Hughes Gareth: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9708. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak to and oppose the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill introduced by the so-called Minister for Communications and Information Technology but I think she is going to get a name for herself as the “Minister of Communication Interceptions”. This is a bad day for our democracy. It is a bad day. We are seeing this and its sibling legislation the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill introduced in this Chamber today under urgency with a constrained committee hearing period and with no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and no regulatory impact assessment—introduced under urgency. It is a bad day for our democracy because I do not think this is the standard Kiwis expect and demand from a Government that takes human rights civil liberties and security issues seriously. What we are seeing is bad legislation being introduced under urgency.I received this in my office today. It is dated yesterday. It is a letter from the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Amy Adams with the legislation. The day it is tabled in Parliament the Opposition gets to look at this legislation. That is not in the spirit of the cross-party approach that we have seen over decades when it comes to security and surveillance issues. I think it is a bad day and it reflects very poorly on the Government. I think the tone of this debate reflects very poorly on the Government benches who are not speaking for more than 1 minute except for a few bland comments. They should be able to stand up and defend this legislation in the House in front of these people and put their words down on the record of our country and inHansard. This is the party that boasted so boldly and loudly about the nanny State. This is the party that ridiculously talked about Fiji and North Korea when we talked about lower electricity prices and housing affordability.If we are going to have a conversation about Fiji and North Korea let us look at the legislation in front of this Parliament today and at what we are talking about. Let us remember what we did last session in Parliament: criminalising protest activity. If there are things that remind me of totalitarian Governments it is things like spying on its citizens it is things like retrospectively changing the laws when the Government has been found to have used its agents to act unlawfully and it is criminalising protest activity. I think it is a bad day for the Government when we are dealing with issues such as this. Government members call it necessary and transparent but there is no justification. There is no case that they can point to. There is no cross-party process that they have gone through to build support as would have been the case in the past. This is a large expansion of power. It deals with the interception capability of internet service providers and other network operators. It deals with a differential escalating role of monitoring and compliance regimes. It contains a penalties regime.I do not think the information and communications technology sector or the telecommunications sector will be welcoming this. I doubt they were consulted. We still have not got a mention from the Government benches as to whether they were or not. I think they will be concerned. I think they will be concerned because it is going to risk investment in this critical sector and I believe an important part of our economic prosperity going into the future. There are even risks around whether these companies can be sold in the future or not.Hey if we are going to have a conversation on nanny State let us just look at this bill in front of the House today. This bill contains an extremely wide definition of what security is and what can be surveilled as a consequence. It uses the term “economic well-being” a catch-all that could catch anyone from Greenpeace to a protestor with a banner to the Green and Labour parties when we talk about excessive super-profits in the electricity sector and trying to drive down power bills for Kiwis.I think crucially what Kiwis find so unfair and egregious about this bill is that what we have seen over the last 18 months is a monumental cock-up when it comes to Kim Dotcom—a monumental cock-up. What this Government has done is reward those spies for their unlawful activities. It is rewarding the spies for their bad behaviour. It is changing the rules to validate what they did. We may as well get Jetstar to write our customer service standards. We may as well get John Banks to run our electoral donation register if we are going to give the spies the laws they want when they act unlawfully. It is bad for our telecommunications and it is bad for our human rights. This is being passed through our Parliament in a poor shoddy process with no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet.There was a regulatory impact statement produced on 12 March I understand. That is not in front of this House. It is a terrible process—a shoddy process. It smacks of Muldoonism. I think the members should be ashamed that they are voting for it. I say that with all honesty and without a sense of rhetoric. This is a shameful day. We have seen a litany of terrible legislation under this Parliament but jeez this has got to take the cake. Laws to spy on Kiwis to validate unlawful spying on Kiwis under urgency—a bad day for this country and a bad day for the National Government.