelligence and security committees in the world.If you take a look at Norway as a more contrasting example it has no MPs on its intelligence and security committee and that committee provides the oversight.I believe that we need to step forward carefully when we go into this review to make sure that we have a review that is robust and upholds the confidence of New Zealand and I have made some suggestions about some of the practicalities on which that should be based. I also believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee itself needs to be reformed. That should be a major focus of the review coming up.