Volume 702 Week 4 - Tuesday 25 November 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 702 Week 4 - Tuesday 25 November 2014[Sitting date: 25 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:747. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 25 November 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Address in ReplyPresentation to Governor-GeneralMr SPEAKER: I have to announce that accompanied by members I attended upon His Excellency the Governor-General with the Address in Reply agreed to by the House in reply to the speech at the opening of this Parliament. His Excellency was pleased to make the following reply:MR SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:I receive with much pleasure the Address which has been adopted by the House of Representatives in reply to my speech at the Opening of the First Session of the Fifty-first Parliament of New Zealand. I thank you for your assurance that the matters referred to in my speech will receive your careful consideration.Jerry Mateparae Governor-General.Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Deputy Leader of the House):I move That the reply of His Excellency the Governor-General be entered in the Journals of the House.Motion agreed to.Questions to MinistersPrime Minister—Staff Members’ Release of SIS Information1.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.Dr Russel Norman: Why did he tell reporters that Cameron Slater’s decision to make an Official Information Act request for Phil Goff’s SIS briefing in 2011 was “nothing to do with my office”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because I believe that to be correct.Dr Russel Norman: In light of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security’s report that found that his office was deeply involved in encouraging Mr Slater to make that Official Information Act request does he now accept that his office was involved in assisting Mr Slater to make that Official Information Act request?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. In fact the report does not show that my office was deeply involved. There were a series of claims made and not a single one of them has stacked up. That is why Phil Goff had to leak the report yesterday because he knew it would not stand up on its own merits.Dr Russel Norman: Is the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security wrong when she wrote: “information which his deputy chief of staff received from the NZSIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office to assist Mr Slater in making the OIA request.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly the full statement actually from the inspector-general makes it quite clear that inasmuch as there were any discussions they did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed by the New Zealand SIS on the part of the Prime Minister’s office staff. It is quite contested about what discussions were held between Mr Ede and ultimately Mr Slater. But I make the point that there was a wide range of journalists who asked for exactly the same information. If the thing was germane to Mr Ede how come all of the other journalists asked for that information?Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just have a bit of assistance from members to my left with keeping the noise down so that I can hear the content of the answer.Dr Russel Norman: So to be clear is the Prime Minister saying that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security got it wrong when she wrote: “information which his deputy chief of staff received from the NZSIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office to assist Mr Slater in making the OIA request.”—was she wrong?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly I would say that it was contested. Secondly it is quite clear that what drove the Official Information Act request from a wide range of people—journalists and Mr Slater—was the public comments made by Mr Goff and the public comments made by me. If it was solely germane to information from Mr Ede how come every other journalist asked for the same information?Dr Russel Norman: So is the Prime Minister now saying that he disagrees with the findings of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that “information which his deputy chief of staff received from the NZSIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office to assist Mr Slater in making the OIA request.”? Is he saying he no longer accepts the inspector-general’s findings?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I did not say that. I am saying that I agree with the inspector-general when she said that I personally played no involvement other than a phone call on 22 July despite all the assertions made by the Opposition members. Secondly I agree with the inspector-general when she said that there was no breach of confidentiality owed to the NZSIS. I agree with the inspector-general when she said that there was misleading information given to me and on that basis I have accepted the apology from the SIS.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. I wish to hear it in silence.Dr Russel Norman: I have now used three supplementary questions trying to get an answer to this question and the Prime Minister has answered many other questions—which were interesting I give you that—but he has not answered whether he accepts this finding of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.Mr SPEAKER: Can I offer some assistance to the member. If he simply asks a concise question I can try to assist to get the answer. If the member looks at the last question he will see that he finished with a part of the question that was concise enough but he had led in with quite a lot of extraneous material at the start of his question. So to move this matter forward I am going to give the member an additional supplementary question. I hope he uses it well.Dr Russel Norman: Does he accept the findings of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that “information which his deputy chief of staff received from the NZSIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office to assist Mr Slater in making the OIA request.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I certainly accept there may well have been a discussion between Mr Ede and Cameron Slater on this matter. I also accept that it is quite contested and I also accept that it was not in breach of any obligations on them. Every single political party in this Parliament has staffers and politicians who talk to the media. Yesterday Phil Goff was talking to the media about the contents of this report despite the fact of there being an embargo.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!Dr Russel Norman: Does he now stand by his statement that “the OIA request was nothing to do with my office” given that he just said in that answer that he accepted that Jason Ede and Cameron Slater when Jason Ede was working in his office discussed this very matter?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Absolutely it was nothing to do with my office. If you look at paragraph 225 of the report it says—Hon Annette King: How can you say that?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Oh well you will not like to hear this because I know that it bursts your bubble but here we go. It said: “The inspector did not find any indication of collusion by or direction to the New Zealand SIS over the request.” The simple facts of life are that a wide range of people asked for information. The SIS made a decision how to process it. The SIS made the decision when it was released. It was nothing to do with my office and nothing to do with me. That is the problem is it not?Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have called Dr Russel Norman for a supplementary question.Dr Russel Norman: Given that in his earlier answers he conceded that Jason Ede and Cameron Slater did discuss this issue when did he become aware that Jason Ede and Cameron Slater were discussing the issue of the release of the Goff briefing?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The first I would have been aware of it was when there was an allegation made in the book and then ultimately as a result of this there has obviously been an inspector’s report. What I have been made aware of is that there was no breach of any confidentiality or any information that my office was not involved and that all the decisions were made by the SIS. I hate to tell the member that there is a good reason Phil Goff leaked it. It does not stack up today. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! And I say to the Prime Minister that when I am on my feet calling for order it is no excuse for the Prime Minister to interject.Dr Russel Norman: Will the Prime Minister stand aside from his job as Prime Minister while a full royal commission can look into the truth around the dirty politics that he has operated out of the office of the Prime Minister?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No but I will be interested in reading the police report of how Nicky Hager got stolen emails.Economic Growth—Reports and Forecasts2.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua)to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received confirming the economy is continuing to grow and that this growth is supporting more jobs and higher incomes?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):A number of reports show that New Zealand’s solid economic growth is supporting more jobs and higher incomes. Statistics New Zealand’s latest GDP data confirmed that the economy grew by 3.9 percent in the 12 months to June the highest growth rate in 10 years and a tribute to the extraordinary efforts of millions of New Zealanders in their homes and their workplaces. The latest household labour force survey confirmed that the unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent in September—the lowest rate since March 2009—and an extra 72000 jobs were created over the past year. In terms of higher incomes the benchmark used by successive Governments over the years for setting New Zealand superannuation—that is average hourly earnings—increased by 2.3 percent in the year compared with inflation of 1 percent. So there are more jobs and real increases in incomes.Andrew Bayly: What other economic indicators show that the growing economy is helping New Zealand families and households to get ahead under their own steam?Hon BILL ENGLISH: At any given time there are economic indicators that illustrate the challenges for New Zealand—say for instance falling dairy prices—and there are others that are positive for families and households. Low global inflation a strong Kiwi dollar and more jobs mean that we are not seeing the kinds of inflation increases that usually come with this kind of economic growth. So New Zealanders have slightly more spending power as on average their incomes are rising a bit faster than the cost of living.Andrew Bayly: What global and domestic risks does the Minister see for the New Zealand economy over the next 1 or 2 years?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have some confidence that New Zealand will perform solidly over the next few years and deliver moderate increases in incomes for New Zealand households but it is clear that there are some global risks. For instance Europe and Japan appear to be headed for recession. There is some uncertainty about the Chinese and Australian economies and some of those changes are having an impact on New Zealand. We have seen falls in global commodity prices such as forestry and dairy which can have a negative impact on the economy. We have also seen falls in the price of oil which will have a positive impact particularly for households at the petrol pump. However we believe that the New Zealand economy is sufficiently resilient to handle these global challenges.Andrew Bayly: What are the implications for Government revenue of the lower growth in the nominal or dollar value of New Zealand’s economic output?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The lower nominal growth that comes from particularly in this current year a drop in our terms of trade will affect farm and company incomes and also some wages. We expect that this is likely to flow through to the Government’s books in smaller than forecast increases in revenue. This reinforces the need for the Government to continue to control its spending and to focus on returning to surplus next year. We are also focused on reducing net debt to below 20 percent of GDP by 2020. Treasury will include its best assessment of these circumstances in the half-year update next month. This is an unusual combination of economic circumstances but we believe that the strength of the economy and constrained Government spending can deliver a surplus when the final accounts are published around this time next year.Prime Minister—Staff Members’ Release of SIS Information3.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement regarding the release of NZSIS documents to Cameron Slater that “The basic claim that somehow my office was either pressuring the system speeding up the process injecting itself in the process all of that is flatly incorrect the inspector when she goes and does her work and looks at it will I’m totally confident demonstrate that”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Firstly let me start by congratulating the Leader of the Opposition. Secondly the answer to that question is yes and I quote directly from the report where it says: “The decision to release redacted copies of the meeting documents the timing of the release and the decision to release information solely to Mr Slater were all made by NZSIS.” without my office’s involvement.Andrew Little: How does he reconcile that answer with the passage in paragraph 213 of the inspector-general’s report which states: “I did however find that Mr Ede had provided the details of the relevant documents to Mr Slater and was in fact speaking to Mr Slater by phone at the exact time that Mr Slater submitted his OIA request.” showing his office was instrumental in the politicisation of information from the New Zealand SIS?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well far from it. There is obviously no doubt that Mr Ede had a discussion with Mr Slater but as I said the fact that there was an Official Information Act request was not unique to Cameron Slater. It was put in by a wide range of other media outlets. The problem was that they asked them as media queries and not as Official Information Act requests and therefore the New Zealand SIS treated them in a different way. That information was all in the public domain because of the stupid comments made by a number of people.Andrew Little: Does he now accept in light of the first answer he has given to my question that denying that his office “injected itself in the process” is now demonstrably incorrect?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No—quite the contrary. If the member reads the report and looks at paragraph 225 he will see that it quite clearly says that the inspector-general did not find any indication of collusion or direction to the New Zealand SIS over the request. Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition this report does not stack up and that is why his so-called mate leaked the report—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That is not going to help the order of this House. [Interruption] Order! The number of interjections coming from this side of the House particularly from one very very senior Minister is unacceptable.Andrew Little: When he made a political staffer the main point of contact for the SIS in his office and assigned a subordinate staffer to work with bloggers what measures if any did he take to stop security agency information from being used for political purposes?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well firstly they were not used for political purposes. That is actually quite clear. That is quite clear and that is actually what the report finds. You see that is the problem. That is why your mate Phil had to—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Phil Goff: Is that an appropriate form of address for another member?Mr SPEAKER: Order! No it is—[Interruption] Order! It is not appropriate for that address coming from the Prime Minister and I do not want his answers to continue concluding with those sorts of remarks directed at the Hon Phil Goff.Andrew Little: Given his personal apology to Cameron Slater for breaching his privacy will he now apologise to Phil Goff for the partisan political attack launched by his office and his department via the Whale Oil blog; if not why not?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The really interesting question here is whether Mr Goff owes me an apology. He made a series of statements prior to the election all of which were demonstrably wrong and they do not stack up in the report. And Phil Goff is laughing. He is laughing because (a) he is embarrassed and (b) he knocked you Mr Leader of the Opposition off the news. On the day you were releasing your line-up—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not going to help.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a point of order from the Rt Hon Winston Peters. [Interruption] Order! Before the member starts he will resume his seat. I have a point of order from the Rt Hon Winston Peters and I will hear it in silence. If there is an interjection from any member that member will be leaving the Chamber.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker you told the Prime Minister that you did not want to hear him concluding his answers like that and you referred to what he was doing that offended the House or you. He went on to the next answer and did the same thing again. What strictures are you going to apply against him?Mr SPEAKER: Order! No the latter part of the Prime Minister’s answer was not the same as the tone of his earlier address whereby there was an absolute accusation that a particular member had leaked a report. That was the part that I was finding unsatisfactory because there is no proof of that. That was not then mentioned by the Prime Minister in the last answer. [Interruption] Order! Having told the House that I do not want interjections during a point of order I do not expect an interjection from a senior member Winston Peters after I have made a ruling—otherwise I could deliver the same treatment.Andrew Little: When will he apologise to New Zealanders for the political smear machine run out of his office and for the partisan use of security agencies?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would happily apologise if that is what this report from the inspector-general demanded. It does not. What is true—what is absolutely true—is that advisers and politicians talk to the media. If it was solely on this side of the House fair enough. But yesterday on the basis of a report arguing about leaking information Phil Goff leaked information—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat.Andrew Little: When will the Prime Minister commit to all New Zealanders to lift his Government out of the sleaze and the sludge and stop the abuse of State power for political ends?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am very proud of the way this Government operates and I am very very confident that the discussions and briefings that political staffers and politicians have on this side of the House are absolutely consistent with the other side of the House. And by the way if they are different here is an interesting point. When I became Prime Minister members of the press gallery asked me whether I would be keeping up with the same level of “briefings” they got from Helen Clark.Free-trade Agreements—New Zealand - South Korea4.MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney)to the Minister of Trade: What progress has been made on negotiations towards a free-trade agreement with South Korea?Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade):Excellent progress and it is further evidence that this Government is focused on issues that will affect for the better the long-term social and economic trajectory of our country.Mark Mitchell: Who stands to benefit from this agreement once it comes into force?Hon TIM GROSER: There will be a range of our exporters that will achieve both immediate and in the long term very substantial benefits across agriculture forestry and seafood. I would like to particularly focus on our kiwifruit exporters who will be relieved in only 6 years’ time of a 45 percent tariff that was driving them out of the market. It is worth about $20 million to them.Prime Minister—Staff Members’ Release of SIS Information5.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill)to the Prime Minister: Does he take responsibility for his office staff passing on information obtained from the NZSIS to Cameron Slater in 2011 for political purposes?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes I take responsibility for my staff although I would note that the inspector-general specifically says in paragraph 17 of her report that the disclosure of any information did not breach any obligations or confidentiality. I go back to the point I made earlier. Cameron Slater may well have asked for an Official Information Act request; so did a whole lot of media at exactly the same time. The problem was they did not ask for it in the form of an Official Information Act request.Hon Phil Goff: Is the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security therefore accurate in stating in her report on page 8 paragraph 17: “The New Zealand Intelligence Security Service information was disclosed by a member of the staff of the Prime Minister’s office to Cameron Slater for political purposes.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is her assessment that there was a discussion but she goes on to say that it did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the New Zealand SIS on the part of the Prime Minister’s office staff. Would that be any different from coming down to this House and releasing documents and file notes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in relation to one of the members of this side of the House—gone by lunchtime? Does that mean anything to you Phil—Mr Goff I mean—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister has answered the question. [Interruption] Order! I will just wait for a little bit of silence. There is a discussion across the floor. [Interruption] Order!Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I cannot hear a word you are saying because the Prime Minister is interjecting constantly.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I was equally having trouble hearing. That was why I was trying to get some silence. But I can assure the member that the interjections were not coming from just my right; they were coming equally from my left.Hon Phil Goff: Does the Prime Minister’s answer to the last question imply that he feels that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was not accurate in stating explicitly that material from the SIS was transferred by his office staff to Cameron Slater and is she wrong in saying that the very moment that Cameron Slater pushed the button to send the Official Information Act request on the SIS your staff member and senior adviser Jason Ede was on the phone to Cameron Slater?Mr SPEAKER: Order! It certainly was not my staff. The Prime Minister can answer either of those supplementary questions.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said I am not questioning that there was a discussion and I am not questioning that there is a contested view on information. I am sure that is right. But what is also absolutely clear is that the inspector-general has made it clear that any discussions and any information if it was exchanged did not breach any obligations of confidentiality. They are quite free to do that. What is a breach of confidentiality is when someone goes to the media a day before a report is due to be released because it is embargoed—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. [Interruption] Order! I would be very reluctant to ask the Prime Minister not to be here to answer the rest of question time. [Interruption] Order! If the House will not settle down it leaves me with no choice but to ask members regardless of their seniority to leave the Chamber. The member Phil Goff will ask a supplementary question without interjection and there is certainly to be no interjection from my right-hand side.Hon Phil Goff: Why was it appropriate for Jason Ede to pass on information to Cameron Slater so that he could put in an Official Information Act request for party political purposes when the Prime Minister constantly tells this House that he wants security intelligence matters to be dealt with on a non-partisan basis when his very office made the SIS a highly politicised organisation?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well it is quite the contrary. In fact actually what the report absolutely indicates is that there was no indication of collusion or direction by the New Zealand SIS. It made all of the decisions itself. In fact all the claims made by Mr Goff prior to the election do not stack up. So now we have only one question: Mr Goff will you deny that you leaked it yesterday?Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is not the Prime Minister’s job to be asking supplementary questions.Hon Phil Goff: When the Prime Minister has spent 3 years denying that his office had anything to do with passing information from the SIS to Cameron Slater did his staff members Phil de Joux and Jason Ede lie to him about that; if not why did he mislead the country?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have not. Mr Slater put in an Official Information Act request—he is quite free to do that—and so did other members of the media. Unless all of them were on the same conversation then one has to assume that the reason the Official Information Act request came in from the media and from actually Mr Slater was as a result of the statements made by Mr Goff and myself—and I am prepared to accept that both of us relied on misleading information. That is actually why both of us have got an apology today.New Zealand - Australia Migration—Job Fairs and Numbers6.MELISSA LEE (National)to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: How is the Government encouraging more Kiwis to return home to provide skills for New Zealand businesses and contribute to economic growth?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment):In a number of ways. Over the weekend I attended the first of four job fairs we are holding in capital cities across Australia. The first job fair held in Perth saw some 1650 people the majority of whom were Kiwis turning up to talk to the 35 employers and business groups represented. The Perth fair along with one to be held in Sydney this coming weekend and fairs in Brisbane and Melbourne early next year are designed to encourage more Kiwis and indeed more skilled Australians to move here to help contribute to our growing New Zealand economy.Melissa Lee: What was the feedback from job seekers and employers at the job fair?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: What was evident for those attending the job fair is that they consider Australia and New Zealand to be a single job market. There was a lot of interest from people living and working in Perth and Western Australia about the positive performance of the New Zealand economy particularly from those who have been there a number of years. Understandably some of the desire to return to New Zealand stems from lifestyle or family reasons but what is clear is that it is the growth in the New Zealand economy and its employment rates that are now attracting people back. I understand that the employers present have brought back a significant number of CVs and lists of potential employees who will help with the 1200 or so vacancies advertised at the fair.Melissa Lee: What recent reports has he seen on migration?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is very interesting actually. Yesterday the international travel and migration statistics for October were released. They showed that last month for the first time since December 1993 there were more people arriving in New Zealand from Australia than were moving out to Australia from New Zealand—the first time since December 1993. It is not a massive number but it is a significant trend. To put that in some context between 2000 and 2005 alone there were 110000 net departures from New Zealand to Australia. So although it is true that there has been an increase in unemployment in Australia unemployment in New Zealand is now at its lowest level since March 2009. The New Zealand economy is growing strongly and more and more Kiwis want to be part of it here in New Zealand.Prime Minister—Staff Members’ Release of SIS Information7.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement in regard to the book Dirty Politics that “They’re based on one perspective and probably a bit out of context and with a whole bunch of assumptions that either aren’t correct or are made up and now can’t be backed up.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes. That statement is absolutely correct as demonstrated by the fact that the book made the assumption that my office directed the SIS. It did not. The book made claims about Judith Collins. They were incorrect. The book made claims about Rodney Hide. They were incorrect. There was a whole wide range of assumptions made in that book—based on stolen emails—that were just simply wrong and incorrect.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the investigation carried out by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security did she interview him as the then Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and the Prime Minister?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: She did not and she makes it quite clear in paragraph 222 of the report that if it had been necessary she would have sought my appearance before the inquiry. She did not do it because despite all the claims made by Mr Goff—made on nationwide television and on every radio station that would listen—weeks before an election in an attempt to skew the scrum they were all wrong. I was out of the country. I have not handled an Official Information Act request in the entire time I have been the Prime Minister. Phil Goff should apologise—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Prime Minister answered the question right at the very start.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If one of the central allegations was that the Prime Minister was aware why would the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security not actually ask him that question as to his knowledge?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: She makes it quite clear in the report. She went through all of the source documents and could see I played absolutely no part—Grant Robertson: Apart from the phone calls.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: —other than a phone call on 22 July. That is exactly right and I can tell the member about the phone call. In the phone call I said that I saw in the paper that Mr Goff said he was not briefed. I said to Dr Tucker: “That is surprising because you told me Dr Tucker that actually you did brief Mr Goff.” He said: “Yes I did brief him.” I said: “I am going on Q+A I am doing a pre-record in Washington and I intend to say that.” He told me that was totally and utterly fine.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If one of the central allegations is not as to the Prime Minister’s role or part but as to his knowledge why would she have not asked him whether he had any knowledge at all—not his role or his part but whether he as Prime Minister and head of the SIS had knowledge?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I had no knowledge of these matters other than the phone call I had on 22 July. That is not contested by anyone. The reason the member asks that question is the same reason that Phil Goff leaked the report—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Supplementary question—[Interruption] Order! This is a conversation you can have after question time if you so desire.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has he argued that his staff were not involved in a smear campaign when the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has confirmed that they were?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: My staff were not involved in a smear campaign. My staff responded to an Official Information Act request.But here is a very interesting fact: Mr Goff has now said no one saw a copy of the report but that does not mean he did not talk to—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Prime Minister has answered the question.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want you to clarify your earlier statement to the Prime Minister about what material he should add at the end of answers because he has consistently done it on every single question in defiance of your instruction.Mr SPEAKER: I accept this point. The Prime Minister has continued to add to the end of his answers comments that will not help the order of the House. I have consistently sat the Prime Minister down. I should not have to do so. The Prime Minister should accept my ruling and simply answer the questions that are asked.Dr Megan Woods: Did his staff member Jason Ede dictate the Official Information Act request to Cameron Slater?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have no knowledge of that but not as far as I can see from the public statements that Mr Slater made on Radio Live today.Dr Megan Woods: Did he or his chief of staff discuss with Jason Ede the circumstances that led to the filing of Cameron Slater’s Official Information Act request in 2011; if not why not?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given that Mr de Joux and Mr Ede of his office are said in the report to have “treated information that they were given as available for release for political purposes unless they had been advised otherwise.” can he assure this House that the security services have not been used for political purposes on occasions other than this?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes and they were not on any other occasion either.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Is he expecting the public to believe that his staff got information seriously damaging to the then Leader of the Opposition and yet did not tell him as their boss?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes. Amongst a whole bunch of things I was on holiday at the time. It is worth remembering—because all of this is forgotten—that actually Mr Goff made some statements that I believed to be wrong. They were based on the information given to me by Dr Tucker. I sought to make sure I was right and then I corrected those statements on Q+A. That is why a whole bunch of people put in requests for information. It was nothing to do with in my opinion the issue with Jason Ede particularly. But as the inspector has said and I go back to this point insomuch as there was any discussion between Jason Ede and Cameron Slater it did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed by the New Zealand SIS. The claims made by the Opposition—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer now is quite long enough.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister not admit that this is rather strange when it comes to the SIS of which he was the then Minister responsible the Government Communications Security Bureau which he was at the time responsible for or the Helensville raid when a cast of thousands knew but he did not know and that this defence of “I was not told.” is starting to run very very thin?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member may not like the truth but that is the truth. I actually fondly remember being in this House prior to the 2008 election when the Rt Hon Winston Peters was Minister of Foreign Affairs and I think he missed Air New Zealand dropping some people in Afghanistan or something and “he had not read the papers”.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is a point of—well I am certainly hoping that it is a genuine point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well Mr Speaker it certainly is because you have of your own volition got up and asked the Prime Minister to stick to the facts and he did not. He ignored you constantly for the whole time. But here is the real point: I want the Prime Minister to table that because he is talking drivel.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I accept I am wrong. It was Iraq.Government Financial Position—Return to Surplus8.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central)to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement with regard to the 2014/15 surplus target that “we will achieve one”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):Yes but we will not know for sure until the Government’s annual accounts are published late next year for the actual outcome for the 2014-15 year. As I said publicly last week I believe that the strength of the economy and constrained Government spending can deliver a surplus when those accounts are published. I would note that that member Grant Robertson in his many spokesman roles over the last 6 years has opposed every measure the Government has taken to control spending.Grant Robertson: Who is correct: him who continues to claim a surplus will be achieved or the Prime Minister who now acknowledges that the surplus has disappeared?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member will have to get a bit more familiar with the facts if he is going to be the finance spokesman. The numbers of course will be discussed at the half-year update. As we have indicated weakness in international dairy prices is likely to flow through to Government revenue in the shorter term. We have confidence we can achieve surplus for the 2014-15 year but we will not know that for sure until about October next year.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer does he agree with his own statement that lower commodity prices mean the economy will not grow as fast as expected or does he agree with the Prime Minister that dairy prices will rebound and “fundamentally the pathway’s going to be back the other way”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We certainly have confidence in the future track for dairy prices in New Zealand. I know that the Opposition parties believe that dairy has done too well. Well let us try what it is like when the prices are down. Actually it would be good if the dairy industry was successful—good for the New Zealand economy.Grant Robertson: When the Prime Minister said there were other options to achieving surplus in the face of a $5 billion hit from lower commodity prices did he mean cutting spending; if so what programmes will be cut to ensure he makes his meagre surplus?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The economy has a broad base of growth at the moment. The other options for achieving surplus are simply that the strength of the rest of the economy—whether it is through high commodity prices for quite a range of New Zealand products a burgeoning IT sector or a big inflow of New Zealanders coming back from Australia—all of these things will help to offset the impact of lower dairy prices on the Government’s books. Actually the growth outlook for New Zealand is probably improving slightly as we head into a more sustainable economic cycle than we have had for some time.Rt Hon John Key: Has the Minister of Finance seen any reports that it is an unusual thing to get control of the numbers and to have to understand and digest the numbers when you are a person who has twice failed to get the numbers?Mr SPEAKER: That question is certainly out of order but I will take a supplementary question from Grant Robertson.Grant Robertson: Supplementary question. Here is a number. I have a number for you Bill—22. That is the number for you Bill.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will now look forward to the supplementary question.Grant Robertson: In light of his promise first made in 2011 of a “meaningful surplus for 2014-15” what dollar figure will constitute a meaningful surplus?Hon BILL ENGLISH: You will have to wait for the out-turn. But what we do know is that in the Labour caucus one MP who promised Grant Robertson a vote did not deliver it and that changed the leadership of the Labour Party. So a small number can make a big difference.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Out of that highly irrelevant answer can I get another supplementary question?Mr SPEAKER: The member may. The latter part was not helpful for the order of the House I accept but the member—[Interruption] I am on my feet if the member had not noticed. He has raised a point of order and said the answer was irrelevant. I think the answer did address the question. He simply said he is not prepared to put a dollar figure on it until the December Economic and Fiscal Update is released later.Transport Infrastructure—Accelerated Regional Roading Package9.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth)to the Minister of Transport: What recent reports has he received on the Government’s Accelerated Regional Roading Package?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport):I am pleased to inform the House that work has started on the first project to be delivered by the Government’s $212 million Accelerated Regional Roading Package. Once finished in the first half of 2015 the $1.2 million of roading improvements at Panakou Hill and Wallace Hill on State Highway 35 north of Gisborne will help drivers keep themselves their passengers and fellow road users safe as they travel around their region.Jonathan Young: What commitments has the Government made as part of the accelerated regional roading package?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Earlier this year the Government announced that it is investing $212 million from the Future Investment Fund in a package of 14 regionally important roads and State highway projects. The Government has committed up to $80 million to accelerate five critically important regional roading projects in Northland the East Coast Taranaki Canterbury and Otago. These projects are fully investigated and designed and address current safety resilience and productivity issues. Through the Government’s Accelerated Regional Roading Package we are ensuring that New Zealand’s regions which are a key driver of our economy have modern transport infrastructure.SIS—Confidence10.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green)to the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service: Does he have confidence in the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service):Yes.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister consider it appropriate for the SIS director Rebecca Kitteridge to have made public statements in defence of the Prime Minister’s office during an election campaign and prior to the inspector-general’s investigation into the role of the Prime Minister’s office in releasing SIS information?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: That is a malignant description of what the director said. The director had made it clear soon after her appointment that after a 6-months settling-in period she would make a number of public statements. That she did. As I say the member’s characterisation of what Ms Kitteridge did is wrong and it is malignant.Metiria Turei: Given that two directors of the SIS have now interfered with a general election—Dr Tucker in 2011 and Ms Kitteridge in 2014—why would the New Zealand public have any confidence that the SIS will use its intended extended powers in the public interest as opposed to National’s party political purposes?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: If the previous question was malignant then that question was especially malignant. She does no service to her party or this place by asking filth like that. The director of the SIS is a highly professional woman who is doing a great job and is acting on the recommendations of the inspector-general in a very careful and professional manner.Sexual Offences—Pre-trial and Trial Processes11.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki)to the Minister of Justice: What steps has she taken towards improving the trial and pre-trial experience for victims of sexual violence?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):Today I have asked the Law Commission to resume its work on improving the trial and pre-trial experience for victims in cases of sexual violence. Victims of sexual violence have already faced a brutal ordeal and we need to ensure that the court processes are as supportive of them as they can be. It is my expectation that this along with other work the Government has under way will make a meaningful contribution to improving the court experience of victims of sexual offending.Jacqui Dean: Is she considering as part of this work reversing the burden of proof in sexual violence cases?Hon AMY ADAMS: No I am not. It is important to strike the right balance between making the process easier for victims and protecting the right of defendants to face a fair trial. This Government recognises that the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial are fundamental parts of our criminal justice system protected under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. To my mind reversing the burden of proof would be a step too far.Employment Relations—Compliance with Wages Protection Act12.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North)to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is he confident that employers’ obligations under the Wages Protection Act 1983 are being complied with in light of recent reports of workers’ pay being docked to recover the cost of theft by customers at service stations and supermarkets?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety):I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers are acting appropriately and within the Wages Protection Act but I am concerned about the incidences and reports of deductions for drive-offs at service stations and thefts at supermarkets. I am advised that it is almost certain to be unlawful. To my mind it is absolutely unacceptable.Iain Lees-Galloway: What actions has the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment taken to ensure that workers whose pay has been docked illegally recover their lost wages?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am advised that in respect of the cases that have been brought to attention by the media there is an active investigation under way. But in general the labour inspectorate will investigate and require remedies to be made. What those remedies are may depend on the individual circumstances but I am satisfied that the labour inspectorate is taking those matters seriously.Iain Lees-Galloway: Given that answer and given that there are just 35 labour inspectors nationwide which is one for every 63000 workers how can the Government adequately monitor and enforce workers’ rights against this kind of illegal activity by rogue employers?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In Budget 2014 there was a significant increase in the resource available to the labour inspectorate and the number of labour inspectors is now 41. That is a 24 percent increase on the number of labour inspectors who are employed by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment from the time we came to office. I am satisfied that there are sufficient resources—Andrew Little: You don’t care about low-paid workers.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well as to the member who is interjecting I say that we certainly care about workers. We certainly would not fire officials for one lapse of judgment. We certainly believe that a 90-day trial is appropriate but I would certainly not support a 365-day trial.Iain Lees-Galloway: Is the Minister aware of any collective employment agreements that do not adhere to the Wages Protection Act; if not what impact will removing the duty to conclude collective bargaining removing the right for new workers to be offered the same terms and conditions as any collective agreement in place and blocking workplace access for union representatives have on the number of employment agreements that do not adhere to the Act?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well no employment agreement should be in breach of any Act. It is as simple as that. But the member raises questions about changes to the Employment Relations Act that this Government has made. They are fair they are appropriate and they create a flexible working environment that is good for both workers and employers.Iain Lees-Galloway: Does the Minister believe that a worker on a 90-day trial would be likely to speak up if their employer was acting illegally?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well yes I would and I certainly would expect that person to speak up a lot more readily than somebody who is on a 365-day trial would.Urgent DebatesSIS—Report on Release of InformationMr SPEAKER: I have received letters from Dr Russel Norman the Rt Hon Winston Peters and Andrew Little seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security into the release of information by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service in July and August 2011. This is a particular case of recent occurrence—the inspector-general’s report was released today—and it does involve ministerial responsibility. Dr Norman’s application was received first. I therefore call on Dr Norman to move that the House take note of an urgent matter of public importance.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. No one is contesting your decision of course but could I ask you what time of the day you received Dr Norman’s request because if it was before the report’s release at 10 a.m.—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has asked a fair question. If he will resume his seat I will give him the answer. Dr Norman’s request was received at 6 minutes past 10 the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ was received at 8 minutes past 10 and Mr Little’s was received at 8 and a half minutes past 10. I therefore call on Dr Russel Norman.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The issue before us today could not be graver. The issue is that the Prime Minister is using the security services to smear his political opponents. It could not be a graver issue. We have had to deal with the issue of previous Ministers who have interfered in police investigations of National Party donors. That was another occasion on which we had an urgent debate in this House—another terrible occasion for our democracy. But today—Hon Steven Joyce: Ha ha!Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: —and Steven Joyce laughs about that occasion. On that occasion it was a Minister of the Crown interfering in a police investigation for a National Party donor. It was a shocking event. Anyone who knows anything about what happened will know that it was a shocking event. Maurice Williamson did a terrible thing. On this occasion we have the Prime Minister’s office using the security services to smear his political opponents. It is hard really to find the words to describe how damaging this is for our democracy when the Prime Minister himself is using the security services to smear a political opponent. It is an extremely dark day for our democracy. It is extremely damaging to our democracy when the Prime Minister uses the SIS in this manner.What the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security found was that the Prime Minister’s former deputy chief of staff Phil de Joux got a briefing from the SIS regarding Mr Goff. He used that information to talk to Jason Ede who was also the Prime Minister’s staffer. Jason Ede then rang up Cameron Slater who is an attack blogger and is one of John Key’s friends. That attack blogger Cameron Slater then did an Official Information Act request while he was on the phone to Jason Ede in order to get the information. So the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff was using information he received in a security briefing in order to smear Mr Goff who was at that time the Leader of the Opposition. That is what the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has found in her report today. It could hardly be more serious for our democracy when the Prime Minister abuses his access to security information in order to smear his political opponents but that is exactly what is in the inspector-general’s report.The report vindicates one of the central claims of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics which was released during the election campaign. At the time the Prime Minister said these were baseless allegations. In fact the inspector-general’s report has found that one of the central claims in Nicky Hager’s book was true. That was the claim that the Prime Minister runs a “dark ops” operation—whatever you want to call it—a “dirty politics” operation out of his office that is through Jason Ede and now it turns out Phil de Joux as well who was the deputy chief of staff of the Prime Minister. They ran that operation out of the Prime Minister’s office and had no boundaries in their abuse of power in order to smear their political opponents. On this occasion what the Prime Minister’s office did—Hon Bill English: Say it like you mean it.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: Mr English?Hon Bill English: Say it like you mean it.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: It is true Mr English and you know it is true. It is in the inspector-general’s own report that the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff received a briefing from the security services and told Mr Ede about the briefing. Mr Ede then contacted Mr Slater and while they were on the phone Mr Slater put in the Official Information Act request for the report. Those are the facts in the inspector-general’s report. And what those facts show is that the Prime Minister of New Zealand is abusing his power in order to use the security agencies to smear his political opponents. It is an extremely dark day in our democracy. The Prime Minister should step aside. There should be a royal commission of investigation into what is going on inside the Prime Minister’s office when we have a Prime Minister who is abusing his access to security briefings.Perhaps one of the other really disturbing elements of this is the politicisation of the SIS. The SIS in fact has certain limits in its Act the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act. It is not supposed to actually support or get in the way of political parties. Yet the verbatim conversations between the director of the SIS Warren Tucker and Mr de Joux who was the deputy chief of staff show that Mr Tucker was overtly party political and was trying to stop members of the Opposition from criticising the SIS and the Government of the day. Annette King gets a special mention in the report because she dared to criticise the Government of the day so Warren Tucker said: “Well we have to try to stop that don’t we?”.What we have seen is that the SIS has now intervened in two consecutive elections on behalf of the National Party. In 2011 Warren Tucker helped the National Party to attack Phil Goff. In 2014 the new director Rebecca Kitteridge amazingly in the middle of an election campaign put out a statement defending the Prime Minister’s handling of this exact issue—of this exact issue—in which the Prime Minister has been found to be acting in a way that is undermining our fundamental principles of our democracy. The Prime Minister used the Security Intelligence Service in order to smear Phil Goff. It was a shocking—a shocking—abuse of power.The Prime Minister today in question time bounced around here and there trying to avoid responsibility for the actions in his office. The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. Either he knew or had wilful ignorance of what was going on in his office or he did not—he was completely out of control and he did not know what was going on in his own Prime Minister’s office. It is one or the other. Which is it? Is it that he knew and approved of what Jason Ede and Phil de Joux were doing which was using the information from the security services to smear political opponents? Or was he so out of touch with his office—so out of control of the Prime Minister’s office—that he did not know what was going on? Phil de Joux Jason Ede Cameron Slater—I mean he just did not know what was going on.Hon David Parker: He used to phone Cameron Slater.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: That is right. That is right Mr Parker. He would phone Cameron Slater. Remember John Key is at both ends of this. He would phone and talk to Cameron Slater directly. He did not rely on just Jason Ede to work with Cameron Slater; he did it himself directly in order to help Cameron Slater use security information to attack Phil Goff who was Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was assisting Cameron Slater to help him attack Phil Goff who was Leader of the Opposition. The office of the Prime Minister of New Zealand was accessing information from the security services in order to pass it on to an attack blogger to attack the Leader of the Opposition. And Warren Tucker in a disgraceful act I mean a truly disgraceful act—the conversation between Warren Tucker and Phil de Joux in the inspector-general’s report is really disgraceful where it is clear that Warren Tucker identifies with the Government of the day and is out to help it undermine the Labour Party. I know that Phil Goff has treated Warren Tucker in a very respectful manner over many years—I have seen it myself—and I think it is a shameful thing that Warren Tucker has done and I think what Phil De Joux did is shameful for our democracy as well.The Prime Minister says that he did not know anything about this. That is his essential line. It simply defies belief that in the Prime Minister’s office the deputy chief of staff was running his own “black ops” operations. That is what the Prime Minister is asking us to believe. He is asking us to believe that the deputy chief of staff—of his own volition independently and completely to the ignorance of the Prime Minister—was working with Jason Ede to contact Cameron Slater to leak information from the security services to an attack blogger in order to attack the Labour Party. That is what the Prime Minister is asking us to believe: he had no knowledge of any of this. Jason Ede broke into the Labour Party database without permission where there were credit card records all range of private records kept—Jason Ede broke in there but oh the Prime Minister knew nothing of this. The Prime Minister knew nothing of the fact that his deputy chief of staff Phil de Joux was passing on information that he had received as a briefing from the Security Intelligence Service. The Prime Minister did not know that his deputy chief of staff was doing this.That is what the National Party is asking New Zealanders to believe and it is what we saw from the Prime Minister’s absolutely disgraceful performance in question time today. He tried to tell us that black is white war is peace and ignorance is strength. He tried to tell us that the inspector-general’s report said no such thing and that it did not implicate his staff when the inspector-generals’ report is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister’s office was completely involved in this and had full knowledge of what was going on. We saw the Prime Minister’s disgraceful performance where he tried to say that the inspector-general said that black is white where he tried to say that he could not have possibly have known what was going on. The Prime Minister knew. That is the truth. The despicable truth is that the Prime Minister knew. That is the reality of this situation.All of us in New Zealand now have to face this thing. We think ourselves as having clean honest politics. Well we do not. I am sorry but it is not true. The Prime Minister knew that his deputy chief of staff was colluding with Cameron Slater to pass on the security information briefing in order to attack Phil Goff. That is the sad truth. It is a corruption of our political process. That is the truth. It is a sad day but it is time that we faced up to it. John Key is not the smiling nice guy that people like to think he is. John Key is not the smiling nice guy that he presents to the public. The truth is that he is operating an attack politics regime using his access to the Security Intelligence Service to attack the Labour Party. That is the actual truth because it is in the inspector-general’s report. I would challenge anybody who is watching or listening to this to go and read the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security because that is exactly what it says.It is a dark day and it is time for John Key for the good of the country to step aside. He is not fit for the job. He is not fit. He does not have the ethical standards. He has the ethical standards of a junkyard dog. That is the truth of it.Hon Bill English: Oh God.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: That is the truth of it and Bill English knows it is true. It is true Bill and you know it. What the Prime Minister has done is unacceptable for our democracy. The Prime Minister knew what Phil de Joux was doing. He knew what Jason Ede was doing. He knew what Cameron Slater was doing. They were using security information to smear the political opposition and that is wrong in a democracy. It is wrong of a New Zealand Prime Minister. John Key should step aside. There should be a royal commission of inquiry into what has been going on on the ninth floor of the Beehive and in the Prime Minister’s office.As this has gone on one of the things that I think is really damaging for our reputation as a clean politics country has been the Prime Minister’s denials. Nobody is perfect. The Prime Minister’s comments where he says that everyone makes mistakes—OK everyone makes mistakes but when you have an inspector-general’s report that comes out and documents the role of the deputy chief of staff of the Prime Minister and ministerial staffers in organising this kind of attack politics it is time for the Prime Minister to admit that mistakes were made that he has made mistakes and that it was wrong to use security information to attack and smear the political Opposition. When that does not happen—and what we saw in Parliament today was a disgraceful episode when the Prime Minister refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing whatsoever—then it really corrodes our reputation for honest politics it corrodes our reputation for running a clean democracy and it corrodes the reputation of the National Party.It is not like the National Party has always been like this. It has not. Let us remember it was the National Party that introduced the Official Information Act. Fair enough. Muldoon did that. I mean it is worth remembering how far we have come with the National Party since we had Robert Muldoon. I mean you know Robert Muldoon had a lot of problems—do not get me wrong—but Muldoon introduced the Official Information Act. John Key is systematically undermining the Official Information Act by essentially blocking all requests for information except for when it comes from Cameron Slater and then he gets it in a matter of days or minutes. So how far has the National Party come? It was not always like this. There was a time when the National Party stood for something. There was a time when the National Party could stand up with integrity and say: “We’ve done some good things for New Zealand. You might not agree with us all of the time and maybe there are some things you disagree with.” and obviously we would have the debate.But this is of a different order to that. This is an entirely different order. This is a Prime Minister abusing his office—abusing his access to the Security Intelligence Service—in order to smear his political opponents. This is a different kind of a thing. This is almost beyond politics. This is about the kind of country we want to have. The National Party needs to look at itself in the mirror and say to itself: “Is this really the kind of party we want to become?”. Mr Speaker is this really the kind of National Party that you signed up to?Mr SPEAKER: Order!Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: Is this really the kind of National Party that should be a responsible Government about which people can say: “Yes we might disagree with it about this or that but it basically has integrity.”? When the Prime Minister has denied all wrongdoing he has stepped over a line. He has stepped over a line. He should step down step aside and let a royal commission of inquiry look into what he has been doing. I think that when all is said and done it will really be up to the National Party caucus—those who are here in this House today—and others to look at themselves and ask: “Is this how we want to finish our third term in Parliament with this kind of cloud hanging over us?”. It is unacceptable. It needs to change. The Prime Minister needs to step aside.Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister):Can I start by utterly refuting the allegations made by the Greens. I mean the Greens asked for the inquiry and now they are very disappointed that it has not proven their case. The Green Party is a political movement that was party to the large-scale stealing of emails published in a book 6 weeks before an election—Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at the allegation that the Green Party was involved in the theft of emails. I seek a withdrawal—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. We have just had a very robust contribution with a number of allegations from the member’s co-leader. The Minister has every right to respond.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Is it a fresh point of order?Metiria Turei: I am just—Mr SPEAKER: Is it a fresh—Metiria Turei: Yes.Mr SPEAKER: Then I will hear it.Metiria Turei: Is it now your ruling that when a member takes offence you will not treat that as it has been treated in the past which is that the integrity of the member taking offence is considered sacrosanct and a withdrawal and apology is always required? Are you reversing that many-decades-long ruling?Mr SPEAKER: That is not the ruling. If offence is taken and I consider that there is a reason for offence to be taken I will immediately ask for that to be responded to. But in this case there was a very robust debate. A very robust number of allegations were made by the previous speaker Dr Russel Norman and the Minister has every right to respond to those. And I did ask the member whether she was raising a fresh point of order. She has effectively relitigated the ruling I have already made.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the public will draw their own conclusions about the involvement of the Greens prior to the 2014 election; an involvement we are now grateful for as it helped to get the Government re-elected because of the excessive stupidity of the allegations made at the time. I thought that those members would have learnt.The fact is that John Key as Prime Minister runs the most open most transparent Government that New Zealand has seen and particularly in respect of the intelligence services. He has taken on the job that others did not take on—that is of bringing transparency and thoroughness to the operation of our intelligence services. [Interruption]Well I had some experience of working with the previous Labour Government as Leader of the Opposition and I am not going to bother Parliament with some of the twists and turns of that experience. But what I can tell you now is that Helen Clark would never have had an inspector-general scrutinise the phone records emails and correspondence of the SIS. That was never ever contemplated. John Key has put that in place with the assistance of the Attorney-General and that is why we have this report here today. The Greens asked for the report and because it came to conclusions that did not suit their conspiracy theory they now effectively reject the findings of the report.So let us just see what those findings were that the inspector-general found. The New Zealand SIS disclosed incomplete inaccurate and misleading information to the Prime Minister and his office and in that sense the same misleading and inaccurate information was also disclosed under the Official Information Act to the said Cameron Slater. The information that was disclosed by a member of the staff did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the New Zealand SIS.This is the most objectionable part of Russel Norman’s speech: he led this Parliament to believe that somehow people in the Prime Minister’s office used information to which they had privileged access to smear their political opponents and that is wrong—that is wrong. Remember what the information was. Phil Goff having started all this by accusing the New Zealand SIS of not doing its job over the Israeli services said that he had been briefed by the SIS and the SIS for various reasons believed that he had been briefed. That was the information—that was the information. The SIS said—Hon Phil Goff: No no—precisely—that is what the inspector-general found. It was the man you said had integrity who lacked professionalism.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the Prime Minister’s office set out to establish whether the Leader of the Opposition had been briefed and it was advised by the SIS several times—from being checked several times—that he had been briefed. The inspector-general makes it quite clear that that piece of information and the documentation around the briefing was suitably declassified. There was no privileged access to the information.In fact Phil Goff had broadcast precisely that piece of information. He had said publicly: “I was briefed.” It was not a secret. It was not some kind of classified highly secret bit of information. The Prime Minister’s office was verifying that information. That is why Russel Norman’s speech was so wrong. He was trying to conjure up some kind of Soviet-style system where the secret information held by the SIS was used to smear people. The inspector-general’s report makes it absolutely clear that that did not happen. The Greens should stop misrepresenting the inspector-general’s report. It says that the Prime Minister’s involvement in the events was limited to a briefing given to him by the director by phone on 22 July and media comments by him published on 24 July 4 August and 6 August.This is an inspector-general who had access to every phone call every document every classified item and it was an investigation into the activities of our intelligence agencies of a sort that has never been carried out before. That has never happened before. And despite his having access to every piece of information possible the inspector-general came to the conclusion that the Prime Minister was not doing what the Opposition said he was doing—that is the Opposition’s allegations were simply wrong and do not stand up to scrutiny.The report is pretty tough on the former director of the New Zealand SIS. There is no doubt about that. He has made a public comment about his regrets for the misjudgments he made.Andrew Little: Where’s the apology?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the member accuses him of political motivation. What the inspector-general says is precisely that that was not found—precisely that it was not found. That will not stop the Labour Party from claiming it is the case—it will not stop the Labour Party. We know that because it did not stop the Labour Party members leaking the findings of the report yesterday. It did not stop them doing that.Let me just read something out. Let me just read out the confidentiality order: “Pursuant to those provisions and in order to ensure the integrity of this inquiry … you are required until further notice from the inspector-general to keep confidential the following matters: … Questions … Requests for documents … Information provided to the witness … Failure to comply with this order is an offence … ”. OK? So when are they going to own up? When are they going to own up? Oh so Mr Goff said in the House today—[Interruption] No listen to what Mr Goff said in the House today: “No one has seen a copy of the report.” OK—this is the man who leaked the confidential notes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials in 2005 in a discussion with the Leader of the Opposition. This is a man who was the recipient of large-scale leaks from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade last year. This is the man who leaked the findings of this report yesterday in direct breach of the confidentiality order that he signed which states that it is an offence to leak it. So why would the public believe anything that Labour members say about this report?This is the confidentiality order and on the bottom it says: “Received and acknowledged”. That is when you give evidence you sign it to say that you acknowledge that you are under a confidentiality order and that you acknowledge that it will be an offence if you breach it. Despite his personally acknowledging that he leaked it. And we are meant to believe what the Labour Party says about the conclusions of this report—the political party that specialises in smears.Do you know what? It is much worse with its own people than it is with its opponents. That is why Phil Goff leaked it yesterday—because it was Andrew Little’s first day. He made a good start as a Leader of the Opposition and in fact it was probably worrying Phil Goff about what a good start he had made. So yesterday was the day that Phil Goff chose to leak in breach of the law and his personal undertaking the findings of this report—first to spoil Andrew Little’s day and secondly to try to get his own spin on a report that did not meet his expectations.The findings of the report are pretty straightforward. The criticism is all aimed at the SIS. It makes it quite clear that the SIS made all of its decisions by itself on its own merits and in doing so made some significant misjudgments. I think that is pretty clear from the report. This is about events from 3 years ago. Since then as my colleagues can explain the SIS has been going through a significant overhaul because the way in which it did handle it did not meet the standards that should be met by the SIS in pursuing its statutory obligations. That criticism is accepted by the SIS and it is accepted by the Government.In the 3 years since then as I indicated earlier on in my speech this Prime Minister has introduced more oversight—considerable oversight—that led to a report this thorough which is unprecedented. And actually the SIS is going through a significant review of its own functioning its own resourcing so that it can deliver what New Zealanders expect—that is protection from some very real threats.I do not think there is much doubt about the conclusions of the report. The only doubt is whether the Labour Party is going to own up to leaking it and whether the Greens are possibly going to be able to let go of their vindictive hatred of the Prime Minister. Certainly nothing in this report backs up their awful allegations.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):What a disappointing contribution to what is the most serious issue this House will have debated in many many years. Russel Norman said that today was a dark day. There has been a darker day in New Zealand politics. It was 25 July 2011 when the disgraceful filthy dirty tactics of that Government and the Prime Minister’s office came to the fore in the actions that were about misleading and deceiving the New Zealand public.Mr English was happy to read from the executive summary of this report. He clearly has not got into the recommendations. He says that this has nothing to do with politics and the lack of political neutrality but that is exactly what it is about. You only have to look at recommendations Nos 3 and 5 which is that the SIS now has to go and get advice on how to act politically neutrally. This report highlights just what a disgraceful level of conduct this Government and the presiding Minister the Prime Minister have over this department. It is shocking.New Zealanders many of whom have had great respect for this Government will tonight when they watch the news be coming to terms with the fact that this is a Government that does not know the boundaries between politics and political opportunism and the requirements of keeping a safe steady hand on the levers of State. The Government has lost the boundaries. It does not know what the boundaries are. This report is very clear. If nobody knows what the central failing act was on the part of the Prime Minister and his staff let us have a look at the report.According to paragraph 218 of the report on 25 July when the information was being exchanged—have a look at this. On the same day Mr de Joux the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff when he had the information from the SIS: “On the same day Mr de Joux provided that information to Mr Ede”—who had no security clearance and was not entitled to the information—“with a suggestion that it might prompt an OIA request for those documents. Mr Ede then provided that same information to Mr Slater”. This is John Key’s friend Mr Slater with whom he is in regular contact. Mr Ede then “discussed the terms of the OIA request with Mr Slater and provided Mr Slater with draft blog posts concerning the issue.” It was all run out of the Prime Minister’s office. All the allegations of Nicky Hager in Dirty Politics are verified and vindicated in the report. The Prime Minister presided over the dirtiest filthiest grubbiest vilest operation we have ever seen in New Zealand politics today—and the Deputy Prime Minister sits there and laughs and giggles.Do you know what was most disappointing about Mr English’s speech? He actually came up smelling of roses during the election campaign. He was the only National MP who when Dirty Politics hit the headlines—when John Key spun out of control calling it our left-wing conspiracy—had the integrity and the honesty to say he did not approve of that conduct. He knew it was happening—he knew it was happening—and he knew that it had been exposed. He at least had the integrity to say he would not tolerate it. Today it has changed—today it has changed.This is a Government that is in a desperate bid to control a reputation now in tatters. Not content with denying the obvious not content with defending the indefensible it releases more reports. Is Judith Collins off the hook? No she is not. The Department of Corrections is an absolute debacle. It released its report too.We know it is all wrong because this is a Government whose reputation is now in tatters. This is wrong. We know how desperate it is when John Key quotes one passage from the report but refuses to go to the next paragraph. He quotes the passage that says: “neither Mr de Joux nor Mr Ede acted inconsistently with any obligation to the SIS when Mr Ede disclosed this information to Mr Slater for political purposes after being told it by Mr de Joux.” Have a look at the next paragraph Mr Joyce. Have a look at the next paragraph because this is what it says: “The events in issue in this inquiry do however demonstrate the lack of any steps by the NZSIS to ensure that its reporting relationship to the Prime Minister was consistent both with the requirements of security and with its obligations of political neutrality.” There it is in a nutshell.The Prime Minister does not care that the departments under his control act with the absence of political neutrality because this is a Prime Minister—the most politically driven and maliciously driven Prime Minister we have had in a generation—desperate to cling on to power. He runs a smear machine out of his office. It has been going undercover for 6 years and now it has been exposed. Well it is all coming to an end. The circus is over. The circus is leaving town.Hon Steven Joyce: Oh what a load of rubbish.ANDREW LITTLE: Mr Joyce knows. He has been a ringmaster. He has been part of the ring. He knows that it is all wrong and it points to what we have all known about this Government: it has no ethics and it has no integrity. That is the shameful conclusion that thousands of New Zealanders will now draw. The person they look to the office we all look to the Prime Minister’s office—of course there are political elements to it; that is the nature of politics. But here is our responsibility. When we come to this House as MPs whether we sit on this side of the House or that side whether we are Opposition members or Government members whether we are Ministers or just MPs we have an obligation to our constitution to uphold and preserve the separation of powers in this great country of ours and this Government has lost the plot. This Government cannot do it.This Government cannot be trusted to respect the basic principles of our constitution—that the bureaucracy the Public Service has such an important responsibility to remain neutral to give free and frank advice to do its job to act in the interests of all New Zealanders not just the Ministers whom they serve on a time-to-time basis. This Government does not care about that. This Government has never cared about constitutional principle. It stands under a cloud of shame. It is a disgrace.Those members who have integrity—there are some such members opposite—are now sullied and dirtied by the dreadful appalling actions of this Prime Minister and those around him. Well it is time for that to come to an end. Who on that side is going to have the courage to stand up and say to the Prime Minister John Key: “Enough’s enough—enough’s enough Mr Key.”? The people of New Zealand deserve better. The people of New Zealand deserve a Government driven by ethics and integrity. Who is going to have the courage?Hon Dr Nick Smith: Got more ethics and integrity than you any day.ANDREW LITTLE: Will it be Dr Nick Smith? He has been kicked out of Cabinet put back in kicked out put back in. He knows enough about ethics and integrity because he has breached it enough times. He is the one. He has got experience. He should step up and say: “You know Mr Key I’ve been there where you’ve been. I’ve acted without integrity and it’s time to front up to the people of New Zealand.” It is time to front up and say that New Zealanders deserve a better approach. New Zealanders deserve a good honest Government—just like the chocolate bar. We deserve a good honest Government but that is not the Government we have at the moment. We need a Government that will observe the very basic principles of constitutional and democratic governance. And now the Government has been exposed.John Armstrong from the New Zealand Herald had it right when he said today that this Government has plumbed new depths of arrogance and contempt. And you know it would be very easy for this Government to draw a line under it simply by having John Key stand up publicly and say to all New Zealanders: “I got it wrong. I should not have had a smear machine operating out of my office. I should not have had Jason Ede”—Jason “Two Doors Down” Ede; two doors down from the Prime Minister’s office—“operating out of my office a political operative the “black-ops” operator. I should not have allowed Phil de Joux to breach his obligations his security clearance to the Security Intelligence Service and to willy-nilly pass national security information around.” The Prime Minister should stand up and apologise and he should say to New Zealand: “I got it wrong. Please forgive me.” Is he man enough to do it? Is he man enough to stand up and say: “I got it wrong. Please forgive me.”? He will not because he has been in denial. Everything he has said today in this Parliament and the handing-out of the reports of every other disaster this Government has presided over—and it has been back for only a few weeks and it has had three disasters in 1 day already to have to account for. Will he be man enough to say it? No he will not.This Government is an embarrassment to the New Zealand constitution. This Government is an embarrassment to the people of New Zealand. We have another 3 years of this to put up with but I tell the Government this: we are ready to take you on no matter how dirty no matter how filthy no matter how grubby. You are in it now—your noses are in it. We know what you are like. We know what you are made of. It is no good—the people of New Zealand want something different and they are going to get it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):This issue concerns the functioning of the Prime Minister’s office and the Prime Minister’s role as the previous Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service. If you go page 7 of the findings of this report it says as follows under point 9: “The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister made public comments in reliance on information provided by the NZSIS and that information was at least partially incorrect.” Point 10 says: “The Director and the NZSIS also failed to provide any clarification or correction once the effect of these errors became apparent.” Then if you go to “Political neutrality findings” on page 8 at No. 17 the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security says: “I did find that NZSIS information was disclosed by a member of the staff of the PMO”—that is the Prime Minister’s office—“to Cameron Slater for political purposes but that disclosure did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the NZSIS on the part of the PMO staff member.”If anyone remembers the movie A Few Good Men they will recall the famous interview where a character called Kaffee was questioning Colonel Jessup on the stand and Jessup says: “You can’t handle the truth!”. Well actually we can and that is what this debate should be about today. Let us go to this magnificent conversation on page 58. It is Dr Warren Tucker the former head of the SIS. He quotes Mr Goff: “Can I have a few days please to think about it?”—it is to Phil de Joux that he is saying that. Tucker: “I said ‘Well I could give you a couple of days’…”. De Joux—who is he? He is the deputy chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s office. What is he doing having this conversation? He says: “Look Warren”—not “Mr Director-General” or anything else—“I think we should give him some space.” Tucker: “Well what I said was … ‘I wouldn’t want to leave it much beyond about close of play Monday but let’s do that. I’ll hold it until then.’ So I’ve agreed to do that I want to inform you about that.” And on and on it goes all the way down.Then Tucker says at the very bottom of this transcript: “Yeah he will in terms of overall credibility.”—that is about Goff—“But anyway I have agreed to hold it till Monday and if he still needs another day or two I will do that but I don’t want to leave it … Are you happy with that?”. De Joux: “Yeah I am happy with that.” Tucker: “Very good. Thanks Phil.”Then over the page—this is amazing actually. It is page 59: “However the press release …”—this is under point 198—“was in large part consistent with the outcome as understood by Mr Goff”. What it is saying right there is that Mr Goff was telling the truth. It goes on further in point 199: “The Deputy Prime Minister”—Mr English who almost lost his voice in shouting denial today—“following the advice provided by the NZSIS commented that he thought that: ‘the Leader of the Opposition is going too far in questioning the integrity of a senior and respected civil servant … If you were given the choice I think you would take a senior civil servant … a man of integrity I’d believe him.’ ” It is all there.Now you have got the new person involved the Deputy Director Relationships Outputs and Communications for the SIS and he is having a conversation. This person is having a conversation with de Joux as well: “… is the PM gonna come out in support of Warren”—“gonna”; that is what he said—“or is what Mr English has said [it]?”. De Joux: “I understand the PM has done media … he has done TV3 … So yeah Bill [English] had done that on the House run. That will be what most media use … And I would have thought … I had a chat to Warren before and he wants … the word integrity to be in and I would thought”—I am reading exactly what they said—“that line … ‘senior civil servant … a man of integrity. I believe him.’” The Deputy Director Relationships Outputs and Communications for the SIS says: “… That’s lovely. That’s really good. OK—that’s great. Thanks.” So who is this man de Joux? Well he is the deputy chief of staff of the Prime Minister’s office and his wife runs the National Party electoral campaigns. This has got an acrid stench about it surely.Hon Steven Joyce: It’s outrageous that somebody should run a campaign!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know that “Big Ears” will not get it because this is about fact. It is not about fiction; it is about fact. If you go to the point quoted on page 66 today by the Prime Minister—who again was shouting in the House—point 222 this is what this investigator of this matter said: “Had it been necessary I should also have sought the Prime Minister’s appearance before the inquiry. However I have found that the Prime Minister’s involvement in these particular events was limited to a briefing given by the Director to the Prime Minister” etc. etc. Let me ask this question: how on earth could she have come to that finding without asking the principal alleger or the recipient of it—namely the Prime Minister—whether he was briefed or not? Surely if this was a thorough investigation even a constable or a first-line police person on the street would ask the question of all parties involved. As a former policeman Mr Deputy Speaker you know full well that this—I apologise for that.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You are not bringing me into this debate.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know but you know you cannot argue with experience. The reality is that any police person or investigator would have asked the Prime Minister this one question: “Were you advised or not?” and the inquirer Ms Gwyn never did.Ron Mark: Why not?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Why not? That is a very good question and it underscores the inference that the security services of this country and certain law enforcers of this country are politically biased yet they are sworn to neutrality on these matters. But the most fundamental thing about this is if I was responding to this inquiry I would say: “Because the Prime Minister at all points in time was the political head of the SIS.” That is why you would ask him. Are there allegations that infer that he knew? Yes there have been countless allegations. So why would you not do the most rudimentary thing? I cannot recall in all my years in Parliament a Prime Minister who has been wilfully indifferent to events happening in his own office and the ministries like the GCSB and the SIS that he is responsible for.Or is he just bone idle and does not care? Or worse still does he resort to not stating the facts when they are screaming out there for an answer? I do not know.What I do know is that the Prime Minister is pushing the bounds of total credibility to claim he did not know. Why was he not interviewed and asked at least one question: did he receive information or not yes or no? Incredibly he was not even interviewed at all presumably because she said: “I have found from other evidence.” Well how would that be evidence? That is did she ask Mr de Joux? Did she ask Mr Ede? Did she ask Cameron Slater? Whomever she asked she did not ask them to name the main man the Prime Minister about whom all the allegations are made. So what I want in this urgent debate is answers to why that question was not put to the Prime Minister and who played what roles in effectively leaking intelligence to the attack blogger Cameron Slater.Forget all that—has this got a pattern about it? Remember when it was said that Peter Dunne a Minister for the Inland Revenue Department was a prime leak on an intelligence and security matter? What did the Prime Minister say? He said: “Look I want to believe him but I really just can’t.” And then there was a second investigation into Mr Banks and the police report. The Prime Minister’s response was: “I’m not even going to read it.” This was a police report that saw this man seriously before the court and he is still there now and yet the Prime Minister did not want to know. On the Oravida scandal again he said there was nothing wrong—all above board. But in the heat of the campaign down goes Judith. Apparently now she is exonerated—not on Oravida but on this other matter. But the Prime Minister still does not know.Then of course you have got the one that is paramount of all. Everybody was involved—the police the SIS the Government Communications Security Bureau the international agencies and America’s security agencies. The Prime Minister’s office knew about this raid coming up and so did the Attorney-General. He was a prime informant all the way along and far further back than anybody including him has ever been prepared to admit. It will get out. He can smile but we do now know of meetings that he had planes that were commissioned out of the United States particularly to see of all people him—him. When it gets out he will not look so flash then.My real point is that in all of these things what was the Prime Minister’s offence? [Interruption] I beg your pardon?Hon Christopher Finlayson: Been at the Green Parrot this morning have we? You’re more incoherent.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well how could you possibly go to the Green Parrot this morning when it is not open? You see that is the kind of information source that he has built his hitherto very strained political career on.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development):I have to say that the quality of this urgent debate so far has not actually been that high. It has actually been I think a bit of a testament to the fact that the Opposition has been completely disappointed by the outcome of this report.First up Russel Norman was I have to say in fantasyland—he was in absolute fantasyland. I have read this report and it bears virtually no relation—no relationship at all—to what is going on inside Russel’s head. It is a dark dark place inside Russel Norman’s head. But fortunately out in the real world the report says nothing like what Russel thinks and he should go and read it. It is absolute fantasyland from the Greens and they wonder why the public does not listen to them. They wonder why the public does not listen to them. It is because every time they massively overreach—every time.And then you have Mr Peters and something about a parrot—although I think to be fair that was partly because of Mr Finlayson. Mr Peters is already criticising the inquiry. So here we are half an hour into the discussion and it is the inquiry that is at fault. He said the inquiry did not ask the right questions—if only it had asked the right questions. If only the inspector-general had been up to her job she would have found that in fact the Prime Minister was the devil beast. It would have found that the Prime Minister was the devil beast; but no. So here we are with a critique of the inspector-general.And then we have the Labour Party. It is the first parliamentary day of the new leadership of the Labour Party. How did the Labour members decide to spend their time? Well you would have thought there might be a few issues today at question time perhaps and that they might have some things to discuss—I do not know maybe the economy maybe China maybe the Korean free-trade agreement perhaps the United Nations Security Council perhaps some other issues that might have been relevant to New Zealanders. I know this is a reasonably efficient Government but there must have been something in the last 2 weeks that they could maybe come up with. But instead the new leader of the Labour Party Andrew Little “Mr Angry” decides to spend the first parliamentary day working out his anger yet again on a rerun of the Dirty Politics allegations of the election campaign—which were so successful! They were so successful at the time and now they are back again. When will they learn?You would have thought that perhaps with a new leader they might move on to something else; but no. As well as “Angry Phil” we have “Angry Andy” now. They are prosecuting a report that does not back up what they say—a report that has no smoking gun of political interference no unexplained ordinance of political partisanship. It actually does not stack up with any of the claims. In fact the report clearly states: “I did not find any indication of collusion by or direction to NZSIS over the request.” I note that it goes on to say that the disclosure of information “did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the NZSIS on the part of that PMO staff member.” That is it. That is what the inspector-general says. The rest with respect is flannel from the Opposition.So we move on to another issue that comes out of this inquiry which is a little ironic: the handling of the report. So this report was released at 10 a.m. this morning. That is fair enough except that a selective view of this report started to appear in the media yesterday afternoon. How was that? I thought all participants had been subject to a confidentiality order. In fact I think they were all told that “You cannot disclose or discuss matters raised with you as part of the inquiry. This order is expressed to continue in effect until advised otherwise. I have now revoked the confidentiality order from 10 a.m. Tuesday 25 November.” So who breached that order? Well it was one Phil Goff who breached that order.The inspector-general said at her press conference this morning: “I should note at this juncture that I am very disappointed that details of the report were disclosed to some news media yesterday while the report was with affected parties and under embargo. Those parties were subject to express confidentiality orders made under the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act.” I continue the quote: “The premature disclosure of some details was grossly unfair to others. Some of the coverage was not accurate. For the time being I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the unfairness caused to other affected parties. I will be looking at what steps can be taken both in the context of this report and future reports.”That is the most ironic thing—the most ironic thing. The parliamentarian who complains that information has been used for political purposes against him has been found guilty of doing the exact same thing in the release of the report. What a clown—what a clown. And it was also a political mistake because he did it over the top of the announcement of his new leader’s new line-up—the beginning and dawning of a new day and “Angry Phil” could not wait. He had to get his oar in—Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Once or twice you might expect people to fling a few things across the Chamber. This member has repeatedly throughout his speech been referring to members by other than their actual names which is a clear breach of the rules. Once or twice you might kind of think “Oh whatever.” but he has been doing it repeatedly throughout his speech and there has been no caution or sanction from you at all.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not need any advice in respect of this matter. The debate has been very robust. I take the member’s point that the reference has been repeated but there have as the member has noted himself been a number of references by nickname or other superlatives to various members. The points are noted but the Hon Steven Joyce will resume his speech.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. That is interesting in itself. That is ironic. Some would say it smacks of a double standard but let us be fair: it is not the first time. We can all recall—I was not even in the House—a time in 2004 when one parliamentarian used a confidential Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade note. He released it to make a political point—he released it to make a political point. That was what he did. And yet apparently when this Government does not release information to make a political point that is somehow bad and yet for Phil Goff it is OK. That is actually the issue.Hon Annette King: Why don’t you concentrate on the report Steven?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well I will concentrate on it. The allegation from the Opposition this afternoon was that a political smear machine was operating from the ninth floor. Well there was. It was called the Helen Clark Government. Ask Peter Doone about that because that is how Labour started: smearing Peter Doone from the ninth floor. That is a ninth floor smear machine; it is not what we have today—it is not what we have today.This Government set up the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. This Government acted where no other Government has to create more accountability for the Security Intelligence Service. This report is clear. The Security Intelligence Service made many mistakes and the director of the time made mistakes. They were bad mistakes and they should not have been made. The current director of the NZ SIS has apologised to Mr Little and Mr Goff and has apologised to the Prime Minister for the inaccuracy of the information and the way it was handled. And that is correct but it is not correct for the Green Party to make the most outrageous slurs on the Prime Minister of this country and this House this afternoon when it is not remotely backed up by the report. The Greens are relying on New Zealanders not reading the report and actually accepting their ridiculously fabricated view of things. That is appalling—that is what is appalling.The appalling behaviour of Phil Goff and the way he has treated this report in express contradiction of the instructions from the Inspector-General of the Security Intelligence Service shows that the real dirty politician in this is one Phil Goff.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):When John Key is protecting his own interests he is not working in the interests of all New Zealanders. When John Key stands up and defends his own interests and his own political future he is not standing up for the interests of New Zealanders or for the democracy that he has pledged to serve. What he does when he defends himself against these very serious findings by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is he completely dismisses his role as a servant of New Zealand’s people—an upholder of the democracy that has been fought for in this country and by others. What we saw today from John Key and his behaviour in the House and the disgraceful personal attack by particularly the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service is that John Key and his people are here to protect themselves only and the rest of New Zealand can be damned. He has shown utter contempt for the security of our national intelligence services for the parliamentary democracy and again for the people of New Zealand.What we really saw today was John Key treating this serious issue of a major abuse of power—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Why don’t you apologise to Rebecca Kitteridge?METIRIA TUREI: Here we go. We can hear the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service Chris Finlayson no doubt making more personal attacks as is his wont.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Did you hear what you said today you disgusting creature?METIRIA TUREI: Mr John Key has shown today that he—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise for interrupting the member. I just want to say to the honourable Minister Chris Finlayson that anything that I said today was not disgusting and I think that he should if he is going to interject in that manner make sure that he follows the rules of the House.METIRIA TUREI: John Key has shown today that he treats this place and the public service role that he has as some kind of game where you score points for being the trickiest—not for being the most ethical not for upholding high standards but for being tricky.Well let me say very clearly that our democracy is not a game. We are not here just to win at any cost. This is about serving the New Zealand public not mocking them. It is not OK under any circumstances for John Key or any Prime Minister to run a “black-ops” scheme from the ninth floor of the Beehive no matter how tricky he thinks he is or how much he tries to bat off questions in the House. The public of New Zealand deserves significantly better than that. They deserve answers not sleights of hand and a Prime Minister who upholds the integrity and the ethical standards that New Zealanders expect from that office.For all the dispute around the findings of the inspector-general’s report what is very clear from the report is that John Key’s office was engaged in a deliberate smear campaign and it would use political information provided to it from Government agencies as critical to New Zealand’s security as the SIS for party political purposes in an election campaign. Steven Joyce tried to stand up and do this and so did Bill English. No doubt others will as we go on. You simply cannot stand here in this Parliament and tell New Zealanders that that is ethical behaviour by John Key and his office. He did know. He employed Jason Ede precisely for that purpose—to run smear campaigns out of the ninth floor of the Beehive. John Key allowed Jason Ede to use secret email and phone accounts to dig dirt on political opponents and to attack them during the election campaign. Not only that but he used information that was received by John Key and by his office through the SIS. The adviser then destroyed those records. The adviser destroyed those records. It is set out in the report. John Key says that is OK. He is quite relaxed about that behaviour of his own staff and his own office.The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security found that staffers in John Key’s office were using SIS information for political purposes. John Key thinks that that is perfectly fine and that that is a fine ethical standard for him to maintain. The inspector-general found that Jason Ede used SIS information to tell Cameron Slater what to ask for in an Official Information Act request; that Slater and Ede were on the phone together when the Official Information Act request was written; and that Ede had even drafted up a blog for Cameron Slater about the Official Information Act request. So the Prime Minister employed Jason Ede to write blogs for Cameron Slater. That is the level of disgraceful standard that the Prime Minister allows and accepts in his office. The people of New Zealand paid Jason Ede’s wages to write draft blogs for Cameron Slater to dig dirt on political opponents and to misuse information provided by Government agencies to the Prime Minister for party political purposes in an election campaign. John Key says that that is OK. For John Key that is a fine ethical standard to maintain in his office. So despite the desperate spin that we are going to hear from National—and the members are trying all sorts of distraction techniques today and we will hear more probably over the next few days. We heard some of the faux outrage today as well from National members.The inspector-general confirms a serious abuse of power by this Government by John Key and by his office. The report vindicated Nicky Hager and his most serious allegations in the Dirty Politics book. During the recent campaign John Key said that the events that were outlined in the book were “baseless allegations”—he used that quite often—but the inspector-general’s report shows that the Prime Minister was wrong to say that they were baseless allegations and confirms that the most serious allegation in the book is actually true. Yes John Key operated a “black-ops” out of his office. His own staff were involved in that. He gave approval for that. There is no way that those people could have operated like that in his office if he did not approve of those actions.This is a huge abuse of power. It is not a political game. It is an abuse of the most powerful office in the country. It was first uncovered by Nicky Hager in his book and has now been confirmed by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.John Key is denying it. We all expected that he would and that he would bluster as we saw in his behaviour today. He has not treated the issue with any degree of seriousness. He has not addressed the public on the core issues about the ethical standards and the integrity that he expects out of his office. He said instead that it is contestable that his deputy chief of staff got an SIS briefing on 25 July and that it is contestable that the information was passed on to Jason Ede who then talked to Cameron Slater to write an Official Information Act request. The Prime Minister is now saying that the findings of the inspector-general in her report are contestable—the findings of fact that she made.Her findings were based on interviews with the Prime Minister’s former deputy chief of staff who is quoted in the report as saying that he wished that Ede had given the information to a real journalist and not to Cameron Slater. Slater’s and Ede’s phone records were used to determine the facts of these matters and John Key yet again says that this information is contestable.It is absolutely a game spin that John Key is playing. He is not being honest with the public of New Zealand or treating them with the respect that they deserve. This is an issue that deserves a direct and sincere communication from the Prime Minister not the spin and game-playing that we are seeing today and will no doubt continue to see.It also raises concerns about whether this culture of grime that is coming from the Prime Minister’s office is bleeding elsewhere. What we have got now is in two elections we have had the directors of the SIS interfering in the election campaign—first of all Dr Warren Tucker with the allegations that have now been proved accurate by the inspector-general in failing to meet his political neutrality requirements and allowing information to be used for party political purposes by John Key in an election campaign in 2011 and then again with Rebecca Kitteridge making statements defending the Prime Minister’s office when those allegations were raised in Nicky Hager’s book before the inspector-general’s findings were completed.If this is the culture that John Key allows in his office of practically zero ethical standards and no integrity of course it is going to bleed through into some of those major agencies and the Public Service if that is how they think they need to deal with John Key and his people. Of course there will be this interference. We must be protecting the Public Service from this kind of political grimy culture that is coming out of the Prime Minister’s office.We have said over and over that the Prime Minister should step aside while a royal commission is undertaken into the full allegations. The Prime Minister needs to make a clear commitment to the public of New Zealand that he takes this seriously because time and time again the allegations have been proved true. It is about his integrity it is about the ethical standards that he employs and over and over we are seeing John Key the Prime Minister of New Zealand failing New Zealanders acting in his own interests and instead allowing New Zealanders to suffer this continual abuse of power. Thank you.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health):What we have just heard from the Greens is a totally fictional narrative on the report that has been released today. It was a total series of smears on upright and honest public servants and on frankly the most honest Prime Minister we have ever had in this country. I think it is disgusting that Metiria Turei would get up and smear the reputation of Rebecca Kitteridge a public servant who has given great service to successive Governments—served under the Labour Government as Secretary of the Cabinet served under this Government and continues to serve. I just think frankly that it is behaviour that is beneath the dignity of this House when the co-leader of the Greens comes in and makes statements like that.What has been clear in this report is that actually there was no political collusion. All these things that the Greens are alleging did not happen. I will quote directly from paragraph 17 where the inspector-general says: “I have not found any political collusion by or direction of the NZSIS in its disclosure of information or any unauthorised disclosure of information by NZSIS staff as has been alleged. I did find that information was disclosed by a member of the staff of the PMO to Cameron Slater but that disclosure did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the NZSIS on the part of that PMO staff member.” So there it is—not the greatest day ever for the SIS. But actually to try to smear the reputation of the Prime Minister is completely beneath what people expect of members of Parliament.The one thing though that has emerged today—and the member of Parliament has pretty much admitted it—is that the report which appeared at 6 o’clock on both channels last night was released early by Phil Goff. There is no question about it. He said in the House today that no one had a copy of the written report but by doing so he actually admitted that he had read that report and then he went and leaked it to Television One and TV3. You would think that surely Phil Goff would not have done that—surely not. But he is guilty. He has not refuted that claim today. I challenge him to get up and tell the House that he did not speak to journalists yesterday about this report because he knows he did.Why we know this is actually because Phil Goff has got form in this area. I would say this is about the fifth incident at a casual count of Phil Goff being party to privileged information that he has then gone and released. You will remember the “gone by lunchtime” episode. Phil Goff was in there with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials. What did he do? He leaked privileged information. What did we have more recently? We had a coroner’s report that Phil Goff went and leaked to the media. It was the report into the death of a soldier in Afghanistan. It was under a suppression order. The police looked into it. Phil Goff is on a police warning. And now with this most serious breach Phil Goff could actually face a year in prison and actually I think that might teach him a thing or two. And then there was the instance where a former staffer from Phil Goff’s office when he was Leader of the Opposition went off to work at the State Services Commission. Suddenly miraculously a copy of a Cabinet paper emerged into Phil Goff’s hands and he was quoting from it in Parliament but then it emerged that his own staffer had stolen that paper.The common thread through this is Phil Goff. This was back in the days when Phil Goff really cared—back in the days when he was still dyeing his hair when he was still doing the John Travolta walk. But now he has given up on it. He has decided that he is just going to cause mayhem. Last night on Andrew Little’s biggest day of his parliamentary career when he was revealing his line-up Phil Goff decided that he would wipe the new leader off the front page and the leading article of the news by going and leaking this report. He knew exactly what he was doing. Now he is going to form the nexus of grumpy former leaders sitting there at about Nos 14 15 16 and 17—David Cunliffe David Shearer Phil Goff—who are going to wreck everything. Phil Goff has no moral backbone. He knows he has leaked this. He is up next. I challenge him to get up and say: “I did not speak to a journalist yesterday.” And then I challenge him to say it outside the House. This is serious for Phil Goff. We are talking a year in prison for Phil Goff and actually that might not be a bad idea. Thank you.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I just want to say one thing. When someone stands up in this House and exposes Don Brash and the National Party as having lied through their teeth about New Zealand going under the nuclear umbrella again my responsibility as a member of Parliament is to expose that lie. I did not leak it. I stood up in this House on that side of the House and condemned the National Party for its hypocrisy and its lies on that occasion and I was right.I want to say that I very much welcome this report. Why do I welcome this report? Because this report upholds my credibility and integrity against the former Director of the SIS Dr Warren Tucker who was found by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to have behaved unfairly and unprofessionally and to have released inaccurate incomplete and misleading information. I accept the apology—the unprecedented apology—that the SIS gave to me this morning but I want to know whether one National member of Parliament in the House today has got the decency to stand up and apologise for mouthing the untruths that were represented in what the former director of the SIS said. You have the report; the House has the report. It shows that the director lacked integrity—a comment that I never made about him at the time but which is exposed abundantly in this report. Those members accused me of lying when I was telling the truth and not one of them has the decency to stand up in the House today and apologise for what they did.The second thing I want to say about this report is that it exposes John Key as the Prime Minister as having misled this country for 3 years by saying that his office had no involvement with leaking material to Cameron Slater—to Whale Oil. This report makes it absolutely and explicitly clear. Jonathan Coleman shakes his head and says no. The inspector-general says that the SIS information was disclosed by a member of the staff of the Prime Minister’s office to Cameron Slater for political purposes. This is in the report. I am reading paragraph 17. And then there is paragraph 9 Mr Coleman if you want to wait and listen to it. He does not like the truth. It says that the information received from the SIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser in the Prime Minister’s office to assist Mr Slater in making the Official Information Act request. Yet for 3 years John Key has told this country that his office had no involvement in sending that information to Cameron Slater. I want to know from John Key whether Jason Ede and Phil de Joux lied to him about that involvement and that is why he misled the country or whether it was the Prime Minister himself who was not telling the truth. I think the country deserves that.The next debate in this House is the debate to extend the powers of the Security Intelligence Service. All last week Prime Minister John Key said that this should be approached on a non-partisan basis. He said that the security and the safety of New Zealanders should not be politicised and yet John Key’s office took information received by Phil de Joux who got confidential information and was regularly briefed on confidential information and used that material to launch a smear campaign on a political opponent. I say to the Government: for God’s sake have the decency to own up say that you misled the public apologise for doing it—like the SIS has already done—and give us an undertaking that this National Government will not continue through this term in Parliament to use SIS security information to launch smear campaigns against people. They are smear campaigns in this instance that the inspector-general said have no foundation and said that it was the director of the SIS who misled was inaccurate and was unprofessional.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service):As the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service I acknowledge the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security especially her eight recommendations and I have every confidence that the director who I think is a professional and exemplary civil servant will see that these recommendations are implemented forthwith. I believe that it is under way already. As L V Martin used to say: “It’s the putting right that counts.”For the benefit of the Greens I would say that L V Martin was a Wellingtonian who used to sell washing machines but they would not know much about those because I think they prefer to wallow in filth as illustrated by Ms Turei’s disgraceful question this afternoon. If she has any decency she would come back to this House and she would apologise for the foul attacks that were made on a person who as I said is an exemplary civil servant and I am sure Labour Party members would acknowledge that she is as I have described in that way. I do exempt specifically James Shaw from those vicious criticisms because I think he is a man of integrity. I say to him that the sooner he is the leader of the Green Party the better.I want to set out what this report actually found because there were mistakes. They were serious mistakes and they do need to be addressed. The findings first related to the release of information: that the SIS disclosed incomplete inaccurate information and that is not good; that the then director and the SIS itself failed to clarify matters when they should have; that the SIS was inconsistent in the way it dealt with Official Information Act requests and that its process for dealing with them was inadequate; and that documents were however released to Mr Slater and others that were not properly declassified. So that was very important and I do not diminish that these are errors that need to be addressed but they are errors none the less.The second bunch of concerns related to political neutrality findings and it is very important to emphasise that the inspector-general found no partisan political motive on the part of the SIS or its directors—no partisan political motive. But because of the way matters were handled it called into question whether section 4AA of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Act had in fact been complied with. A number of recommendations that have been made address that issue because it is extremely important that political neutrality never be questioned. So that is an important matter and does need to be addressed. It is a duty on the director—not the Minister but the director—to ensure that he or she consults regularly with the Leader of the Opposition on these important matters. It is incredibly important that the Leader of the Opposition has confidence in the director and is able to discuss these issues because they are issues that are too big for party politics.And thirdly in relation to propriety the inspector-general found that the director and senior staff of the SIS failed to realise the gravity of the situation and the potential for political exposure and I think that that was really probably the most serious error. Mr Tucker who I am happy to acknowledge in my dealings with him was a good and professional man at least had the guts as it were to come out today and say that he had made mistakes. His successor said we are going to get on to them and that is as it should be.But there have been a number of extraordinary claims today. I do not propose to talk about the Brothers Grimm fiction that was peddled by Dr Norman today or the incoherent contribution as we expect from Mr Peters but I do want to refer to what Mr Robertson said because he is a person for whom I have some respect. He said hyperbolically that “John Key and his office have used State intelligence agencies as a political tool.” That is a very very serious allegation but it is not borne out by the evidence. Indeed I say to him with the greatest of respect and affection that it was a sloppy accusation. The report in fact said exactly the opposite. As Mr English said if poor old Mr Robertson had paid more attention to detail he would not have gone into the leadership announcement last week thinking he had Mr Twyford’s vote and that he had won it.So I have emphasised and acknowledged that mistakes were made. They need to be addressed. But they were not the mistakes as characterised by contributions this afternoon and I think it incredibly important that when we are dealing in this area we address the facts. At the risk of sounding like Thomas Gradgrind—whom I am sure you Mr Assistant Speaker will remember from your days of reading Hard Times—facts matter and that is incredibly important.The other thing I want to talk about is that this is actually a very good day for democracy because whether the Government liked it or not at 10 o’clock this morning the inspector-general released her report—we had no say over the timing—on the very day we want to debate the foreign fighters bill. We had no say over the timing or the content. What has happened as a consequence of the reforms of last year is that the inspector-general’s office has been greatly strengthened and she has the ability to proactively commence inquiries and that is exactly what she did in August this year.But it is very interesting to go back to 2013 when these reforms were being debated. Russel Norman claimed in the first reading debate that “the role of the Inspector-General would not work because she would not be an officer of Parliament”. Mr Goff addressed me in the Committee stage and said: “So Attorney-General you are telling us to have confidence in an inspector-general who will be appointed almost solely by the Prime Minister … That is why I say Attorney-General that your assurances will not carry much weight with the people of New Zealand and certainly no weight with the people on this side of the Chamber.” So they were the comments that were made. The office was denigrated and the ability of the inspector-general to act independently and make these sorts of recommendations was questioned but the fact of the matter is that that is exactly what she has done. She has acted independently she has acted strongly and she has made a number of serious recommendations. As the Minister responsible for the agency I give this House my unequivocal undertaking that I will be very anxious to see that those recommendations which are ultimately the responsibility of the director will be enforced as soon as possible. So I think it is a very good day for democracy that we have the inspector-general making those recommendations.I am concerned about the disrespect that was shown to her and her office by the person who leaked the report. I say this as Attorney-General: I consider that the sorts of politicians who break the law by leaking documents or breaching suppression orders—be they National Labour or Green—behave in a way that is at the expense of the system itself. All members have to be ultimately respectful of the system and it is certainly not something that one can make a joke of.Mr Goff made a very important contribution towards the end of his speech. He rightly said that the Prime Minister had talked about the need for bipartisanship. We have gone out of our way in relation to the bill that is shortly coming up to ensure—or do our very best to ensure—that that can be done and I am looking forward to working with Mr Little and Mrs King and other members of the party on these issues. As I say they are too big for partisan debate. I think I said in my Address in Reply debate speech that at least the two big beasts of politics the Labour Party and the National Party have to have a common view on this stuff. Judging from the contribution—the juvenile and dreadful contribution—of Ms Turei today I cannot expect anything better of the Greens but I believe that National and Labour can work productively on these matters.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.UrgencyHon SIMON BRIDGES (Deputy Leader of the House):I move That urgency be accorded the introduction and first reading of the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill and its referral to a select committee. Urgency is requiredbecause of the urgency of the proposals contained in the bill. Following a narrow and tightly focused review of New Zealand’s settings in relation to foreign terrorist fighters the bill contains proposals that will strengthen the Government’s ability to deal with evolving threats. The legislation contains measures that can add to the safety and the security of New Zealand in the short term. It is the Government’s intention that this legislation be progressed before the House rises for Christmas so that we are in a stronger position to deal with the threats our agencies are seeing.A party vote was called for on the questionThat urgency be accorded.Ayes96New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes25Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11.Motion agreed to.Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation BillFirst ReadingHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service)on behalf of theMinister for National Security and Intelligence: I move That the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported by Tuesday 2 December 2014 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House.This omnibus bill responds to the rapid evolution of the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters and other violent extremists in the West. These are not New Zealand’s problems alone but New Zealand is not immune from them. As the Prime Minister outlined in his speech at Victoria University a few weeks ago agencies have a watch list of between 30 and 40 people of concern in the foreign fighter context with another 30 to 40 requiring further investigation. Our independently assessed domestic threat level was recently increased from “very low” to “low”—a terrorist attack is possible but not likely. Other Governments in Australia Canada the United Kingdom and elsewhere have now sought to amend their legislation in this area. All Governments are very mindful of that once-dreadful boast of the IRA that terrorists only have to be lucky once.We too are seeking to amend our legislation in this area not only to bring it in line with what is happening in similar countries but also in line with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178 which urges member States to restrict the movement of foreign terrorist fighters and ensure that their legislation is up to scratch. The Government agreed to a targeted review covering four narrow and targeted areas: first the capacity the capabilities and statutory powers of the New Zealand SIS to investigate and monitor suspected and returning foreign terrorist fighters and other violent extremists; second the Government’s statutory powers to restrict and disrupt the ability of suspected foreign terrorist fighters to travel to conflict zones; and third whether or not specific criminal offences should be introduced to address these areas. The review did not recommend any changes to criminal offences at this time. What we are left with is a narrowly focused set of changes that will ensure that the SIS has the tools it requires to address the foreign terrorist fighter threat to our land.Before I turn to the main provisions of the bill I want to say something about the legislative context. At the end of the debate I will move that the bill be reported to the House by Tuesday 2 December. This allows obviously a much shorter time in a select committee than is usual. The reason for this of course is the urgent nature of the review and the fact that we must make a number of changes to legislation now. The bill was provided to a number of organisations late last week including the New Zealand Law Society and the Legislation Advisory Committee. The Government has been particularly concerned to ensure that other parties receive briefings about the review and legislation early and to whatever extent they have required.The bill has a sunset clause. There has been some comment about the date of that sunset clause but we have to acknowledge that there is going to be a comprehensive review of all this legislation which must begin no later than June 2015. Any changes recommended in that review—and hopefully they would be able to be in force by say the end of 2016—will supersede what we are debating today. The legislative product of that review will have a full select committee hearing and I know the select committee will do a very good job on the present legislation in the time it has available.In the time I have remaining I want to turn to some of the proposed changes—colleagues of mine who speak after me can go into these areas in greater detail—in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178. The changes proposed fall into two categories: restricting and disrupting travel and monitoring and investigating foreign terrorist fighters. In the first area the bill allows the Minister of Internal Affairs to set a cancellation period of up to 3 years on a New Zealand passport rather than the current 12-month period. This would occur only in a situation where the Minister is satisfied that the person continues to pose a danger to New Zealand or any other country. The bill also allows the temporary suspension of a passport or travel document for no more than 10 working days. In the second area the bill provides the SIS with the ability under warrant to undertake visual surveillance in a private setting or involving trespass on to a private property. It is modelled on the existing powers in the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. It is nothing really that the police in special circumstances cannot do already.I want particularly to refer to clause 9. These provisions deal with intelligence collection and visual surveillance for a period of no more than 48 hours in situations of emergency or urgency. I think these are the provisions that have generated the most comment to date. On one level what is proposed here is nothing new: a similar regime for surveillance without a warrant in situations of emergency or urgency was contained in the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. I have had a good look at that section and I have suggested that what is proposed in this bill contains more safeguards. The oversight and protections proposed in this bill are far more extensive than those in the Search and Surveillance Act. So for example the regime would be subject to ministerial oversight and the Minister must be informed within 12 hours. Any information collected must be destroyed if that is what the Minister directs and the inspector-general must be notified of authorisations and the annual report has to set all this information out.Can I give you a hypothetical example of where such a power could be required. Let us say reporting indicated that later today an individual was planning to depart New Zealand to travel to Syria. That individual had previously been unknown to the SIS but new reporting indicated the individual had boasted to others about going on a jihad. There would be insufficient time to get the traditional warrant together in the 8 hours before the individual left the country and to bring together the Minister and the commissioner for warrants. In this hypothetical case an emergency authorisation could enable the intercept of communications to take place so that an assessment could be made of the threat and potentially support the cancellation of the individual’s passport. I—and where appropriate the commissioner—may direct the NZ SIS to discontinue that activity under the authorisation and destroy any information.I acknowledge however that any expansion of the powers of the State in this critical area must be very carefully thought through and a number of people who will make submissions will I am sure have genuine concerns. So I approach these provisions with an open mind. I want the select committee to look very closely at them and to consider any additional safeguards that it thinks are useful. I commend the bill to the House. I thank members particularly members of the Labour Party for their engagement today and I emphasise that I am open to discussions with Mr Little or any of his team on any of these matters because I think that in relation to clause 9 it is critically important that we get it as right as we can. I commend the bill to the House.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):I thank the Minister Christopher Finlayson for his adumbration of the legislation and note that the position that we had taken—and certainly I had taken—when this legislation was foreshadowed in the Prime Minister’s speech a few weeks ago and when the bill itself had been publicised over the weekend was to look askance at the provisions that constitute a further erosion of people’s freedoms and liberties particularly the claim for the need for warrantless surveillance for a period of up to 48 hours; the cancellation of passports for up to 3 years an extension from the current 1-year period; and the suspension of passports for those who are travelling overseas because they do constitute issues and matters of removal of rights in respect of which when this House is dealing with them we should take considerable care. My position had been that we needed to see a case from the Government about the circumstances in which these sorts of powers might be needed or the circumstances that might justify these powers particularly the warrantless surveillance. It is fair to say that there is still some nervousness on our side about the provision as it appears in the bill.I have had a briefing myself from the SIS and I have had explained to me circumstances in which the need for the security agency to be able to respond quickly and efficaciously to a threat or to a set of circumstances is needed because of the speed with which the people operating in this sphere now act. It was explained to me what is needed to obtain a warrant under our security legislation and it is an involved process. I happen to think that that is a good thing because the warrants that are applied for allow our security officials to take action under the cloak of secrecy as they must do and as is the nature of security work but they constitute a massive erosion of privacy and civil rights. So there should be effective checks and balances and it should be a deliberative and careful process to obtain a warrant in order for State officials to breach privacy and to act against people’s civil rights.The briefing I had took me through the process it takes to get a warrant. There are very narrow statutory requirements that must be met. There is a vetting of the application. There needs to be an affidavit. There needs to be accompanying information and exhibits which go with the affidavit. That is all a good thing but that of course takes time. Yet there are people who are operating against our national security interests and indeed international security interests who act much more quickly than that about whom it is desirable that our security agencies are able to gather information in order to evaluate and if necessary counter the threat that they pose or the risk that they pose. I understand that and I get that. I also think that New Zealanders generally speaking want to know that they live in a safe and secure country they want their security agencies to be effective and they want them to have the correct powers so that the nation is safe and they are safe in the streets and in their homes. But I also think that it is the New Zealand tradition to make sure that when the powers of the State are being exercised—the powers of State that are compulsive and do erode civil liberties—there are good and proper checks and balances.On that basis we say let us have a good close examination of this bill. Let us accept that there are security threats today that we had not foreseen 10 years ago 20 years ago or 30 years ago that the security climate and the security environment is a constantly changing beast and that it has changed in the last 10 years at least. We need to know that the right powers the right commitment the right equipment and the right capability are available to our security officials to do their job and to keep us safe. So we say let us have a close examination of the bill. We will ask some questions. We will ask: do we need the security agencies to have a period of 48 hours when they can undertake surveillance—video surveillance if necessary—without a warrant or is it possible for a warrant to be obtained in less than 48 hours? And if there is to be a suggestion even if there is a much more truncated period of time that a period of warrantless surveillance might be validated in retrospect I personally think that that is more problematic than simply having a warrantless period. But let us have a look at those provisions. Let us have a proper examination of them. Let us hear from the experts and most important let us hear from New Zealanders and from those who feel they have a special interest in this and who want to have their say.That is why we will have something to say about the process that the Government has entered into in this legislation—the urgency and the need to get it passed so quickly. The Prime Minister laid out the threats that this bill seeks to address a good 3 or 4 weeks ago. There has been one session of the House since that time and now we are in the second session and now the Government brings the legislation in under urgency. So the committee will want to see some assessment of and some appreciation for the need for that urgency as we consider it. The shorter the amount of time we have available to consider legislation and most important to hear from our citizens about it then often the worse the legislation is when it comes to be passed. So we do urge the Government to look carefully at the process and at the time frame that it has given for the passage of this legislation to allow New Zealanders to have a fair chance to make a comment on it. Let us have a good discussion and a good debate on whether the legislation needs to go as far as it does.I have talked about the 48-hour warrantless period. There is then the period for cancelling passports. If it is to be 3 years which is an increase from the 1-year period at the moment are there enough safeguards so that somebody who is wrongly caught up in a set of allegations or an incorrect threat assessment can apply to have the cancellation of their passport reviewed in a time that is much less than 3 years? What we do not want to see is that if somebody is the subject of an incorrect threat assessment they lose their passport and it is years before they can get it back. There has got to be an effective appeal process or a judicial review process that means that they can get it back in an efficient and effective amount of time.So with those sorts of provisos we say let us look at this bill and let us pay close attention to those provisions that do take away the rights and privileges that citizens in New Zealand have and ordinarily expect. You know we do not want to be drawn into the panicked response that security legislation is often promoted in. We know there are threats and we know also that the security agencies often have access to information that they cannot disclose without revealing their own tactics and the approaches they need to take but let us not also get into the process of causing scare causing fright as a basis to justify this legislation. Let us have a good and honest examination and a good and honest debate about it.Finally there is the other provision that relates to the suspension of passports for people who are abroad and the removal of their travel documents of course puts them in an extraordinarily difficult position. We would just ask that the Government when it is part of the committee process shepherding the legislation through make very careful consideration of this because this is a very serious step to take for New Zealand citizens when they are travelling. On that basis let us send this bill to the select committee for a closer examination. Let us hear from New Zealand citizens let us hear from the experts and let us see whether we can make this bill a good and balanced piece of security legislation that acknowledges and respects citizens’ rights and acknowledges and respects the modern security threats that New Zealand faces. Thank you.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution in this debate on the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill. Can I just begin by acknowledging Andrew Little the speaker who has just resumed his seat congratulating him on his elevation to Leader of the Opposition and thanking him actually for making a number of quite thoughtful I think and well-balanced comments in this debate. This is undoubtedly the most serious of issues. Parliament is at its best when the members of this House recognise the seriousness of the issues being considered and the critical importance of our getting them right and try to set aside any point-scoring agenda to make sure that we do our job as well as we can to protect the safety of the people of New Zealand. I want to acknowledge the parties in the House that are working very hard with the Government to make that happen.I do not think anyone in this House would choose to dispute the fact that the most critical obligation of a Government and of this Parliament is to protect its citizens. New Zealand has for a long time been in the very happy situation of being largely removed from the bulk of international conflicts. We are incredibly fortunate to be an island nation tucked away from conflict zones. Although that has meant that we have had a very peaceful and tranquil—to quote the words of the prayer of this House—existence it can sometimes mean that our citizens become almost complacent about the risks that are very real and very present. We have to take the international threat picture seriously and I think we have to recognise that the world is an increasingly small place when it comes to matters of global security whether that be cyber-security or the very real threat of terrorism and that the benign environment that has been our birthright and that we have been so familiar with for so many years is not one that can be taken for granted.The reality is that New Zealanders are at risk every day whether they are at home or even more so when they are abroad. Of course New Zealanders are a well-travelled nation of people. We live our lives and we carry out our businesses all over the world. At any point in time almost all of us will have family members who are travelling the globe. We have to play our part not only to protect our citizens but to ensure we are doing our part in the international sphere. In that regard I do want to particularly note that one of the critical reasons for passing this legislation and for doing so quickly is to give full effect to our obligations under Security Council Resolution 2178 by making sure we have the statutory powers available to restrict and disrupt the travel of suspected foreign fighters. So in that regard I certainly—and I am sure many members of this House—would want to stand up and say that we are doing our part for a safer globe.The changes in this bill as this House knows came about from a review of our security services and whether they have the capability and the framework that they need to protect New Zealanders and as I say to play our part in the world against this threat of foreign fighters. That report came back and identified some core measures that needed to be addressed quickly to fill the holes but it equally recognised that given the urgency of this process and by necessity the short time frame in which to complete both the review and the drafting of the legislation and this legislative process it is appropriate that these powers which are extensive are limited by a sunset clause—which they are—that they will be subjected to the full review by the Security Intelligence Service that is required by statute to begin next year and that of course while they are in force they are subject to very careful oversight.The powers I am sure will be well canvassed in this debate and they have been already to an extent. They really largely turn on the power of the Minister of Internal Affairs to consider the grant suspension and removal of travel documents where that is necessary both in terms of the length of time that he—or she as the case may be in the future—can suspend travel documents for and the speed with which he can act should that be required in urgent situations. We are moving out obviously to a maximum of 3 years’ cancellation of passports but importantly with a 12-month review clause in there and of course the individuals concerned will continue to have the ability to seek a judicial review of any decision made in that regard.The other core area of the changes really do relate to the ability of our Security Intelligence Service to be able to investigate and keep us safe from terrorist activities and in that regard there is a glaring distinction at the moment between the powers that the New Zealand Police and other investigative bodies have under the Search and Surveillance Act and the fact that the SIS currently does not have those same sorts of powers to carry out visual surveillance in a private place with a warrant. Those of us who have been involved as I was in the passing of the Search and Surveillance Bill and who sat through the select committee processes will know the detailed consideration that was put into considering the appropriateness of that surveillance and whether we had the balance right between the rights of private citizens and the important right to protect law and order in this country. I am very comfortable that we landed in a good place. Now is the time to ensure that those same rights that the New Zealand Police has in terms of prosecuting such offences also extends to the SIS.Can I just make the comment in respect of video surveillance that of course the Commissioner of Security Warrants will need to be satisfied that the conditions for issuing a warrant apply. Then as a second safeguard the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service also needs to be satisfied that the conditions for issuing a warrant apply. The last speaker Mr Little made reference to the issue of the 48-hour period in which some surveillance can be undertaken without a warrant where there is a real risk of a delay in doing so prejudicing the ability to carry out that investigation. This is a critical issue. I think it is one of the key reasons that we do need to take the time for this bill to be considered and worked through in terms of some of those operational aspects. Equally at the moment you will know that the power to carry out that warrantless surveillance for the first 48 hours if that delay would be seriously prejudicial falls under the control of the director of the agency. Again this is certainly something that I expect members will want to consider very carefully during the time that the bill is at the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee in order to make sure that we do have those safeguards that are absolutely appropriate.We cannot hide from the fact that there are very real risks if we overdo the process but nor should we get so carried away in providing every freedom to surveillance agencies that we do not properly safeguard the rights of New Zealand citizens. That is certainly the balance that the Government wishes to seek. I am personally very comfortable that although these powers are significant powers the reality the seriousness and the pervasiveness of the threat is one that cannot be ignored. I believe it is the appropriate response of this Government and the House to ensure that we do have interim measures in place pending the sunset clause while a more fulsome review can be undertaken. I am very happy to commend the bill to the House.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):It is a sad coincidence that unfortunately this bill is being introduced into the House on the same day that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has looked into the activities of the SIS and seen that it has so woefully failed. It does actually raise a point that I think is very important. We had the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) last year which was seen to have some very serious shortcomings and again we have seen the SIS today. It does raise the issue—which has been brought up before and which has still not yet properly been addressed I believe—that neither of the problems that occurred in those two agencies were revealed by any internal oversight that was happening. The internal oversight completely and utterly failed. The problems were brought out and made public only by scandals that occurred which were subsequently looked into and it was found that those agencies were really wanting in terms of the oversight that we have.We have a system in our intelligence agencies where the Prime Minister is ultimately in charge of both of those organs the SIS and the GCSB. The Prime Minister also chairs the oversight committee—or the supposed oversight committee—of those two organisations and has the casting vote so what chance is there of internal oversight really functioning and working when you have such a system as that? I think it is a major problem in our security apparatus. It is unique to New Zealand. It does not happen in any other country that I know of and certainly in none of our “Five Eyes” partners does that low level of oversight occur.This bill is one in which we have to get the balance right between the security of our citizens and at the same time the protection and the safeguarding of the privacy and human rights of our citizens as well. We know that the world is changing. The spread of Islamic State (IS) has occurred very rapidly and there are perhaps threats to New Zealand that were not around a few months ago. But we also have to recognise that this is a regional conflict that is being internationalised in part by ourselves by the way that the international community is engaging with this regional conflict.John Key said a couple of weeks ago that IS would rain carnage on the world. Look make no mistake this is a nasty brutish organisation but it is not about to bring terror and mayhem into our neighbourhoods tomorrow. It uses terror and atrocities as a weapon but it uses them as a weapon to dominate and control parts—parts—of two countries. It has not been constituted in the same way as al-Qaeda was for example. However it is sophisticated and increasingly it is reaching out to local people including here in New Zealand and asking them to take up arms and requesting those people to leave their own countries and to travel over to Syria and Iraq and have them fight on the ground there for it. It preys upon those people within New Zealand who perhaps have a grudge and might be swayed by that propaganda and who might be on the extremes or who are the outliers of what is in New Zealand an extraordinarily peaceful and productive Muslim community.The question that still has to be asked—and has still to be debated properly I believe—is what impact the Government’s decision to send troops to Iraq will have on the risk that we are facing here in New Zealand. We have according to what we have been briefed on by the security agencies some loopholes or some openings that have left us more vulnerable than what might otherwise give us confidence to believe that we are well covered for. To look at those loopholes and to see what legislative changes are needed is the reason why Labour has said that we will support this legislation’s referral to the select committee where we can actually hear about that.We have two concerns—I certainly have two concerns—and the first one revolves around the issue of process. A short review took place directly after the election followed by the drafting and the pushing through of this legislation before Christmas. That certainly was not the first time that these issues came up. Certainly some of the shortcomings that the SIS our security agency had were known about well before the election and the review could have taken place much much earlier. I do not believe that the Government has been particularly vigilant in terms of what it needed to do to get its house in order rather than rushing it through now and rushing it through means that the select committee process that we are likely to have is going to be truncated. It is going to be much shortened and the people giving the expert advice which we are going to get into as part of that submissions process are going to have much less time to consider the legislation.A third area that has been a casualty of rushing it is that we have not engaged properly with the Muslim community. Phil Goff and I met with senior members of the Muslim community last week and had a chat to them. I believe that they are allies in this process. They could help us considerably in getting this legislation through and help us with regard to some of the things that we want to protect ourselves from but the Muslim community has not been engaged. Therefore in many ways it is seen to be the problem rather than what I believe it is which is part of the solution.The sunset clause as has been discussed just now is there. It is 2018 which is 4 years out. Conceivably and in all probability there will be a different Government in power at that stage. It is a very long way out. We would all hope that the review could be done some time much sooner than that.So it is important to get the balance right between having the protection that we want to seek and at the same time having that protection of our personal freedoms right. Australia for example is putting through legislation for exactly the same reason but it has seen fit to be able to give its Senate select committee a much longer time in which to be able to consider the issues before it. There are some aspects of this bill that have been mentioned up to now that are obviously of concern. We would like to get much more expert advice on these from the people who will appear in front of the select committee. The expansion of the powers of the SIS particularly around video surveillance is in some ways bringing it up to where the police already are. So in some respects that is possibly less controversial but again we would like to hear about that from the experts concerned.The extension of the time for withholding passports from 1 year to 3 years—again I would like to see the evidence for why that is necessary first of all and secondly to make sure that the checks and balances are in place the review is there and the ability to appeal is there so that people are not unnecessarily disadvantaged.Lastly the point I want to mention that is perhaps the most important is the 48-hour period when warrantless searches can take place—surveillance can take place without a warrant. I do believe that 48 hours in today’s world is too long. We have telephones emails—everything that we demand is beyond what we need and I do believe that we can look at that and certainly modify it considerably.Lastly the cancellation of the travel documents of people who are travelling and who are thought to have taken part in terrorist activities—we need some way of getting those people back. We simply cannot leave them stranded on the other side of the world without travel documents. That would not be responsible of New Zealand as a global citizen.So we need a good process. We need to address those fundamental issues carefully. We need to deliberate carefully. We need to hear from the experts. That requires time—it should not be hurried. It needs time for public opinion and for the public to be able to take a proper look at this as well and as we see it at the moment I regret that that is probably not going to happen.Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources):It is really a privilege to speak on what is a serious bill and a very serious topic that is going around the world at the moment. Parliaments certainly in the common law world are grappling with legislation like this. I think it does have the capacity to show parliaments and this one as well at their best. We have got to hear so far universally thoughtful contributions from members—not necessarily in entire agreement but certainly in agreement on the main issues and risks and on what it is that this sort of legislation should be trying to achieve. Like my colleague Amy Adams I would say that this should be and I think it has the capacity to be so far—certainly with Labour National and other parties—a bipartisan issue where reasonable people can come together and work through the issues constructively to find common ground.I accept some of the things that David Shearer has said that there is this effectively balancing between the risks and the need for protection and security in New Zealand vis-à-vis also those undeniable and fundamental rights of privacy and freedom and the freedoms that we as New Zealanders again as Amy Adams said sometimes do take for granted—the rights and freedoms that should be cherished. It is a sort of balance again or an argument again between not being complacent about the very real risks that although in this country are not at the level of risks in some other countries such as the United Kingdom which very recently raised its threat profile again are nevertheless risks. It is about not being complacent about those and balancing those against not having an over-the-top burdensome approach where there is no freedom to do anything because we are tying everything up.Well we of course are very far from that in this bill. We have a targeted approach to identified risks. In my portfolio of transport for example some have called for universal screening at all airports in New Zealand. In my view although we should not be complacent about the risks around all airports in New Zealand and although in a sense we are always reviewing airport security we would not want to act disproportionately. We would not want to have an untargeted approach where the risk clearly does not justify it and where it is out of proportion to the threats. This bill I think is not in that category. As I have said it is one where we are acting as a country in a targeted fashion against identified risks to keep New Zealanders safe.I did not agree with David Shearer in his comments around why now. Why does this have to be passed before the end of the year? I say this quite simply to David Shearer and I reiterate what the Attorney-General has said—as the IRA once said: “We only have to be lucky once.”Hon Phil Goff: Yeah but the English are giving their Parliament until May next year on the same legislation.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That is not to say Mr Goff that we should be alarmist. That is not to say that we should be anything other than realistic about the threats that are there but I do think it means that where we have had a review and where we are in a position to act we should. That is what we are doing and that is I think a strong enough reason to ensure we do work on this expeditiously. There will be time enough actually to take on board the legitimate concerns that David Shearer has raised for example and to work through those at the select committee.I know that the Attorney-General is famously a reasonable man who has according to a discussion I have just had with him been listening to some of the critique on the technical parts of the bill. I have no doubt that there is the capacity for movement on some of that to ensure that this is the best law that it can be for New Zealand and New Zealanders.Of course this bill does focus on our ability to manage the threats posed by foreign terrorist fighters. The issue of foreign terrorist fighters is fast evolving as a threat to New Zealand as well as other countries. I think we all know now that it is the top priority for our SIS. The objectives of this bill are to counter the threats posed by foreign terrorist fighters by providing statutory powers: firstly to investigate and monitor suspected and returning foreign terrorist fighters and other violent extremists; and secondly to restrict and disrupt the ability of suspected foreign terrorist fighters to travel to conflict zones.I think there is no question and I believe that for the most part this Parliament takes national security and the obligations around that very seriously indeed. New Zealand is no longer the benign environment in terms of threats that many people think it is. We do have as a Parliament as well as a Government an obligation to ensure that New Zealanders are safe here at home and abroad bearing in mind my comments about doing that in the most targeted proportionate way that we can. We do not want to see as a country New Zealand or New Zealanders as the target or source of any sort of violent extremism. Parliament has to take responsible proportionate steps in the short term—and it is doing so in this bill—to deal with the immediate threat to our national security.It is the rapidly changing security environment that really is driving the legislative changes. As I have already said the bill is tightly focused so as to address the known and the current risks ahead of a more comprehensive review of the core New Zealand intelligence community next year. And of course it is that review and putting in place the recommendations that will come from it that mandate the 2018 sunset clause in this bill. If we could have the review concluded and have the changes before then well that date could move as well. But we are focused on responsibly addressing the risks that the rapid rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) present to us locally regionally and—as we know not through this bill necessarily but through other efforts; humanitarian military and so on—abroad as well.I echo the comments of David Shearer about the rise of ISIL. Here we have a situation where there are concerns that there are New Zealanders who are currently offshore fighting who are interested in travelling for the purposes of fighting or who have returned from fighting and are radicalising others and becoming radicalised themselves. That sort of threat whilst not to be overdone is real and present and justifies the response in this bill. I know that although the bill will have a relatively brief time before the select committee all members there will put their diligent and thoughtful minds to this issue and that at the end of the select committee’s consideration we will have a bill that makes New Zealand a more safe country for New Zealanders.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill is another example of the arrogance of this Government something the Prime Minister swore on election night that he would ensure in his third term he would not display. This is not the first time the Government has raised an issue softened the public with vague statements of putative concern paused tantalisingly with the drafting of the legislation and then rushed the product through under urgency as if the world were suddenly teetering on the brink of disaster. For those bewildered by current New Zealand politics the key to a broad understanding is Crosby/Textor.The Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service just advised the House that he was cooperating with what he called the two large beasts of New Zealand politics—National and Labour. He appears to have provided copies of the bill to the New Zealand Law Society and other organisations in the course of last week but not to two Opposition parties—New Zealand First and the Green Party. In doing so he impugns the constitutional system he spoke so eloquently about respecting in the urgent debate that he finished less than an hour ago. He owes New Zealand First and the Green Party an apology. What he thinks or what his party might think of our parties is irrelevant to the integrity of the constitutional system. The Government having claimed that there are about 40 citizens on the Government’s watch list some of whom the Minister dismisses as juvenile fantasists having upgraded the threat of terrorism in the country from very low to low feels the need to extend the powers of surveillance over potentially all of us—a whole new take on the nanny State.On a quick read while the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service was introducing the bill which had just been put on the Table the bill appears to change a number of provisions governing State surveillance. It includes the following: an increased ability for the SIS to conduct surveillance including under warrant on private premises or for 48 hours with no warrant. Secondly the SIS and police will have direct access to the Customs Service database. Thirdly passports can be suspended for up to 3 years I think if the Minister thinks the targeted person is a danger to New Zealand or other countries. They can be suspended by the Minister for up to 10 days without having a briefing of the situation provided. They can be suspended with no notice being provided for 30 days if the Minister is satisfied that giving notice to the targeted person would put an investigation at risk. They can be suspended when the targeted person is outside the country. On these bases the bill may well be seen as breaching fundamental human rights and seriously restricting access to justice for targeted people who are overseas. The bill could potentially see an innocent person trapped outside New Zealand and living illegally in another country. Challenging its findings will be difficult given that national security interests are competing—catch-22. No information has been provided on how evidence gathered would be used in courts. Is warrantless surveillance admissible in court if a subsequent warrant is not sought?The bill is fundamentally a matter of balancing national security interests and individual privacy rights. We are aware of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and what the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service describes as the rapid evolution of the threat. I say to the Prime Minister that the case for national security overriding individual privacy has not been sufficiently made. I invite the Prime Minister to recall the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 3 stipulates that “Everyone has the right to life liberty and security of person.” Article 13 states that “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement … (2) … and the right to leave any country including his own and return to his country.” Article 15 says that “Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”—or her nationality. I invite the Prime Minister to recall Ben Franklin’s observation that those who are prepared to give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. I invite him to reflect on a modern theorist John Rawls who in his A Theory of Justice argues that “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. … the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.” We shall have more to say on these issues as the bill progresses in haste over the next short while.For this first reading probably the most appropriate thing to do is to complement the observations of the political theorists with a practical letter from a member of the New Zealand public. The writer who lives in Hamilton is not as he put it a serial writer. In fact it is the first letter he has written to Parliament in his entire life which gives it more authenticity and indeed poignancy when you listen to what he has to say: “New Zealand is in my view descending into an irreversible state of surveillance verging on soft totalitarianism. It sounds like an overstatement but I don’t think it is and I am becoming increasingly astonished by the speed with which it’s happening. New Zealand is relaxed verging on laissez-faire on the subject of surveillance. New Zealand it seems is equally relaxed about accepting smokescreen politics from the Prime Minister in regard to the reasons for that surveillance. There is unquestionably barbarity of a nature and on a scale the average New Zealander cannot comprehend currently taking place in the Middle East but that barbarity shouldn’t be used and spun into justification to treat New Zealanders like enemies of the State in their own country while going about their own lawful business. People don’t seem to realise”—he says—“that once their basic rights to privacy are removed by the State they will never know them again. Indeed our children and their children will never know privacy and selective anonymity in the way you and I did when we were kids.”The writer focuses on one issue in particular. “One of the things I find most difficult to fathom”—he says—“is the argument that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Do those who use that line realise they are quoting Hermann Goebbels?” The writer goes on to say: “The way the Government managed so easily to spin opposition to surveillance as an act of criminality or an irrational left-wing conspiracy theory through the media prior to the election was astounding. I have no faith in the Government to protect the people of this country in regard to this matter. There is no doubt in my mind that it will act in the interests of foreign administrations before it will give consideration to the long-held freedoms our forebears enjoyed and defended. Once they are gone they are gone for good.” He concludes by asking Opposition parties to show due diligence in Parliament to defend the rights of New Zealanders when the topic of surveillance in all its manifestations is raised: “I think this is one of those situations where possibly the public do not understand what is happening due to the specialist technical knowledge required to grasp modern surveillance. By the time a critical mass gets it their rights will have long-since disappeared.”Let me assure our compatriot from Hamilton—a true patriot; a patriot to New Zealand’s adherence to universal human rights—that the Green Opposition will show due diligence in this Parliament in critiquing this bill.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First will support this bill’s referral to the select committee but not necessarily any further. There are a number of complex issues to consider and we will not be a rubber stamp. We want a common-sense solution to the tension between human rights and the need to restrain misguided Kiwis from leaving to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in its quest for genocide and its other extreme atrocities in pursuance of an Islamic State. Concerning Syria and Iraq within a matter of weeks we have gone from keeping a watching brief to the commitment of a handful of advisers operating behind the wire to—we understand—about 40 trainers along with about 60 SAS members to act as protection for them in front of the wire. If ISIS did not know of New Zealand before it most certainly does know us now. We are now an active and direct enemy with all of the national security ramifications that go with that. Our risk profile has certainly been raised.Turning to the bill itself why the rush now given that foreign fighters have been going to Syria and Iraq for months if not years? We have been horrified by “Jihadi John” and similar stories even from France for the best part of a year and we are of course concerned about possible Kiwi jihadis too. But this Government has dithered and is now pressing the pedal to the metal without a parliamentary debate on the commitment of New Zealand forces. Such a debate did of course happen elsewhere especially in the United Kingdom so why was such debate and democracy sidelined here? The Government is rushing through this bill as a stopgap expecting all parties to rubber-stamp it—some as in the case of New Zealand First without any consultation. The bill is in fact too late and too little to protect New Zealand’s interests and we are given the excuse that a more comprehensive review is needed in about 6 months’ time.New Zealand First does not believe that New Zealand troops should be put into Syria or Iraq for the purpose of supporting any Government under attack by ISIS. We sensibly did not support the Iraqi war which was the cause of the current situation and we should not now enter the mess that is the result of that war—a messy multi-level armed conflict that straddles religious tribal and ethnic lines and national boundaries. It will have an uncertain outcome and is likely to go on for many years. In the end nothing will ultimately be resolved by conflict and the massive loss of life. There is of course an exception: New Zealand should always follow United Nations action to protect populations and people against genocide and persecution. But that is not the context for the current decision to deploy troops. The Government is sailing into unknown territory not really knowing what the objective is.In relation to this bill we support the proposed comprehensive review of legislative settings and a broader intelligence review to be completed before June 2015 even though that is far too late and we support some of the proposals in the bill going to the select committee. We support the proposal of a 3-year cancellation of passports instead of 1 year going to the select committee where we will hear what others have to say before we make a final decision. On the face of it however that period may be justified where the individual concerned is likely to act against New Zealand’s interests and is likely to continue to do so for an extended period of over 1 year. That is entirely consistent with New Zealand’s obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2178 which encourages States to act to prevent intending foreign terrorist fighters from leaving to join ISIS and to fight with it.If New Zealand troops are to be put in harm’s way they need to be supported even if they should not be there. We must not allow some misguided Kiwi adventurers or jihadis to fight against our own troops but the cancellation of a passport for 3 years is a very serious matter and we will need to consider that further. We do however note that the safeguards are included in the bill by which those concerned may seek a review every year and they of course always have the right to resort to the courts. Although we acknowledge the safeguards in respect of human rights built into this bill those rights are always subject to the right of the whole community to protect New Zealand’s interests and a 3-year cancellation may be justified in those circumstances.Turning to the SIS visual surveillance authority it is logical that this be the same power as the police have with a warrant. Safeguards and overview are built into the process but New Zealand First will examine the adequacy of those safeguards and the sufficiency of the overview before we make a final decision on whether to support it. However 48 hours without a warrant is far too long. New Zealand First would support 24 hours but not 48. The Government frankly would need to get its act together within 24 hours to get a warrant where such a serious invasion of personal privacy is involved and 48 hours is much too tempting for a service that has shown scant regard for the law in the past. I do not see why it should take 48 hours to get a warrant. Another has said that with cellphones the internet and so on these days—well frankly even carrier pigeons could carry messages fast enough within 24 hours let along 48.New Zealand First is concerned about the sunset clause for expiry in 2018. This parks the matter conveniently until after the next election. It must be reviewed before then and in fact before the 2017 election so that we do not have the same dithering that we have seen this year. The New Zealand public do have a right to have a say and ultimately to have a say with their vote. That should not be removed by the timing of the sunset clause until after 2017 has passed.As I have said New Zealand First will support the bill going to the select committee but as I have also said we want some changes if we are to support it further. We want to hear the argument in support of the 3-year period for cancellation of a passport which is very long. We will make a final decision on that later. We are certain however that 48 hours for surveillance by the SIS without a warrant is far too long and is not justified. We want to see a change to that in particular. Finally as I have said the sunset clause expiring in 2018 is about a year too far away and we definitely want to see that happen before the 2017 election. For the time being however New Zealand First will vote in favour of the bill going to the select committee but we certainly may change our minds after we see what the final bill looks like.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand that the next call is a split call. David Seymour—5 minutes.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT):I rise in support of this bill in its first reading. It would be tempting to stand up and say that those who would sacrifice any freedom for security deserve neither but it would also be churlish because our heritage in a classical liberal country is actually that that is precisely what we have done. We have just managed to circumscribe State power very well and get a good bargain for the freedom we have given up in various times in order to seek State security.There are three measures or substantial parts of this bill that I regard as being changes in degree rather than any particular principle. Extending the period of passport withdrawal to 3 years with annual reviews is one of those measures. A temporary 10-day passport cancellation and extending powers already available to one Government agency the Police to the same as the SIS I also regard as falling into that category.However the relationship between the power of the State and the freedom of the individual is one of the most important topics that we will ever debate in this House. When it comes to the idea of 48-hour warrantless surveillance that is quite different from the other measures we are debating. It is not so much a change in degree as a change in principle. We are told by the proponents of this measure that there are so many safeguards that it will never be a real threat to human liberty. If that is indeed the case then the logical answer would seem to be to just get a warrant.Notwithstanding that I believe that there are urgent needs to be addressed within this bill. With that in mind I will be voting for this bill to proceed to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee so we can interrogate examine and advance the bill into something that will be somewhat easier to support. Thank you.Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future):In the time that is available to me I want to make four points about this bill. Firstly I am prepared to vote for it to go to the select committee for wider consideration. Second the bill has three parts to it that attract my attention. Part 1 of the bill deals with changes to the Passports Act and as the responsible Minister at the moment I can say that in my view I think these changes go some way towards addressing what is an unsatisfactory situation at present. At present a passport can be withdrawn for a period of only 12 months. It can be further cancelled subject to the determination of a High Court judge. That has never happened and the fact is no one is entirely clear about what the process would be for actually following that through. So the provision to have the 3-year period with the capacity for an annual review by the Minister is I think an appropriate one in the circumstances. In most cases I suspect it will mean that at the end of 12 months the cancellation will lapse. So I think that is a good and a practical and positive step forward.Part 2 of the bill makes a number of changes to our intelligence laws. I have real problems with a number of those areas. I think the 48-hour rule which has been clearly the subject of a lot of debate in the House this afternoon is Draconian. It does go too far and I do not believe that it is justified despite the additional safeguards that have been built into the legislation since the first draft of the bill was being circulated. I think that is something the select committee does need to pay a lot of attention to.Last year this House debated changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation and also some consequential changes for the SIS. One of those changes which I promoted was that there be 5-yearly reviews of both those services commencing no later than 30 June 2015. In that context I find the 2018 sunset clause to be too far. I think what should happen is that the Intelligence and Security Committee should be empowered to review the operation of this legislation by 1 April 2016 alongside its review of the activities of those two services to see whether the provisions in this bill are still necessary at that point. If they are then it would bring separate legislation before the House. If not then they would be allowed to lapse. I think that would deal with a lot of concern that people have about the nature of the proposals being advanced and also give some sense that they are interim measures pending the outcome of a wider review. It is one thing to have accountable security services but if you have that you have to ensure that you allow that legislation to operate effectively.My real concern about this bill—although I acknowledge the circumstances that led to its introduction—is that it effectively cuts across a regime of supervision that this House put in place just over a year ago and that has not yet played out its first iteration. So it would be entirely appropriate in my mind for the review that commences by 30 June next year to be brought forward a little bit if timing is a concern and then for any changes that flow out of that review to be incorporated in a fresh statute which could be introduced during the term of this Parliament if the issue that we are concerned about is still as prevalent and as prominent as at the moment.Finally can I be allowed to quibble on one point. I find the title of this bill overly emotive. This is an amendment to various aspects of security legislation. I think the title is hyperbolic and overly emotive and I urge the select committee to give some consideration to reworking that as well during its consideration.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call I understand is a split call. Five minutes—Catherine Delahunty.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Hyperbolic is indeed the word but this bill is worse than hyperbole. It is extending the powers of an incompetent Government agency that has just had to apologise to the Opposition. It is a bizarre day in the history of the New Zealand Parliament today—a very dark day in terms of accountability and transparency. This bill to our shame is going to increase the lack of protection and safety for the very people it claims to protect.The Green Party is very proud to stand alone in this House having opposed this bill from day one because it is not going to look after civil liberties and human rights and what is worse it is not going to make the world a safer place. If the test is whether the world will be safer because of these provisions the bill has failed. If you actually look at the bill the title does not even connect to the provisions which is why so many people concerned about human rights and liberties are questioning the broad powers that are being given to the SIS in this bill that can then be applied to anyone who is a dissenter.The current furore over the despicable behaviour of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a great opportunity to extend the powers of an agency that has failed us already. Its ability to conduct coherent and responsible surveillance of our citizens—we have the example of Tūhoe. We need to remember our history. We need to remember that the SIS is apologising today for a reason: it was inappropriate it bordered on losing its neutrality and it appeared to be working one part of the State against another. And now we propose to extend its powers so that it does not even need a warrant for 48 hours of surveillance of people’s homes because the Americans have told us to do it?It is beyond a joke. It is a very serious moment when this starts to happen to the citizens of this country. I am speaking as someone who has had the SIS following me around at the age of 15. If you read the blog of Keith Locke he has also experienced a lifelong surveillance. We come from families of peace activists. Those are the people who get surveilled. The people who fight for peace peacefully are at as much risk as the juvenile fantasists who want to join the jihad. So why is this bill so broad? Why is there a short tiny select committee process? Why is there urgency? And why will the provisions go on to 2018? I am as appalled as anyone by the fundamentalism that has been let loose upon the world. Whether it is the United States fundamentalism or whether it is other fundamentalist groups in the Middle East any form of fundamentalism will not be cured by paranoid surveillance States. What we are doing is creating and radicalising people who will then take unspeakable actions against society. Based on paranoia fear and surveillance we are saying that we are going to live in a low-trust society and we will push those people into acts that they should never do. We will be part of the problem. The reason that ISIL has gained so much support is the drones that have been dumped upon the people of North Africa and Iraq at the push of a button somewhere in the United States of America. The uranium missiles that have caused the cancers in the children of Iraq—those are the mechanisms by which you radicalise a population.It is incredibly disappointing to see civil liberties of this whole country attacked in the name of safety. This is not safe. The passport laws as Keith Locke points out probably will not work at all because the definition of terrorist is wrong. There are incredible problems with extending surveillance to the agency that I mentioned which already fails to do its job properly. We do not trust the SIS and we do not trust the Government. I can go back to Ahmed Zaoui. I can go back to this current Government’s behaviour on many issues and say: “We can’t trust you.” I know that today outside this House people are grateful to the Green Party despite the attacks on us for standing up and being prepared to say that this is Draconian this is wrong and this will not make the world a safer place. If we want to end violence we must look at our own behaviour. We will always oppose this kind of legislation. Thank you.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party):The Māori Party rises today in support of the first reading of the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill. But let me make it quite clear from the outset that our support in subsequent stages is conditional upon our concerns being addressed. We agree that all parties should participate in the debate on how best to deal with the evolving threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters but let us first take the issue of the war on terror in our own homes. It is only appropriate on this White Ribbon Day that we consider the horrendous impact of violence wreaked upon far too many families and homes in this beautiful land of ours. On average 14 women are killed every year. We must put a stop to this behaviour by demonstrating leadership. One of our own party stalwarts passed away just days ago as she journeyed to join the White Ribbon ride.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): For your benefit this is a debate on another subject and I would ask the member to come back and just focus on that.MARAMA FOX: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I wanted to draw the parallels between violence away and violence at home. The violence at home—we feel that this piece of legislation may have an impact on the injustices that we see upon our own people Māori in this country if we approve the surveillance and the warrants being heaped out without due consideration. We already see in this country that Māori are 50 percent more likely to be prosecuted 50 percent more likely to be sentenced and 50 percent more likely to have longer sentences for the same crime as non-Māori in this country. We are concerned about that sort of racial profiling in regard to this piece of legislation; hence we wanted to make the correlation between violence in our own country and violence overseas.First let us deal with what is happening here. We think that this piece of legislation will have an impact on our people as I have pointed out. We achieve confidence only if we ask the affected people and involve them in solutions to those issues. We ask how this will occur in such a reduced time for public involvement with a shortened select committee period. We are greatly concerned about the impact of the bill to make it possible to render a person stateless by cancelling their passport. We want to be clear about the practice of accountabilities and transparencies around these decisions. One of the issues raised by the Human Rights Commission is that a basic premise of any measure to address terrorism is that it should not be discriminatory. The commission’s advice raises the issue of ethnic profiling and stereotyping founded on the grounds of discrimination.I think we need to pause and recall the horror in 2001. We all have been affected and scarred by that. But what happened was that there was a fear that indigenous populations who refused to be silent about their concerns at home were viewed if not as terrorists then at least as traitors who were weakening the war effort. In a monograph produced by Dr Joanna Kidman she stated that the issues of national loyalty and cultural allegiance quickly became a question of where people sat on the “axis of evil”—that is the forces of anti-civilisation. In Australia academics suspected of moral equivocation about terrorism were named and shamed in Parliament. Legislation in the United States Britain and Australia all aim to identify people who are presumed to be dangerous or antisocial or who pose a threat to the American British or Australian way of life. The enemy within became interpreted as ethnic minorities and asylum seekers.Of course there is a well-known and public linkage that has been made in our own jurisdiction about a supposed association between Māori activism and terrorist activity. We do not want a repeat of Operation Eight. We do not want to fuel a fire of hate speech that too frequently emerges from any concentration of terrorism associated with particular religions nationalities or civilisations. We have concerns that a reduction in the controls around warrants and an increase of power in regard to surveillance and the removal of passports may negatively impact on the life of Māori already suffering injustice in this country.We have strong and heartfelt concerns about the possible implications of this bill but we also believe it is irresponsible to take a stand without hearing from those New Zealanders who take up the call on human rights on our behalf. We support the first reading to enable that kōrero to happen. Kia ora.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration):I am very pleased to take a call on this very important bill. I want to acknowledge those members who have made what I think have been very thoughtful interventions overall although I have to say how disappointed I am at the interventions from the Green Party. If there is any example of why that party should never be on the Treasury benches it is in this because the very first role of Government is to protect its people.I want to acknowledge the very thoughtful Dr Kennedy Graham. In his suggestion that this smacks of arrogance he does what he often does. He quotes somebody to make his point. In this case it is Benjamin Franklin whose famous quote is thus: “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” He suggests that this is some kind of zero-sum game—that the restriction on liberty is necessary in order to increase safety.Well I want to commend another Benjamin to Dr Graham and he is Benjamin Wittes who wrote a very thoughtful article completely refuting the popular myth that that is what Ben Franklin was actually saying. He goes on to talk about “purchase” not being a metaphor. In 1755 when Ben Franklin made that quote he was talking about taxation not liberty. I encourage Dr Graham to go and read that article because what Ben Franklin was saying was nothing of the sort of the misunderstanding and the myth—that somehow safety and liberty are two ends of a spectrum one necessarily having to give way to the other. I do not accept that. It is absolutely necessary for Governments from time to time to provide some form of surveillance with the necessary protections that go around this.Mr Little—and I acknowledge his promotion to Leader of the Opposition—in his very thoughtful intervention talked about the importance of privacy but of course this is not a matter of principle on privacy. It is a matter of process and a very important one I would accept but nevertheless one that I think this Parliament and many free parliaments around the world have acknowledged is an argument that has already been made. We need to work out what we do in what is a very rapidly evolving situation. I think if anything the events in Ottawa are examples of where vigilance is absolutely necessary.I want to touch on a second point that Dr Graham made about the arbitrary deprivation of the right to nationality. The suspension or removal of a passport does not constitute the removal of nationality or the creation of statelessness.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):The Labour Party has come to the decision that we will support this bill at least as far as to the select committee on the basis that there are some things in the bill that we think are sensible and necessary and also because given that the Government will have the numbers to pass this bill we thought we would take advantage of the Minister’s offer to cooperate and we would see what we could do to improve the nature of the bill so that it was more broadly acceptable.I have to say Minister that the process has been pretty appalling—not the process of your consultation with some Opposition parties; that is fine. But what is appalling is that this bill introduced tonight will pass through its final stages within a fortnight. As long as I have been in this House I have been opposed to the rushing through of legislation under urgency unless there are very good reasons for it. The key question Minister and it is a genuine question that I am going to put to you is that tomorrow the British Parliament—the United Kingdom Parliament—is introducing very similar legislation to this dealing with stopping people returning as terrorists dealing with monitoring air passengers and preventing travel abroad. Our level of threat is considered low. What does low mean? Low means that it is possible but not likely. The British level of threat is much much higher than that. I think it is at a high level if not at an extreme level. But the British House of Commons and the British Government in their wisdom are taking this bill through their normal processes and they hope to have it as part of their law in May 2015.My question is a genuine question Minister: why is this so absolutely urgent that it needs to go through before Christmas given that we have a low threat level when the British are passing similar though somewhat more Draconian legislation which is going through a full select committee process and will take 6 months to do what you are doing in 2 weeks? I think that is a reasonable question to ask.I want to say about this bill that whenever you deal with security intelligence legislation it is a case of balance. It is a case of balancing our responsibility as a Parliament to protect the safety and well-being of our people. I accept that as a responsibility and that is why we are giving full consideration to this legislation. But the other rights that we have to protect are the rights of ordinary and innocent New Zealanders not to be subject to unnecessary invasion of privacy and not to have their fundamental rights such as the right to travel withdrawn. So all legislation of a security intelligence nature needs to balance these rights. I had to balance those rights when I put through the Terrorism Suppression Act in 2002 and that was in the wake of 9/11 and all of the trauma that came with that.I do not doubt that we need to watch closely what the organisation called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is doing. I denounce that organisation unreservedly as being a brutal organisation that commits crimes against humanity and commits war crimes. We do have under Security Council Resolution 2178 an international responsibility to do what we can to prevent New Zealanders going to contribute to an organisation that is committing crimes against humanity. I have no problem with that. I believe that we are obliged to do that.But there are aspects of this legislation that I worry about. One aspect of the legislation is that we can withdraw passports when people are overseas. I am told that having a passport is not the equivalent of being a citizen but the English plan I think is stupid. The English plan is to take away the passport and not to allow people to return. That is incredibly irresponsible. I know that is not the plan of this Government but Minister what I would point out to you is that I cannot see anything in this legislation that legislates for the guarantee that we have been given by your officials that people who have their passports removed while they were overseas would have the absolute right to have travel documents to return to the country of their citizenship. We may be able to repair that in the select committee but it is a concern. What they have discovered in academic research on this is if you were to leave a person without a country to go to then what are they going to do. They are going to go back to their terrorist mates and continue to do the awful things that we do not want them to do.I want to say to the Minister that protecting our people against terrorism might be helped by this legislation but mainly it is helped by two factors. One is that we do have good relationships between people and communities in this country. I have the largest Muslim community in New Zealand in my electorate. I know them to be hard-working law-abiding and decent people. What I do not want to see is legislation either in its form or in the way that it is implemented marginalising and alienating that group. I have dealt with a lot of immigration cases in my time and I know that as soon as we start getting cases where people are denied the right to travel to a wedding or to a funeral because we might have some suspicion about them we are going to target some people whom we should not be targeting. What I would like to find out in the select committee process short as it is is how we prevent that happening. I know right now that the New Zealand Government has the full cooperation of the leadership of the Muslim community. What I do not want to do is to lead them or other people in the community who are not leaders to believe that they should withdraw that cooperation. I have met with the Muslim leaders as has David Shearer—we met them together—and I want to make sure that they have a fair chance to have their voice heard so that they are part of the process and not seen to simply be a target of the process. Harmonious community relationships in New Zealand are vital to preventing support for any terrorist action.The second thing that is absolutely critical is not simply this legislation but it is New Zealand’s reputation for being relatively independent and principled in foreign affairs. This legislation has to be seen alongside a decision to commit troops to Iraq. My worry is we will pass this legislation but actually by doing the wrong thing in the wrong way we could well remove one of the major protections that actually keep this country as a safe place to live in.I also want to get the threat posed by terrorists in some proportion. It is really important to do that. Right now I believe that most New Zealanders are more at threat from methamphetamine-crazed addicts like Antonie Dixon who actually took a samurai sword and started slashing people about. The threat in my office is not that I am worried that an Islamic terrorist will come up the stairs but we deal constantly with people who have serious mental disorders. They are threatening. Some of them have been imprisoned. So before we start going overboard with this foreign fighters terrorist threat let us make sure that we see the threat in proportion.The other thing that I really need to say is that I welcomed the Minister’s speech at introduction and I welcomed his speech in the urgent debate but I contrast his speech with that of Bill English Steven Joyce and Jonathan Coleman. What worries me is that we get a very reasonable speech from the Minister saying that security issues should be above politicking on top of a debate in which leading National Ministers did not have the decency to apologise for politicising the issue of the Security Intelligence Service leaking material to Whale Oil to try to get an issue up based on inaccurate mistaken and misleading information about me. That was repeated by those Ministers over the last 3 years. Not one of them has apologised now that an official report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has found that I maintained my credibility and integrity and that it was the director of the Security Intelligence Service who did not.So Minister by all means we will offer you cooperation but it cannot be on the basis of a fear that I have that if this National Party does not own up to its faults in politicising the Security Intelligence Service and what Phil de Joux and Jason Ede in John Key’s office did how can I be confident that you are not going to politicise the Security Intelligence Service in the future? I would like to believe what the Attorney-General is telling us and I will try to believe that but it is not reflected in the speeches that have been given by some of his senior colleagues in the House in the urgent debate this afternoon.MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney):I would just like to say that we on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee are looking forward to receiving this bill. I know that I am committed to working with my colleagues across the House intensely over the coming days to make sure that people have access to the committee and that they have the ability to make a submission and raise any concerns and get into the detail around the bill.In relation to the title of the bill there were some concerns raised tonight I noted about the title that we have used on this bill—the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill. I think that it is actually a very good title I think it is very accurate and I think we have to be very clear about what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to counter the growing threat that we have inside New Zealand of radicalised terrorist fighters and that is what the bill is about. In relation to what Mr Goff was saying in terms of the legislation that is going to be passed in the UK they are probably a bit more advanced in terms of where their legislation is right now—Hon Phil Goff: No they’re introducing it tomorrow.MARK MITCHELL: Yes I understand that but in terms of what they have now Phil they are probably a bit more advanced in the mere fact that they have had to face some terrible terror attacks on their own soil of course—the serviceman who was attacked with machetes in the street and hacked to death. They have had their public transport attacked with horrible loss of life and injuries. So it is pretty real to them and of course they are going to take all the measures that they can to make sure that they can maintain national security.The one thing that I can tell you about these groups like Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda is that they have an ability to change their tactics and move very very quickly. They can adapt very quickly and actually I think that it is a really good positive signal that we can show as a Government here in New Zealand that we can react quickly as well and that we can act quickly. That is exactly what we are doing. I honestly feel that when it comes to national security—and I hope that we end up in a really good place in this with consensus across the House—it should be something that we should be able to drive consensus through in this House to make sure that we are providing the best possible legislation available to protect our communities.I do not want to overstate it. I agree with Mr Shearer and with Minister Bridges that we do not want to be alarmist. The great thing about New Zealand is that we have one of the best police services in the world. Every night we go to bed and they are out there doing their job and we get up in the morning and we go about our business and we go about our lives. All we are doing here is we are making sure that our intelligence services have got the same ability to be able to go out there and act and allow us to go to bed at night and get up in the morning and go about our everyday life.There is another point that I wanted to make and it is quite important. I was at a function a couple of weeks ago and I was actually there with the Hon Phil Goff. We were farewelling the New Zealand women’s kabaddi team. Kabaddi is a sport that maybe a lot of you have not actually heard about. I do not know how to describe it. It is probably a bit like bullrush. It is highly technical.Hon Phil Goff: Bit tougher.MARK MITCHELL: Yes it is probably a bit tougher as well and actually our women’s team has got a real chance of winning the world championships this year. But one thing that was highlighted there was that the master of ceremonies got up—he was a Sikh Indian—and he said: “The one thing that I can ask is please help us to make sure that we aren’t lumped in with these terrorists and that we don’t start to live in a society that starts to vilify and attack us.”I want to highlight a point that the Prime Minister made in his speech which was a very very good one. He said: “I want to stress that none of these people are representative of the New Zealand Muslim community as a whole. The Muslim community is a peaceful one which makes a valuable contribution to New Zealand. I know the vast majority of Muslim New Zealanders are as distressed by the actions of ISIL and its violent extremist message as anyone else. As a Government we are doing what we can to prevent New Zealanders going off to fight for ISIL and brutally killing innocent civilians in Iraq and Syria.”The last thing I would like to do—I am aware that I have got a short call—is remind the House of exactly what ISIL is all about. It is about the indiscriminate killing and massacring of religious groups of tribal groups. It is about the capturing the torturing the trading in women. It is about wholesale rape. It is about taking people hostage who are trying to do something good those in NGOs delivering aid. It is about detaining them putting them in an orange suit binding their hands taking them out in the desert and chopping their heads off—one of the worst possible deaths that anyone could imagine.Actually we do not want Kiwis going over there and joining the fight and I think we have to take some action to make sure that we do all that we can to prevent that from happening. Sure there are going to be some who are radicalised. There are some who are going to be hard determined and want to go out and be hard determined terrorist fighters. But there are actually probably some on the fringes as well who look at the YouTube clips and watch a Hollywood movie that romanticises and glorifies what these people are doing.But I can tell you right now that there is nothing romantic there is no glory in joining a group that systematically rapes kills and creates absolute havoc everywhere that they go. I can tell you right now that when you decide to go and fight with them and you get hit with an improvised explosive device or you get involved in a contact and you have taken a wound to the stomach and there is a bit of intestine hanging out or there is part of a limb missing there is no New Zealand health system that you have access to—right? You will be lying on the back of a ute and you will probably be left there for a good day or day and a half before anyone even tries to assist you or do anything to you. There is nothing romantic about travelling to the Middle East to join a group like ISIL and if we can do something as a country to be able to stop those people from leaving our shores then actually it is incumbent upon us to do that.So I am looking forward to receiving this bill at the committee. I make a commitment—I know along with the rest of the committee members—to work as hard as we can over the coming days to make sure that people get access and can make submissions. Thank you.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill be now read a first time.Ayes107New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes14Green Party 14.Bill read a first time.The question was put that the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be agreed to.Ayes107New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes14Green Party 14.Question agreed to.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service)on behalf of theMinister for National Security and Intelligence: I move That the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill be reported to the House by Tuesday 2 December 2014 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).As the Deputy Leader of the House said when moving the urgency motion this afternoon the Government is proposing a shortened select committee process here due to the urgency of the proposals. The legislation as we have heard in the first reading contains measures that can add to the safety and the security of New Zealand in the short term. It is the Government’s intention that legislation be passed before the House rises for Christmas so that we are in a stronger position to deal with the threats we are seeing. Furthermore and this is very important a more comprehensive review of all relevant legislative settings will occur in a broader intelligence review that is required under law to begin by the middle of next year and it is envisaged a very full select committee process will take place at that time.In the present circumstances what the Government wanted was for this bill to get as much select committee scrutiny as possible within the time available. I realise obviously that the time is short but we have taken some steps to try to address that. For example as I said in my first reading speech a number of organisations including the New Zealand Law Society have received advance copies of the bill to assist with their submissions and I know that the Legislation Advisory Committee has been looking at it as well. [Interruption] I beg your pardon?Tracey Martin: How about the other two political parties—how about them?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well I think that instead of plaintive cries by that New Zealand First member I can assure the House that there will be an opportunity for submissions to be given by the sorts of people whom this House would expect to give submissions. I have already mentioned the New Zealand Law Society and the Legislation Advisory Committee and I know that for example as I said the Legislation Advisory Committee has been looking at the issue. I am confident given the very constrained nature of the bill which is shortly heading to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that we will get good submissions.The issues as they have appeared in the first reading debate we have just had appear to be very focused and defined and I believe we can cut to the chase very quickly. That is why we are seeking a shortened timetable. I am confident that the select committee comprising the sorts of people who are on that committee is going to do a very good job over the coming week.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I move That the words “Tuesday 2 December 2014” be deleted and replaced with “Tuesday 10 February 2015”. The effect of the amendment I have moved would be to extend the report-back time frame from this current year through to the end of the summer adjournment of Parliament to allow the select committee adequate time to give this bill due consideration. I hope that the other parties in Parliament who have expressed similar concerns about the bill will also be supporting this amendment.The Labour Party although we are supporting this legislation and will not impede the progress of the legislation does want to ensure that it is given adequate consideration. We have made a number of efforts to work with the Government to extend the time frame for submissions and we do appreciate the work that the Government has done with us on that. But the reality is that referring the bill to a select committee tonight and requiring it to be reported back in less than a week—by this time next week in fact—does not give the committee adequate time to give the bill due consideration and therefore we are moving the amendment.I want to canvass here that in our goodwill efforts to try to extend the time frame we did canvass whether there was a way to extend the time frame beyond next Tuesday whilst still meeting the Government’s objective of having the bill passed before Christmas. I am told that one of the parliamentary procedures that we come up against is the rule that a bill that is reported back from a select committee must sit on the Table for 3 days before it can be considered again by the House even if the House were to consider it again in urgency. It is an interesting aspect of parliamentary procedure that a bill can be passed from first reading through all stages in a single day under urgency but it cannot be referred under urgency to a select committee for consideration then brought back to the House and considered immediately under urgency for the remaining stages. It still has to sit on the Table for 3 days. That is one of the factors that is constraining the select committee from having that extra time next week to give the bill adequate consideration and on balance it is one of the reasons we are moving this amendment.We want to ensure that the select committee has adequate time to hear from all of the groups who have an interest but also to consider what sensible amendments might be made. Members on this side of the House have spoken particularly for example about the 48-hour warrantless surveillance period that this bill provides for. One of the things that I certainly hope the committee will be able to do is look at some of the alternatives to that—whether it is that the period be shortened from 48 hours to other alternatives including retrospective warrants which is something that the House might not normally consider.There are a number of options that the committee could investigate that I think would provide some elegant solutions to the concerns members have raised. I do not think the committee is going to be able to do that if effectively the only time it has to meet is Wednesday Thursday and Friday this week and then on Monday. That is 4 days that the committee will have to consider the bill and I do not think that in that period of time it will be able to do it justice. Therefore we are proposing to extend the report back date to Tuesday 10 February which would allow the Government to progress that in the first week back should that be what it wants to do.We are not as I have said trying to obstruct the passage of this legislation unnecessarily. We accept that there is a need for some of the passages of this bill to be progressed. However we do not believe that effectively 4 working days is a sufficient period of time for the committee to consider it.I note for example that the Australian Parliament is passing similar legislation at the moment and is allowing both of its Houses of Parliament to give it adequate proper and comprehensive select committee hearings. That is something that we are effectively going to be denying if this resolution from the Government is passed. I also note that the English Parliament will I am advised be introducing legislation tomorrow that it has indicated it will not be voting on again until May. It is giving it that amount of deliberation and that amount of consideration. So if there is a degree of urgency around this I think it is incumbent upon the Government as an obligation to spell out more comprehensively exactly why this needs to be passed before Christmas.One of the things that Parliament did in its changes to the Standing Orders in 2011 was require that where a shortened select committee report back is required—and this is one of the shortest that you could possibly imagine; less than a week—the Minister must specify with some particularity why that shortened period is required. Simply standing up and saying: “We think it is required because we want to get it passed before Christmas.” is not enough. If Chris Finlayson genuinely believes that there was some good reason for this bill to be passed prior to the Christmas adjournment it was incumbent upon him to stand up in the House and spell that out and he simply did not do that.We know that this issue has been kicking around for a good couple of years. The Government was considering these issues several years ago and they were put on the back-burner because of the Government Communications Security Bureau debacle because the Government decided that it needed to get that legislation through first. Of course we know that it needed to get that legislation through first because it got caught in that web of deceit where the Government’s smear machine got caught in the Government Communications Security Bureau scandal. It got caught by that so it wanted to deal with that issue first. But Government incompetence is not a good enough reason for forcing a bill through in the space of a week which is what this Government is trying to do. It is trying to push it through not because there is any more urgency on this than there was several months ago but because its incompetence has meant that it did not deal with it when it intended to which was a long time ago.We have been very clear that we will work with the Government on these issues because they are serious issues and New Zealanders have a right to know that they are being dealt with very very sensibly by Parliament. David Shearer and Phil Goff have made very good contributions—as has our new leader Andrew Little—to this debate spelling out the reservations we have about this legislation but also making it clear that we are not simply taking a blanket position to oppose. We do believe that the issues are serious and that they deserve a proper hearing. How can they get a proper hearing in 4 working days? That is simply insufficient. It will not allow the committee time to do its job properly.If there was a way that this bill could go to the select committee and actually get proper deliberation and be reported back in time for it to be adequately considered by the House then we would certainly be looking to work with the Government on that. We have supported the bill at its first reading because we believe that these issues are worthy of debate but we will not be voting in favour of this truncated report-back motion because we want the bill to be given adequate consideration. Having said that we are not supporting simply extending the time frame indefinitely or for 6 full months as would be the case under the default settings. That is why we have proposed a report-back date in the first sitting week of the House which begins on Tuesday 10 February. It does allow the committee to give the bill adequate consideration. It means that Parliament would be able to then reconsider the legislation at its earliest available opportunity which is the first week that Parliament is back after the summer adjournment and I think that that is a very sensible time frame. We are not being I think unnecessarily obstructive.I want to acknowledge the comments that Mark Mitchell made on the need for a consensus on national security issues. That is something that we in the Labour Party support. We do believe that there should be a consensus on national security issues. That is very difficult to achieve when we have a Government that is willing to use the apparatus of the State in the form of national security agencies to run a vile smear campaign against people who disagree with it which is what we have seen clear evidence of in the House this week and in the public this week. It is simply not good enough.The public need to have confidence that these issues are being dealt with seriously. Part of the confidence that they can have in that process is through having a select committee process where all of the issues are adequately canvassed and where the public of New Zealand have the opportunity to make submissions. The public of New Zealand many of whom will be hearing about this for the first time today when it is debated in Parliament are being told that they literally have a period of about 48 hours to get their views in to the select committee before the bill will be deliberated on and reported back. That is not good enough. That is not going to give the public of New Zealand confidence that these issues are being dealt with adequately and that their human rights are being adequately protected by the legislation.So as I have been very clear about from the outset we are not going to be unnecessarily obstructing the progress of this legislation but we are going to be making it very clear that we want it to be adequately deliberated upon. We want the people who are affected by it to have an adequate opportunity to have their say through a democratic process. This Government is not delivering that. That is why we will be moving this amendment and in the event that the Government votes against the amendment we will be voting against the truncated select committee report-back time frame.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):The Green Party opposes the truncated select committee process for every reason. One is that it is a ridiculous idea. It is an abuse of democracy and it is a tokenistic approach to what people in this House are claiming is an incredibly serious issue. They are so concerned about civil liberties but we are going to have 3 days to talk about it? Get real. This is not OK with us this is not acceptable and it is not a real exploration of the issues. Just because the Law Society and some other bunch of very valuable people—the New Zealand Legislation Advisory Committee—got a heads-up what about everyone else? What about the non-elite? What about the people—the non-lawyers—who are actually going to be affected by this bill? When are they going to get to have a say? They are going to find out that they have got 3 days. There is absolutely no way that we could support this truncated position and there is no terrible urgency if the House is serious about doing this properly which we should be.We have listened to the debate on the substantive issues in the bill and a lot of very serious important issues around a consensus on national security have been raised so what are we going to do with it? We are going to talk about it for 2 days then we are going to rubber-stamp it and we are going to ram it through by Christmas. Very very unimpressive even if we supported the bill which we completely do not. It is a very very unimpressive way to approach serious issues of human rights civil liberties and national security. It is not surprising because the Government does this sort of thing quite a lot but it is not good enough either.We will support Labour’s amendment but we would like to go further than that. We think there should be a proper full process that takes its due time not necessarily just reporting back in February. It should actually give a proper process for a decent select committee hearing so that all of the range of people who have views on this issue such as the experts on civil liberties who are often people who have experienced that loss the communities that are going to be affected and the people who are potentially stigmatised by this legislation—all of those people actually get heard. We agree that there should be a national consensus on national security issues but it is not going to be achieved by this kind of railroading abuse of process. It is a tiny tiny little tick-box attempt at democracy.We all know that the select committee process is not perfect but what we also know is that the select committee process does actually teach MPs things. We learn which is a good thing rather than having us just talking to each other. Actually what we learn from the select committee process is that some of the things that we have drafted are wrong and stupid and that they have unforeseen consequences for people whom we do not normally think about. So it is a really good idea for the widest possible group of people to have input into any law that potentially reduces our human and civil rights.We will not be voting for this bill because we cannot imagine that it is ever going to look like something we could support but we would be a lot happier if the select committee process actually was a proper select committee process.Ian McKelvie: You won’t be happy whatever happens.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: When the member of the House tells me to get real it does not get any more real than this. Today in the House the SIS was heard to apologise. There is a smear campaign being run out of the Prime Minister’s office. We are supposed to be happy about the state of democracy in this country and extend powers to those in the SIS who have been a bunch of incompetents so far in my 61 years of life. We deserve a whole lot better than that we need a whole lot better than that and we will not support this kind of axing of the core democratic things that this Parliament is supposed to be about.So the Green Party is going to oppose this motion. We will support Labour’s amendment because it is better than not extending the period at all but it is not adequate and we are pretty ashamed to even have to hear about this. It is just not good enough. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I have seldom been more flabbergasted by such a ridiculous proposal as this one. In fact I think that the collective New Zealand “flabber” should have never been more “gasted” than by this idiotic proposal. This is absolutely totally unacceptable as a process. It is utterly undemocratic and unseemly for any bill to be dealt with in such haste especially a bill that contains such important issues as this one does. Fundamentally we are being asked to sign off on a 1-week submission period for this bill that has those particularly serious issues to be decided in it. In my speech earlier today I set out a number of the concerns that New Zealand First has over the contents of the bill. It is totally and completely unacceptable to try to deal with those issues in such a short time frame and it is a gross affront to democracy and good parliamentary practice.New Zealand First will therefore support Labour’s amendment to extend the period to 10 February 2015 which I might say is itself an extremely short period for due consideration because of course you have got to take into account the Christmas and New Year period in which very little or nothing would get done so the constructive time for consideration would even then be very short. People need time to digest the bill to understand what it is about to consider what their submissions will be and all of the issues and then to forward those submissions and if necessary to seek to speak on them.As I said earlier today there are some very serious issues to be dealt with. New Zealand First even now is not fully decided upon what its attitude will be to some of them. Most particularly we are very concerned about the proposal for the 3-year cancellation of passports. We do understand why that is being proposed and the arguments for it are valid. On the other hand the cancellation of passports for 3 years is a very long period to be deprived of a basic human right. We would like to hear what others have to say. There will be many people I am sure who will wish to make submissions and who will no doubt bring out as always happens some very good points in the submissions process. We want to hear those. We want to consider those before we make a final decision.The second issue is the 48 hours for visual surveillance without a warrant. That needs to be very seriously considered. New Zealand First is more definite about that. We do not see why 48 hours are necessary and why 24 hours would not be more than adequate in this day and age. We want to hear the arguments about that. If we do not hear the arguments there is no possible way that we could support 48 hours.Thirdly and lastly the sunset date of 2018 is again far too far away—at least a year too far away. We want that date to be 2017 before the 2017 election so that people would then have a genuine opportunity to consider it before the election and if necessary to take that into account in their voting process.New Zealand First was one of the parties ignored when the Government spoke to others—including not just other parties but other entities altogether—about this bill. We were not consulted at all but now we are expected to turn up here in Parliament and just rubber-stamp this stuff. That is not good enough for us. We do not intend to lie down and accept that kind of arrogance. It is a ludicrously short period. We as a political party would find it difficult to fully grapple with the serious issues concerned—Ian McKelvie: That doesn’t surprise us.DENIS O’ROURKE: —and to make a good contribution as a result of such a short period for consideration. If that member opposite Ian McKelvie thinks he can do better he had better upgrade his performance because so far he has not done anything better in the last 3 years in this Parliament. It is about time he upgraded his performance because if he does not he will find himself doing nothing for another 3 years. That is about as good as his performance has ever been or ever could be.New Zealand First will not accept such a short period and no amount of shouting by that member will make any difference to that. We do not want to be unconstructive about this. We accept that it is a serious issue and we accept that it is urgent but we do not accept the kind of arrogance that says that we should have a period of consideration this short. That is not acceptable and we will not be voting for it.We do want to try to reach consensus. If you read my speech from earlier in the day you will see that we made a number of suggestions about how we would be able to support the bill if some changes were made. We want to have the opportunity to fully argue those. What we are seeing here tonight is just the National steamroller at work—more Government arrogance and what we are obviously going to be seeing for the next 3 years. Despite the Prime Minister’s statements on election night that that would not happen we obviously are going to see a very arrogant National Government simply doing what it wants to do without any consideration of the views of anybody else—not just other political parties but anyone else in this country with a view contrary to the Government’s. New Zealand First will oppose this motion. We will support Labour’s amendment. If this process goes through it can result only in a No vote from us simply because we would not have had the opportunity to properly put forward our views and that would not be what our choice would be. We would prefer on an issue like this to try to find consensus but that Government does not seem interested. Well so be it.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany):It is a shame that an issue like this has descended into the hyperbole and the naked politicking that we have seen in the last few speeches. It is true that this is an unusual step that the House is looking to take—to reduce the report-back period down to a week—but this extraordinary step is being taken because this is an extraordinary issue that our country and the world is facing.There is going to be an opportunity for New Zealanders to have a say on this bill. I have confidence in the chairmanship of Mark Mitchell to ensure that New Zealanders will get a fair hearing on this bill. I also have confidence in the Opposition members who sit on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee: Mr Goff Mr Shearer and Dr Graham. They are capable members and they are able to listen to New Zealanders and make constructive assessments as to the merits of this bill.The very reason why a shortened report-back period is being considered here by this House is that we are facing a situation in the world that we do not face very often. It is not a case of us being able to wait months and months. The normal report-back period is 6 months. We simply cannot do our part in the world if we are to wait that long. It is a case where waiting even weeks could be too long. The Government is very clear: we need to take decisive action. We are expected by our electors to take decisive action and that is exactly what is happening here. The time that the select committee will be sitting over the next week will be a good opportunity for New Zealanders to have a say but we do not take this action very lightly. We do this because this is such an important issue.I find it interesting that Mr Hipkins first talked about trying to get this done before the House rises for the Christmas break and then he went on to say that despite the fact that the Labour Party supports trying to get it done before the Christmas break it now wants to see the bill not be reported back until February. We see words like “arrogance” used by New Zealand First which is pretty sad given that it is very important that we take to New Zealanders a bipartisan approach on such important issues.These are extraordinary issues. These are important matters that this bill is dealing with and I think New Zealanders deserve to know in a timely manner what the position of this Parliament is when it comes to these issues and we can achieve that properly through the select committee process over the next week. It can be done. It will be done properly. There are good quality members sitting on either side of the House who sit on that select committee.Denis O’Rourke: How can it be done properly in 1 week?JAMI-LEE ROSS: Mr O’Rourke is not a member of that committee of course. We will do a good job on this bill and I have confidence in the select committee to get it done properly for New Zealanders so that we can do our bit in the world on this very important issue.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):This issue is obviously an important issue where we want to try to get the balance right between our need to protect New Zealanders and at the same time protect our human rights. We have agreed that the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill at its first reading be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee but we have asked for that select committee process and the referral back to Parliament to be set down for 10 February next year rather than next week. Let us just think about that. I mean it is now Tuesday. Tomorrow we will likely meet as the select committee to discuss how we are going to be doing that. We are likely to have just 2 days to hear submissions from some of the organisations that Chris Finlayson talked about—the New Zealand Law Society the Human Rights Commission the Privacy Commissioner and many of those other organisations and others that want to speak. They are going to have 2 days for that. We are going to have to consider deliberate and come back to this Parliament by Monday next week. Well look if we are really serious about the fact that this is an important issue and it is then for heaven’s sake let us give and accord this issue the importance that it deserves by allowing the time that it needs in order to be able to make good quality decision-making around that. Just those organisations themselves have had a very limited time to look through the 47-page bill.When Labour received the bill late last week I spoke to the Prime Minister’s office and said: “Well actually what you should be doing is releasing this bill to every party and to those organisations in particular that you are going to want to hear from because they will inform your decision-making around making this bill which did not come out until Sunday a better piece of legislation.” These organisations and the other parties here in Parliament received it on Sunday and they have effectively 3 days to digest it and to make a decision. That is simply not adequate for a piece of legislation that is as important as this. Let us get it right. We do want to make sure that we get the legislation right and we do want to make sure that it is a bipartisan effort. I think the best way we can do this is through the amendment that Chris Hipkins put forward just a few minutes ago which was to push back the report-back date to Parliament to 10 February.I want to say that apart from those organisations I would particularly like to hear from the Muslim community. I would like the Muslim community in New Zealand to be given the opportunity to come before the select committee. This is certainly targeted at members of the Muslim community. The senior members whom I have spoken to—Phil Goff and I met with them deliberately on this issue last week; we had dinner together with a number of the senior members of that community—are themselves very anxious to make sure that with this legislation the safeguards are put in place so that if there is any person who might step over the line they are apprehended. At the same time they can do a lot to ease the fears of others in the Muslim community that they are being picked on. They need time and they need the ability to come before the select committee and provide their input. I believe that we will as a result of that input both from those organisations we talked about and that community have a much better result than we would have if we did not do that at all.There are some thorny issues in this piece of legislation. It is not simple. We have got the issue of passports which we spoke about before in the first reading. The issue of the 48 hours of warrantless surveillance is an issue that I think many of us feel very uncomfortable about. We have had some feedback from the Government that it is willing to think about options around that. We welcome that. I think it is a good move that we are able to engage honestly on trying to find the best way forward but that takes time. It does not get done in an afternoon. It does not get done after 10 minutes of hearing some body like the Law Society. We are going to need time to be able to deliberate properly. Of course we can meet through the weekend but that still means it is very rushed.A number of members tonight have spoken about and compared the way that we have done this with other countries in the world. We have got Australia which has got two select committees hearing its foreign terrorist fighter legislation as we speak. They are not trying to put it through in the same haste as we are. The Brits have slightly different legislation but in the UK they are introducing the bill tomorrow I think and they will not expect to have a report back until May. That is an adequate length of time that will enable them to give the bill the consideration that it needs to have. We understand the importance of the bill. We are not asking for the bill to take 6 months but we are asking for it to take longer than 2 days because 2 days is effectively what we are going to have when we put this bill up.I think the onus is really on the Government. If the Government wants to put this through in this time period I think it has to make the case to us. It has to say that this is very important because of a security situation right in front of us right now or because of an event that is coming up. What is it that requires us to have this legislation going through so quickly? So far all we have heard is that we need to have it through before Christmas before the House rises for the year. Well that is interesting but that is not really an adequate rationale for putting through a piece of legislation that has so much impact on not only our security but also our human rights our privacy and everything else as well. We want to hear the case. I think the Government owes it to this Parliament and to the people of New Zealand to present the case. Why do we need to have this bill going through the select committee by the end of this week so that we can refer it back to Parliament next week? We have not heard that yet. We have not heard that and I do not think that is reasonable.We are willing to work with the Government. We have said that. We are willing to come alongside. We will do what needs to be done in order to ensure this legislation gets across the line in an adequate and proper way. What we do want to know is why it is that this Government wants to push this bill through in the haste that it does at the moment. For that reason we are supporting and we want to put forward the amendment to reintroduce the legislation back to Parliament on 10 February.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call the Hon Phil Goff.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. That did take quite a while—actually almost as long as what the Government is giving the public of New Zealand to consider this legislation. I think the onus is very clearly on the Government to justify why legislation introduced today has 4 working days for the public to put together submissions and be heard on it before it is reported back next Tuesday. I have been in this House a long time and I cannot think of any legislation of this nature that has been rammed through with such unseemly haste. If the Government were to make the case to us that there were real and imminent threats and that without this legislation New Zealanders would be at much greater risk I would listen to that case. But I have not heard that case put tonight. It has not been put tonight.Our threat level is low. That is the Government’s official threat level—low. What does low mean? Low means that a terrorist threat is possible but it is not likely. The Australian threat level is much higher yet the Australian Government has still been prepared to put its parallel legislation through a full select committee process in both Houses of Parliament—the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the United Kingdom the threat level is either high or extreme. It is much higher than New Zealand’s. The risks are much higher. Has the Conservative Government in the United Kingdom suggested that it rush through legislation in 2 days? No it said that it is putting it on a fast track. Do you know what a fast track means? That it hopes to have it back in the House of Commons by May of next year—May of next year. So our two Westminster democracies that we would compare ourselves with have chosen to deal with similar legislation in a quite different way.Normally when we introduce a bill to the House we give people 4 to 6 weeks to put together considered submissions. We hear submissions over 2 to 4 weeks. We then wait for a departmental report and that might take a couple more weeks and then we have a couple of weeks for consideration and deliberation. On a fast track we might do that in 14 weeks; on a normal track we would take 6 months. This Government wants to do it in a week—1 week. I am asking sincerely for the Government to put up any speaker who can tell us why the threat is so urgent in New Zealand that we have to disregard normal democratic process and have 4 working days to hear submissions.David Shearer and I have worked closely with the Government. I am sorry that the Government has not worked closely with New Zealand First and the Green Party. David Shearer and I suggested last week that the bill could have been introduced last week so that it was on the Table for everybody to read. The Government chose not to take our advice on that. It did take our advice that it should go out last week to a number of important organisations like the Council for Civil Liberties the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions the New Zealand Law Society the Human Rights Commission the Privacy Commissioner and the New Zealand Federation of Islamic Associations. I am glad the Government picked that suggestion up but there are hundreds and hundreds of people out there who will be worried about this legislation and will want a chance to have their voice heard. What is a democracy about? It is about giving ordinary New Zealanders the chance to have a say on the legislation that rules their lives. Are they being given this chance? Most New Zealanders will be excluded from having their say by this Government’s decision.Chris Hipkins’ amendment is a very sensible reasonable one. If the Government is really worried let us come back early from our holidays. Is the Government prepared to do that? I do not think so. What is wrong with 10 February as a date by which the select committee reports back on this legislation? Why do we need time? Because the issues we are considering in this legislation are fundamentally important issues. Yes we have a responsibility in this House to protect and safeguard New Zealanders. We also have a responsibility to protect and safeguard their rights. We are introducing to the SIS for the first time the right to have surveillance without a warrant for 48 hours. I am worried about that. Why does it take 48 hours? That seems totally unreasonable to me. Will we be able to consider that properly in 4 working days?We are introducing legislation that will take passports off people while they are overseas. Maybe in some cases it is necessary but I want to know the implications of that. Have we got a watertight guarantee that we are not going to leave people stranded on the other side of the world unable to come home? I am told that the intention will be to give them travel documents. But that is not in the bill. How do we know that it is going to happen? We are going to give visual surveillance powers to the SIS. It may well be justified but let us consider it carefully because this is another intrusion into the lives of people. I am not worried about the terrorist; I am worried about ordinary innocent people finding that they have had an invasion of their privacy and a loss of rights that might not be proper. When we deny passports to people there are some cases where we ought to do that. But I want to know that the Government has thought this through thoroughly and that we do not take passports off the family that happens to be Islamic and from Pakistan or Iraq or Syria—I have all of those communities in my electorate. I want to know that when they have got a wedding or a funeral to attend there is not going to be an arbitrary removal of their passport. What are the safeguards? Have we covered ourselves off properly on this?Let us look at the way this legislation has been handled. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been around all year. Why did we leave it until now 3 weeks before we rise for Christmas to bring in the legislation? Why did the Government not act earlier? The officials were given 4 weeks to do a review. Normally officials would do a review like this over a year. So they may have made mistakes. I looked at the departmental disclosure statement. How many members of the Government ranks have read this and have spoken on it? Any? No you have not. What does it say? External consultation. Has there been any external consultation on the policy to be given effect by this bill? It says: “Consultation occurred within Government.” That is nice—within Government. It says: “External consultation was not undertaken given the nature of the subject matter addressed by the bill”—I do not know why that would be the case—“and the limited time available to conduct the review and develop legislation.” So we rush the officials to prepare a report in 4 weeks. We do no external consultation. We give ordinary New Zealanders a period of time that they cannot possibly meet to make submissions and we are dealing with basic constitutional issues here that we desperately need to get right because if we do not get them right it will be counter-productive to the objective of the legislation.This is an appalling abuse of process. There will be 4 working days for New Zealanders—actually they do not have 4 working days to make a submission; they have got 2 working days. If they are lucky they are listening to the debate tonight and they can say: “Hell we’d better do something quickly.” Most of them will not even know that there is a bill here before the date for closing submissions comes upon them. How can that be good? How many times have we seen in this House the Government putting legislation through in haste and getting it wrong? There is a reason why we have a select committee process. It is so that people can have an input so that people can have confidence about the legislation that we are passing and so that we can bring people onside with what we are doing so that they understand that what we are trying to do is in the wider interests of New Zealand and that we are listening to them so we get it right. There are huge risks in doing this. I put it to you that there are very few risks in allowing this legislation to be heard at the select committee and reported back by 10 February next year. It would still be fast-tracked but at least it would give people the reasonable opportunity to make submissions on this bill to help make sure we get it right.This is an abuse of process. This has not been justified. I am waiting and waiting for the Government side to come out with an argument as to why it is doing this. I am listening in good faith and I am hearing nothing—nothing—that justifies rushing this legislation through. I will be sympathetic to elements of this legislation but I am not at all sympathetic to the way the Government is trying to ram this through the House because I believe that we will get fundamental things wrong and we will act in haste and repent at leisure on legislation that does not have the effect we want it to have—to protect New Zealanders their safety and their rights.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the words “Tuesday 2 December 2014” be deleted and replaced with “Tuesday 10 February 2015”.Ayes59New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2.Noes62New Zealand National 60; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill be reported to the House by Tuesday 2 December 2014 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).Ayes62New Zealand National 60; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes59New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2.Motion agreed to.Education Amendment Bill (No 2)Second ReadingHon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):I move That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. I wish to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee for their thorough consideration of all aspects of the bill. A significant number of submitters were heard by the committee reflecting strong public interest.The bill introduces a range of measures that will provide strong professional leadership for the teaching profession strengthen and lift the status of the profession promote quality teaching and leadership and increase public confidence in the integrity and quality of the teaching profession.I also wish to acknowledge the many organisations and individuals who made submissions on the bill and who attended hearings often travelling some distance to do so. These submissions informed the consideration of the committee. As a result the committee has recommended changes to improve the bill.I will speak on the changes recommended to the parts of the bill concerning the audit and moderation functions of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) the membership of EDUCANZ and the disciplinary framework. My colleague the Hon Steven Joyce will speak in more detail about the tertiary and international education aspects of the bill.The bill responds to issues identified through an extensive review and consultation process that included a review of the professional body for teachers the New Zealand Teachers Council in 2012. The review found that the council as currently structured governed and positioned was not best placed to lead the education profession. The bill establishes the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand which will be a new independent professional body for the education profession replacing the existing New Zealand Teachers Council. I would like to again express my thanks to the New Zealand Teachers Council for the outstanding work that it has done over the duration of its existence and thank it for the work that it will continue to do until the new body is in place.The quality of teaching and education leadership has a direct impact on educational success. Supporting a transformed professional body is one of a number of reforms by this Government to influence the quality of teaching leading and learning and is the cornerstone of our quality teaching agenda. Other initiatives include the $359 million investment in professional career pathways over the next 4 years. These roles will recognise and use talent where it is needed most. They will be implemented from next year to support communities of schools across the country. Importantly the pathways will have a focus on supporting teachers to collaborate to lift achievement.The annual Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding achievements in early childhood education primary and secondary schooling and secondary-tertiary transitions. The inspiredbyU website is where people can write public postcards of thanks to their inspiring teachers. The education festivals in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch showcase school best practice to each other to parents and to the community and celebrate what is happening in our schools. There are the new postgraduate qualifications in initial teacher education and the sector-led review of professional learning and development. The teaching profession makes a powerful contribution to lifting student achievement. This Government is backing our teaching profession to win—in policy in practice in funding and in law.The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) has three main objectives. The first is to ensure that New Zealand’s education sector is equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern learning context. To meet this objective the bill establishes EDUCANZ as an independent statutory professional body led by a board appointed on the basis of skills and experience for teachers and education leaders across early childhood education and schooling. Teaching needs a strong professional body that provides leadership to and is owned by the profession. As an independent statutory board EDUCANZ will use its skills expertise and authority to provide important leadership and regulation for the teaching profession. EDUCANZ will promote educational leadership accountability and high standards within the system; help to drive continuous improvement by strengthening and streamlining quality assurance processes; and establish a regulatory framework for the protection of children and for discipline.The second objective is to create a regulatory environment that promotes accountability and high standards. To achieve this the bill will strengthen the regulatory framework for teaching to ensure consistently high standards of entry into the profession and ongoing competence of teachers and education leaders. The bill clearly separates registration which recognises that a graduate is qualified to become a member of the profession from the issuing of practising certificates which recognise the competencies and experience required to work successfully as a teacher.The third objective is to drive continuous improvement in the education sector by clarifying streamlining and strengthening processes. As such the bill will bolster and simplify the disciplinary regime to ensure that there are high standards of conduct and that the response to possible misconduct is timely effective and fair.The bill generated a lot of public interest which was reflected in the number of submissions received by the Education and Science Committee. The committee has carefully considered all of the submissions and as a result a small number of changes to the bill have been recommended. These changes help further clarify the intent of the bill and the functions of EDUCANZ. By a majority the committee has recommended a change to the membership requirements for the council to the effect that at least five members must be registered teachers who hold a current practising certificate. As originally drafted the bill required a maximum rather than a minimum. It also required that members be registered teachers but did not specify that such members must also hold a current practising certificate.The bill’s intent was that the council of EDUCANZ would have a strong core of members with current teaching experience as well as broader skills in governance financial management leadership and understanding of partnership principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I am very supportive of this recommendation as it clarifies the membership requirements as well as the intent of the bill.By a majority the committee has recommended a change to one of the functions of EDUCANZ. EDUCANZ is required to undertake audit and moderation of the assessment process and the issue of at least 10 percent of practising certificates in each year. The change clarifies that the purpose of this function is to ensure that both the process undertaken by professional leaders for the issue of practising certificates and examples of such achieve the required standard and consistently so.The committee has also recommended a number of technical amendments—for example providing more precise specification of some details regarding mandatory reporting requirements ensuring all mandatory reports are made in writing and including concerns about teachers who rather than resigning merely finish a fixed-term appointment. Previously these teachers were not covered by the reporting regime. The amendments clarify that EDUCANZ may charge for the provision of goods and services consistent with its functions and provide increased transparency in response to the recommendations of the regulatory review.By a majority the committee has recommended some technical amendments regarding the powers of the complaints assessment committee to provide for consistency in committee procedure. These ensure the committee’s powers relate only to matters that are not serious misconduct as these matters are to be dealt with by the Education Council Disciplinary Tribunal. Changes also clarify that the complaints assessment committee may take more than one of the actions open to it.The Government intends to support the amendments recommended by the majority of the committee. We want to build on the good practice that occurs in schools every day and support the education system to promote high professional standards performance and accountability and thereby continue to raise achievement for all children and young people.To conclude the bill introduces a range of measures that provide strong professional leadership strengthen and lift the status of the profession promote quality teaching and leadership and increase public confidence in the integrity and quality of the teaching profession. I am confident that this bill supports the Government’s aim of strengthening and raising the status of the teaching profession and the quality of teaching and leadership within it. I now commend the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):If Hekia Parata was actually backing the teaching profession to win and was actually focused on raising the status of the profession then perhaps one way to start would be to give the teaching profession some degree of control over the professional body that is now going to regulate it and that it is going to be paying for. But no that is not what this Government is going to do. This Government so confident in its views on education and so confident that it knows better than the profession is going to take complete control of the regulation of the teaching profession. It would not do that to lawyers. It would not do that to accountants. It would not do that to doctors. It would not do that to any other profession but with teaching the Government seems to think it knows better than the profession itself. It is not going to have any democratic process for appointing the people who are going to be involved in the regulation of the teaching profession—none whatsoever.So arrogant is this Government that it seems to think that it can have complete control of the teaching profession and that that is not a problem. Here is a parallel. A few years ago when the then Labour Government was trying to regulate the real estate industry National members came down and filibustered for hours and hours complaining that real estate agents should have the right to elect representatives to their own governing body and now here National is saying that although real estate agents should have it and it was willing to delay the progress of legislation in the House for hours and hours to give that right to real estate agents it is not willing to give that right to every teacher in the country and that is wrong.If this Government really wants to raise the status of the teaching profession through the creation of a genuinely independent professional body for the teaching profession it could start by giving the profession some democratic control over who actually governs it but that is not what this bill does. That is not what this bill does at all. In fact it makes no reference to teachers or teaching in the name of the organisation. This organisation whose primary purpose is to regulate the teaching profession and to raise the status of teaching is not even allowed to mention teaching in its title. That shows the attitude of this Government when it comes to the teaching profession.Instead of a code of ethics an aspirational code of ethics for the teaching profession as we have now this Government is going to introduce a heavy-handed code of conduct—a heavy-handed code of conduct—because of course National knows best. National knows best when it comes to teaching. In fact I am surprised that all those National Ministers are not actually out there in classrooms every day teaching the kids themselves because they seem to think they know better about how kids learn than the people who are actually trained to do it and who actually devote their lives to educating the kids of this country.If this is really about raising the status of the teaching profession why is the Government seeking to deregulate parts of the teaching profession in the form of the changes that it is making to limited authorities to teach which in fact lower the entry standards for the teaching profession? They lower the entry standards for teaching. That is what this Government is doing. So much trust does this Government have in the teaching profession that it wants to audit 10 percent of all of the teacher registrations in a year. Is this going to be like a good appraisal? No. It is a paper-based audit. It is about: “Have they filled in the right forms?” and: “Have the right boxes been ticked?”.Oh this is going to be a huge paper-based exercise. Who is going to pay for that? Is it going to be the Government? No. Not one Government dollar is going to go into this massive bureaucracy that is going to be required to audit teacher registrations—to do paper-based audits of teacher registrations. No no. The teachers are going to have to pay for that themselves through the form of increased teacher registration fees and yet not one additional person is going to be sitting in a classroom working out whether that teacher is actually any good. It is a paper-based review. It is a shuffling exercise. Have the right boxes been ticked? But actually there is no guarantee that in fact the teachers are going to be any better as a result of that. It is a paper-based exercise that will result in an enormous increase in bureaucracy and it will not actually increase the quality of the teaching profession.If the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is supposed to provide leadership to the teaching profession why is it that the teaching profession is not allowed any say in who its leaders are going to be? What is it that this Government has against democracy? It certainly does not seem to think that the teaching profession should have any role in that process. Why is it that this body is going to be responsible now for the dissemination and the sharing of best practice within the teaching profession? What does the Ministry of Education do? What does the Education Review Office do? What do those thousands of people employed by the Public Service do if not share best practice? What do the colleges of education do if not share best practice? What does the New Zealand Council for Educational Research do if not share best practice? These are all Government-funded entities but instead the Government is going to transfer that responsibility to the teaching council—which of course is not allowed to be called the Teachers Council any more—that is paid for by the teaching profession.So basically we now get a form of user-pays professional development through the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand where teachers have to pay for it themselves as opposed to something that might be provided by oh you know their employer which happens to be the Government. Who will pay? It will be the teaching profession that ultimately ends up paying for this and yet it has no say over how this body is made up.The Government wilfully ignored the vast bulk of submissions to the select committee. The vast bulk of the submissions to the Education and Science Committee were near unanimous basically saying that this bill was opposed almost in its entirety. Very few submissions—there might have been half a dozen—Tracey Martin: 13.CHRIS HIPKINS: —13 were in favour compared with the hundreds and hundreds of submissions that we heard that were opposed to this bill and yet the Government said: “We’ve made a few minor technical amendments in response to public feedback.” No actually the Government largely ignored the feedback that it received from the teaching profession. Such is the high esteem in which it holds the people who are in classrooms educating kids that it is willing to just completely ignore the feedback from the teaching profession. That is of course what we expect to see from this Government.Of course it would not surprise me now if those who took the time to submit find themselves the victims of the vile smear machine that exists within the National Government because of course we know that as long as National is in Government when people put their heads above the parapet they will be absolutely smeared—Hon Steven Joyce: Yeah whatever.CHRIS HIPKINS: Steven Joyce the master of smear over there is interjecting when we know that he has got his fingerprints all over John Key’s vile smear machine which has been operating out of the Beehive. In fact it is not just on the ninth floor; it is on the seventh floor as well because that is where Steven Joyce’s office is located. That is where Chris Bishop used to work. He used to be part of the vile smear machine that exists within the National Government.We know that when teachers put their heads above the parapet and criticise Government policy the big clobbering stick that this Government has is going to come heading in their direction because this is a Government that does not like criticism. It is a Government that does not actually want to listen to the people of New Zealand. It pays democracy lip service but does not actually believe in the fundamental principles of democracy. If it did and if it was genuinely interested in raising the status of teaching in New Zealand it would ensure that New Zealand teachers actually had a chance to have a say over the governing body.Hon Hekia Parata: Five out of nine is a majority.CHRIS HIPKINS: Five out of five is what Hekia Parata says. Who picks the five out of five?Hon Hekia Parata: Five out of nine.CHRIS HIPKINS: Who picks the five out of nine?Hon Hekia Parata: The Minister makes the decision.CHRIS HIPKINS: The Minister makes the entire decision about who is going to be on the governing body of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. That is not called democracy. That is not democracy when one person hand-picks—hand-picks—the people who are going to be responsible. That is not democracy. That is the National Government’s definition of democracy but that is not what most New Zealanders would regard as a democratic process.So heavy-handed and arrogant is this Government that it seems to think that having Hekia Parata hand-picking the representatives—the nine people—who are going to be on this council is democracy. That is democracy apparently according to Hekia Parata. And if teachers do not like it they can write her a letter and suggest some people who might be on the council. Of course she can completely ignore that but oh gosh they get a say. They could write her a letter. But do you know what? When people write Hekia Parata a letter they get an automatic bounce-back that says: “I may or may not reply and I may or may not read your email.” That is what people get when they send anything to Hekia Parata and that is her solution to democracy. If they do not like the members on the council oh they can write her a letter which she may or may not read and may or may not reply to. That is democracy National Government - style. That is how arrogant and out of touch it has got.The Labour Party will be opposing this legislation because it is heavy-handed and because it does not raise the status of the teaching profession. In fact it belittles the teaching profession. It says to teachers in New Zealand that they cannot be trusted and that they need a heavy-handed National Government to tell them what is good for them. It says that the National Government thinks it knows better about what is good for educating kids than the people who are trained and who devote their lives to doing so. That is why we will be opposing it. We will be opposing it because it removes democratic representation from the governance bodies of tertiary councils in New Zealand. This is a bad bill. This is a bad bill and the Labour Party will be opposing it.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment):Can I thank the previous speaker Chris Hipkins for his contribution. I must say it is amazing how someone so young has become so much part of the furniture around here in the education space. He fulminates along at great length and is actually a bit like those two guys from The Muppet Show now. I do not think that is a compliment for someone so young. You would hope they would come up with fresh ideas and they would be actually open to new ideas and open to new ways of doing things but not Chris. He gets his advice from education unions. He gets his speaking points and he stays very close to those so much so that on Newstalk ZB on Wednesday mornings he has been replaced by that up-and-coming talent Annette King. We are thrilled to see Annette back on Newstalk ZB although Chris was not too bad.Anyhow the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) is a very important bill. It has three objectives: to ensure that New Zealand’s education sector is equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern learning context to create a regulatory framework that promotes accountability and high standards and to drive continuous improvement in the education sector.My particular interest is in the area of university and wānanga governance and the amendments to university and wānanga governance proposed in the bill will meet the bill’s objectives by creating smaller skills-based councils that will be able to respond more quickly to the modern-day challenges of tertiary education and give universities and wānanga more flexibility to reflect their unique stakeholders on their councils and tailor their councils to their specific needs. The amendments will also clearly define the duties and accountabilities of council members so that they know what is expected of them and can be held accountable for poor performance.The reforms will modernise councils so that they can more easily meet the needs of a rapidly changing employment market can adapt to the new challenges from changing technology in teaching and learning and can operate more effectively in an increasingly competitive international higher education environment.I would like to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee for their diligent consideration of the bill. I would also like to thank the organisations and individuals who made submissions on the bill. The Education and Science Committee received a large number of submissions regarding the tertiary governance provisions in the bill. Submitters discussed the impact of the changes on institutional autonomy and academic freedom on diversity on links to the community and on staff and student voice. They emphasised the special characteristics of universities and wānanga and their role as critics and the conscience of society.Many commented on the proposed increase as they saw it in the proportion of ministerial appointees on the councils. Evidence for the proposed changes was also a prominent theme. The most commonly cited reasons for submitters opposing the governance provisions in the bill were that they would firstly negatively impact institutional autonomy and academic freedom; secondly lead to greater ministerial control; or thirdly lead to the loss of student and staff voices on councils. I would like to take the time in this second reading to respond to those concerns.Firstly the amendments will not affect institutional autonomy or academic freedom as these are guaranteed by section 161 of the Education Act. I myself recognise the value and importance of institutional autonomy and academic freedom which is why I am not proposing any changes to this section of the Act.The bill’s amendments will also not lead to greater ministerial control of institutional councils. Despite claims to the contrary the Minister will have no mechanism to instruct council members to make certain decisions nor will the Minister he or she have the power to sanction council members for their governance decisions. The Minister’s powers over appointed members are limited only to ensuring that members comply with their individual duties as council members and he or she could sanction a council member only at the behest of the council itself.The amendments will not prevent institutions from having any of their stakeholders represented on the councils. Which stakeholders are represented on a council and how those stakeholders are appointed will be a matter for each individual institution’s constitution rather than being specified in the Education Act. I actually think that is a grown-up approach to the institution’s governance. There is nothing in this bill that will prevent an institution from having student representatives or staff members on its council.I am pleased that the Education and Science Committee has recommended by majority that the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be passed with no substantive amendments to the tertiary governance provisions. The committee has recommended several minor technical amendments to the bill’s tertiary governance provisions which I will briefly cover.The committee has recommended the bill be amended to clarify that tertiary education institutions may continue to co-opt members on to their councils by direct appointment. The councils of institutions are not subject to the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968 and during the transition to new councils the Minister is required to consult with the council before giving any directions he or she thinks are necessary to ensure it can function effectively. The committee has also tidied up inconsistencies between the bill and Part 15A of the Education Act 1989 which sets out the governance arrangement for polytechnics.The Government intends to support the amendments recommended by the committee. The international education components of the bill will create a more robust regulatory framework for our international education sector. This will better protect international students in New Zealand and ensure that international education continues to grow in a sustainable manner.The committee made one minor amendment to the international education provisions in the bill. This amendment specifies that the purpose of the new code of practice for the pastoral care of international students is to ensure that international students have a positive experience in New Zealand that supports their educational achievement. The Education and Science Committee did not recommend any amendments to the bill’s quality assurance provisions.This is a sensible bill that builds on the strong foundations of the tertiary education system which have been developed and strengthened by this Government. It makes important relevant changes to the governance of our universities and wānanga so that they can respond more quickly and strategically to the challenges of modern-day tertiary education. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):It is my pleasure to take a call on this legislation. I would like to begin by acknowledging the large number of submitters who came and addressed the Education and Science Committee in the final months of the 50th Parliament and offered their expertise. We had an impressive array of submitters on this bill from some of the country’s finest teachers who came and voiced their opposition to the changes that the Minister of Education was attempting to make although she claims that this is about giving teachers what they need and want. I would also like to acknowledge some of the country’s finest academics who came and made their views very clear on this bill and the impact it will have on our tertiary education sector in New Zealand. It would be fair to say that it is not something that is regarded as necessary and it is not something that is wanted by the country’s leading academics. Indeed the vice-chancellors of our universities were united in their opposition to this. Universities New Zealand the umbrella group that covers off our universities was opposed to this legislation. I will go through a number of the reasons why.This bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) continues a theme in education that we have seen from this Government. This is the lack of respect for the profession whether it be at secondary level primary level or tertiary level. It is also about eroding the democratic principles that are currently enshrined within our education system. I will go into more detail at the Committee stage when we go through this bill clause by clause. What we see is the extension of what we saw with the charter schools legislation and the extension of limited authorities to teach. We heard school after school address our committee and tell us that they simply had no need for the changes that the Minister was bringing in under this legislation. This is simply an attempt to further devalue the work of registered trained and qualified teachers within our education system.What we have also seen is the lack of democracy whether that be around the Teachers Council or the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand or EDUCANZ. I think the teachers who appeared before our committee thought it was more a case of “Edu-can’t”. It was going to be to the detriment of the teaching profession and to what our students and our children ultimately received at the end of it. Certainly consistently we heard from those in the tertiary sector that the changes that Steven Joyce is proposing tucked into a bill of Hekia Parata’s here are a solution looking for a problem. We struggled to find why it is that the Minister wanted to make what are actually very sweeping and fundamental changes to our tertiary education system. Changing university governance is fundamental to the way a university operates and has been so since the Middle Ages when university councils were put in place to protect academic freedom. This is a very very evolved and very cherished principle and we should all be concerned when it is eroded. Universities are our critic and conscience and we should never let that place in our society be in any way weakened. We will all be the poorer when that is the case.The only clues that we could find of what it is that the Minister thought here is that he talked somewhere about efficiency and the ability to make decisions. If we actually look at how this stacks up New Zealand universities typically have 15 to 20 members at the moment. The proposed legislation was to take them down to between eight and 12 governing members of their institutions. If we look around the world at some institutions I will let you be the judge as to whether they are struggling with their performance their efficiency and their ability to deliver. Cambridge University has a council of 24 members—an institution that most of us see as a little bit shabby and not being able to foot it. Oxford University has 25. Harvard has 32. Stanford University has 33. That well-known institution that has no ability to lend anything to innovation the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a whopping 72 members of its governing body! There simply is no evidence that suggests that cutting the number of people on a governing body of an institution is going to lead to the outcomes that the Minister says that we need to achieve.In fact there is evidence to the contrary. Far be it from me to ever conflate correlation and causation but if we do look at some of the changes that this Minister has brought in if we look at the changes that were brought into our ITPs to our polytech sector by this Minister in 2010 when the governing bodies of those institutions were slashed what have we seen within our polytechnic sector? Well if we use as a performance measure—one that the Minister will understand and I am sure would hold dear as a good performance measure for our ITPs—the operating surplus i.e. profitability what we see if we measure it is that on average we actually see this in decline in our ITPs since the councils were halved. Since we instituted these more skills-based nimble efficient and driven governing bodies we have seen a decline in the very measure that I am sure this Minister would hold dear about the success or otherwise of a polytechnic in this country.Not only do we have a reduction in the size of our university councils but we have a parallel system happening in our universities as to which the Minister is proposing with our Teachers Council and it is what my colleague Chris Hipkins referred to as “hand-picked democracy”. Not only are we going to radically reduce the number of people governing our academic institutions; the Minister is going to appoint some of them. The Minister is going to appoint them there and the Minister has the power to remove them as well. This is one of the things that was brought up by many many of the submitters as something that was a fundamental problem. It was a conflict between various clauses in this legislation that amounted to an absolute assault on academic freedom.It is somewhat disingenuous for the Minister the Hon Steven Joyce to stand in the House and say that it is all right; academic freedom is intact—and there is nothing to see here because he is not touching section 161 of the Education Act. Yes Minister this is the section in the Act that guarantees academic freedom and sets out the purpose of the university. The problem that I will go into at the Committee stage is the way in which the subsequent clauses interact with section 161 of the Act and the very assault they put on it. I have talked about the Minister appointing members. I am talking about the Minister having the power to remove and I am talking about who members are accountable to. Is it accountability to the institution? Is it accountability to the governing body? And these are all fundamental questions that chip away at something that we should hold very dear in our country and that is academic freedom. It is for these reasons that Labour will oppose this bill. For the Hon Steven Joyce to say that it is OK that universities can choose who they put on they can choose to put students and they can choose to put academics—that is not good enough. We need legislative protection of these very fundamental principles of what our universities should be about.What we heard from vice-chancellors and the universities of New Zealand is that actually it is not enough to have one student representative on their councils. This is something that they have learned because actually many of our vice-chancellors—all of them in fact—see having the student voice involved in an institution as a positive thing and they actually think the institutions benefit. So we would like to see the legislative protection for that contained and enshrined in this legislation. Actually they have found that when they have multiple student representation they do actually get better input from the students. We also heard from the vice-chancellors as well as academics themselves and the collective bodies of academics about the very need to have academics involved in university councils.Our universities are not businesses. These are colleges of colleagues. This is a place where people come together in a collegial way to advance the field of human knowledge. This is not something that the Minister can just muddle with. This is something that has evolved within our culture over centuries. It has always been about academics having a major stake in their institution. We cannot stand by and support changes that chip away at that. The critic and conscience in our society is so important. We are seeing ways in which we need to hold power to account in this country. We need the protection for individuals within our universities to be able to think to be able to voice criticism and to not live in fear of that. Labour opposes this legislation.Dr JIAN YANG (National):I rise to speak on the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). First of all let me briefly introduce my background particularly my relationship with the education sector. As you may know I was a university lecturer before becoming an MP 3 years ago. My wife still works at the university. My parents and parents-in-law are all in China. They are all retired teachers in China. My younger brother is a deputy principal in China and my sister-in-law is an official in charge of education in Shanghai. So my two families all relate to education. I feel passionate about education and feel very honoured and privileged to be able to chair the Education and Science Committee.I support this bill because we believe the bill as eloquently elaborated on by Minister Parata will ensure that our education system is well equipped to meet the challenges of modern learning contexts. Also it will help to achieve the goal of five out of five students achieving success in education. The National Government has always paid special attention to education simply because we understand that education is the key to success in terms of individual success and in terms of national success. For that reason we launched the $359 million Investing in Educational Success initiative which will create communities of schools to strengthen collaboration between principals schools and teachers in order to raise student achievement.We believe we should reward and recognise expert teachers and expert principals. I understand the Opposition never liked that idea. You know the reason? Their argument is very simple: because all teachers are experts—all teachers are experts. If they are not that is a problem of the Government. I find this argument very very ridiculous. Why is that? We can argue that all researchers are experts and all students should be A+ students otherwise that is a problem of teachers. This is ridiculous. The reason here is very simple. Labour the Opposition never rewards talented responsible and hard-working people. We reward these people. We recognise them. We reward them. That is why we believe that Labour or that part of the Opposition never indeed will be able to enhance the quality of teaching in New Zealand. We will support our teachers—expert teachers and expert principals. For that reason I believe I will support this particular bill. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):It is a fascinating day at Parliament and a particularly fascinating debate. The parallel universes continue to collide. They collide over the meaning of success education freedom representation—you name it. We seem to be talking from different planets. The Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) Bill—it is a funny name “EDUCANZ”. It sounds like recycling or something; you get education and you shove it in a can. It is not the Teachers Council. There is nothing wrong with reviewing the Teachers Council but really one of the things that the fifteen hundred and—was it 25 or 75 Tracey?Tracey Martin: 25.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: 1525 the majority of whom—there were only 13 who supported the bill—were really concerned about it. It started with the title because they felt that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) did not uphold the purpose of a professional body to represent some professionals—i.e. teachers. That was just a point for them. It was not the only reason they were opposing the bill but it was the starting point because they were very concerned about it.There are many issues with this bill but I would just like to start with a quote from one of the vice-chancellors. Although it applies to the provisions around tertiary education it really applies to the whole Government approach to education: “First you funded us then you supported us” he said “and now you are molesting us.” I thought that was a really powerful statement from a vice-chancellor of a university. First Governments used to fund the education profession and trust it. Then the Government stopped funding it completely but at least it supported the profession. Now these professionals are saying: “We feel we are being molested.” He is referring to the fact that the Government is confusing governance and management completely and does not understand the value of university councils. But you could equally refer to the debacle over EDUCANZ. EDUCANZ is being set up to replace the Teachers Council without the teachers’ enthusiasm or consent.There were a lot of issues that were raised but let us start with the code of conduct. In many ways this is a symbolic issue rather than a substantive one but I think it is a telling issue. The teachers who made submissions to us were really fascinating because they had made an effort to bring in younger people and older people experienced teachers and new teachers passionate young idealists and people who had worked in every type of role in schools. They came together from their different school backgrounds to present very coherently and they were very concerned about the code of ethics being changed to a code of conduct. That was one of their issues because they felt the change demeaned the profession.That was symbolic for the teachers because when you set up a council where they do not get to vote for who is going to be on it they will be looking for signs of trust or low trust—and this is a sign of low trust. It says: “We don’t trust you so we will appoint who’s going to be on your council. We don’t trust you so we will make sure that there are provisions in the bill where you are tied to a code of conduct because we don’t think you’ve got sufficient ethics or the capacity to manage your own ethics. It’s OK for doctors it’s OK for others but teachers—no you need to be tied to a code of conduct not a code of ethics.” It is a small point to some but it was brought up by many because they felt it was about a lack of trust. It was like the Government did not trust them.The huge issue that was fought through and won at the Education and Science Committee was the issue of the right for there to be teachers represented on the council at all. Originally there was a very low ceiling put on that but we have managed to get a guarantee of five people with registered practising certificates. That was the big fight. That fight was won and I think it is an absolute credit to the 1525 submitters many of whom addressed that issue as one of their primary motivations for speaking to the committee—that teachers need to be represented by teachers. So that was achieved. But unfortunately unlike the current Teachers Council with its absolute stalwarts such as Claire Amos and Lynda Stuart and people like that–people who are actually capable of leading successful innovative ground-breaking schools people voted in by their own profession because they have that leadership and because they understand what educational success is all about—teachers are not necessarily going to be on EDUCANZ unless the Minister thinks it is a good idea. It is pretty odd thinking to make a professional body chosen by non-professionals—i.e. by politicians. It is going to be appointed by the Minister and then he or she will let some teachers be on it but will decide who they are. That is a low-trust model. It is a continuation of a low-trust model. Really in the context of the educational debates that have taken place over the last 6 years we do not need any more low-trust models. We need a bit of mutual respect and we need a professional body like a teachers council—if you must call it EDUCANZ—to be elected by the teachers for the teachers.The Green Party opposes the bill clearly. We do support the improvements to quality assurance and registration. If that was all the bill was about which is what it was claimed to be about—if it had been just a tidy-up of registration issues—I think the Government would find a lot more support across the House. But it has not. In addition to those registration and quality assurance improvement issues it has jammed in all these other things—all this molesting and cutting and faux representation and ministerial control which is really not a credit to the Government or a credit to a modern education system.So those are some of the issues. The upshot of this was really that the teachers do not feel like paying for it—because it has to be remembered that they pay fees. They actually pay for this body. It is not something that the Government provides for them. It is not a gift to the teaching profession. It is not something whose members the Government is going to appoint and then fund the cost of. Oh no—the teachers are being asked to pay for it themselves.Hon Hekia Parata: Oh isn’t that terrible!CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: So if they have to pay for this perhaps they should get to decide Minister who it is they are paying for. I know it is a radical idea given that we have just passed a bill to limit democracy but it is quite important that these people are able to have more choice. We just had a vote for those people and they are very disappointed in the new regime. They do not believe it is a democratic regime at all. In fact the Teachers Council did have a representative role as well as an appointment role and now EDUCANZ will not.So why should the teachers pay? Do not be surprised if some of them will not. Do not be surprised if some of them refuse to pay because in fact they are able to.David Seymour: But don’t they also get a monopoly on being able to teach in schools—a monopoly on being able to? Isn’t that what they get?CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: I am afraid that the ACT Party member is ranting about monopolies and business again but this is a debate about education. This is a debate about education and I would like to support Dr Megan Woods on her point that it is not about a business. This is not a business model. A profession should choose who represents the profession. A profession should be able to decide—whether it is the University Council or EDUCANZ it should all be in the hands of the profession.The profession is upset not because it is going to have teachers. There were 1525 submissions in which the consistent theme was that they were all concerned—and they represented far more than the people who came to the select committee. They represented schools they represented clusters of schools. If you had been at the select committee you would have been impressed and amazed at the number of people those teachers represented—and they are not happy. It is OK if the Government decides it wants to do this but do not expect them to be happy because they are not. So let us not just play around and pretend that they are because it would suit the Government’s rhetoric. They are not happy.They are also unhappy about the issue of moderation of 10 percent of their registration. They think that is a logistical nightmare and a disaster and I think they have got a point because again it is a paper-based appraisal that could actually be very expensive. The Government may say: “Oh well they can pay for it again whether they like it or not whether they have power over it or not.” But they are having a system imposed on them that they do not think will work.Interestingly nobody really knows what the broader powers of EDUCANZ are going to be. You know there is a lot of rhetoric in the bill. It is quite a wordy and confusing rhetoric about what its powers will be and I think others have mentioned this. We are not quite sure why they need these powers. We are not quite sure why there is an intention to enhance the limited authority to teach unless it is to support more chartered schools which is always an option. It seems to be what the parliamentary under-secretary lives and breathes for but it is not actually what the teaching profession and the people who came to select committee are going to be supportive of at all.So there are a lot of issues with this bill that are very disappointing. It has been a major fight and if it is supposed to be about raising the state of the teaching profession one does not do that by taking away teachers’ sense of autonomy and professionalism. That is not actually how it works. My colleague will talk more about the university councils part of the submission but that was a disaster for the Government. Person after person—from the highest level from the vice-chancellor to the students from every university that I have ever heard of in this country—came and said: “You don’t even understand what you’re doing. You don’t know the difference between governance and management. Management needs to be small and efficient. Governance needs to broad and professional-creative.”It is like they did not even know what they were doing. It was some bizarre idea of Steven Joyce’s and it absolutely went down like a cup of cold sick with some of the most professional people in this country who run these universities. I was very surprised to see the range of people and they talked about a conflict of interest. They talked about the role of universities as the critic and conscience of society and therefore we will not be supporting the second reading because this is another unfortunate mess.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First):Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the bill. But before I address the bill itself I want to give credit where credit is due. I want to give credit to the speech-writers and the marketing personnel inside Steven Joyce’s office and inside Hekia Parata’s office. If people out there the New Zealand public go back and have a listen to Ms Parata’s speech and Mr Joyce’s speech they could be forgiven for mistaking a fact about the 1525 submitters who actually represented the Minister says 102837 currently registered and practising teachers. She makes small of the fact that of the 1525 individuals who actually came to submit to us—who represented organisations and groups of teachers that as she mentioned travelled many distances to get there—only 13 of them supported this bill.But the Minister shouted across when Mr Hipkins was making his contribution that 3 million people had given the Government a mandate. That is very dangerous in a politician New Zealand. It is very dangerous for a politician to say: “Now I’m here I’ll do what I like for 3 years. I won’t bother listening to you the country I won’t bother consulting or sharing information or any of those things because now I have a mandate and in 3 years’ time if you’re lucky you can get rid of me.” Well in 3 years’ time you had better hold out New Zealand. That is all I can say. In 3 years’ time you had better hold out.Hon Hekia Parata: Speak to the bill.TRACEY MARTIN: Speak to the bill? It is the bill. And I want to be clear also that Ms Parata and Mr Joyce again and again and again mentioned the phrase: “the select committee did it by majority”. I want to be clear: New Zealand First was not part of that majority—was not part of that majority. And if a member of the Opposition had not been sick on that day or been caught somewhere else on that day this Government would not have had a majority. So do not let it imply to you New Zealand or to any of the teachers out there that this Opposition in any way supported this bill.Once again the Government has taken some positive recommendations from the review of the New Zealand Teachers Council. It looked very sensible. They were very sensible and logical changes. I also want to apologise to you New Zealand and to the teachers of New Zealand for the current Government members of the Education and Science Committee. Not a single one of them appears to have read this bill. If that was the contribution from the chair of the Education and Science Committee then we are in for a hell of a time over the next 3 years. You did not address this bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!TRACEY MARTIN: The chair of the Education and Science Committee in no way addressed the bill and spoke on a completely different topic around a completely different area of the education system in an attempt to pretend that he had any concept of what we are discussing here today. The same appears to go for Mr Seymour. So I apologise to you the teachers of New Zealand that this Government and its hangers-on do not appear to think enough of you to even read the piece of legislation it is bringing in here in the first instance.This Government took the original review of the New Zealand Teachers Council—and the review had some sensible and logical changes in it—and once again instead of working with the profession to try to create a better environment that would actually support and improve educational outcomes in New Zealand it completely buried those changes. It buried any logical and reasonable review topics under these unnecessary and dictatorial measures and it further insults and attacks what were once our most trusted professionals.The very interesting reason that has been given for why for example the Minister will appoint all members to the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is that there was not apparently according to the officials enough participation in the democracy of putting forward candidates for the council in the first instance. What is interesting about that New Zealand is that one should note that it was because apparently there was not enough involvement in that democracy. Having given 6 years’ worth of being bashed by this Government why would teachers come out and feel all up and powerful about it? But because they did not participate instead of the Government actually deciding: “Well hang on a minute let’s work with the sector to encourage participation in democracy let’s work with the sector let’s actually do some planning and some support for the sector.”—no no no. Instead of doing that let us take away democracy.All I can say is that the New Zealand public had better hope that there is not any further drop in the democratic process and the participation in New Zealand society because using this as a marker perhaps this Government will decide that it will just appoint everybody in this House if the New Zealand public does not step up and start to vote in the next election.If we just talk about the code of conduct I want to be very clear and it is very interesting. Teachers right now already have a code of ethics. They already have professional standards within the appraisal documents. They already have codes of conduct inside their school policies. They already have registered teacher criteria that they have to meet. So this is supposedly a knee-jerk reaction to the inquiry. And it was to the single inquiry—David Seymour: “Toooo”.TRACEY MARTIN: You would not know Mr Seymour. Listen! You might learn something. The absence—Hon Hekia Parata: I doubt it.TRACEY MARTIN: No you are right. You doubt it. I agree Minister. It is highly unlikely Mr Seymour will learn anything in this House. You are quite right Minister. It is highly unlikely he will listen to or learn anything. The absence of a code of conduct—this is the departmental comment—for the teaching profession was noted by the ministerial inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender in the education sector in 2012. This is the single reason why supposedly the teachers now must have—Hon Hekia Parata: No.TRACEY MARTIN: This is the reason the department gave. The reason the department gave to remove the code of ethics and to ignore everything else that these teachers already have to meet is this single review. Yet what is interesting is that no code of conduct can override the law of the land. Anybody who abuses a child breaks the law. A code of conduct is not necessary and not needed in order to instantly dismiss that person instantly arrest that person and instantly put things into process. A code of conduct will not change the situation that happened here. Nor should the schools themselves be held to account for a failing by many organisations and many Government departments that allowed that to happen. To use that as the reason for the code of conduct is merely a smokescreen for what the code of conduct is truly about.The code of conduct is another step along the way of this Government being able to control what teachers and principals say. This is about the fact that this Government—even after 6 years of excellent speech-writers who can spin words on a dime; wiggly words—after 6 years still has not convinced the majority of teachers that the path it wants to take around narrowing the curriculum around pulling children into testing and the progressive achievement test tool and so on and so forth is good for our education system. It has not been able to convince them so it now requires a code of conduct because the teachers are still fighting back. Even battered and bruised as they are they are still fighting back. So this is what the code of conduct is about. The Government hides it under an emotive smokescreen that is not required anywhere else.There are several other points in the bill that would be worth talking about but we will address them. Let us have a talk about the LATs—just quickly because Mr Seymour is shouting out. Let us talk about the LATs—the limited authority to teach. We are now going to have individuals who are able to apply to this body with no teaching requirements—no teaching qualifications at all—but they have a skill.Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what LATs are.TRACEY MARTIN: So they have a skill and the Minister keeps shouting out but this is the problem. The Minister either does not know or is ignorant on so many levels. At the moment the school must prove that it could not find a qualified teaching individual to take up those positions. There is more to be said about the limited authority to teach. It is a nod to the ACT Party and it is a nod we should instantly stop.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):It is a pleasure to take a brief call after that contribution by the member Tracey Martin. After her praise for the Government’s speech-writers may I suggest that the member avail herself of such services and she might be able to deliver a more coherent statement to this House about what that party’s views are.I need to respond to a couple of suggestions made by some of the Opposition members: firstly that the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand—the new teachers’ council of New Zealand—is somehow undemocratic because the Minister appoints five teachers as part of its nine members. Well those members opposite might like to reflect on their own party selection for a leader in which five members can decide who the Leader of the Opposition is in spite of the views of thousands of other members of the party—ordinary rank and file members.I want to respond to a couple of specific things that our excellent Minister of Education and our Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment have actually made sure are represented in this bill. Firstly there is the disciplinary framework for teachers which I hope the member for Te Tai Tokerau Kelvin Davis who I know holds the spokesmanship in this area will touch on if he is to make a contribution in this debate. I think there are some very positive measures there where we see disciplinary matters being automatically reported through to a disciplinary tribunal but also a substantial increase in the fines for non-reporting of misconduct. I think New Zealanders have a right to expect that children are in a safe environment when they are in school and that there does not have to be a third party complaint—that these can actually be investigated by the council. That is a positive in my view.Also having had the pleasure and the honour of sitting in on the graduation ceremony of Madame Peng the Chinese First Lady last week at Massey University and hearing her very eloquent explanation of the importance of growing international education and having international students coming into New Zealand I am delighted by and warmly welcome the introduction of the higher standard of pastoral care that this bill will inevitably require in those institutions that are hosting international students. They contribute such a great part not only to our economy but also to the education system in general and the experience that New Zealanders have within it. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.GARETH HUGHES (Green):Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on this bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). The Green Party is absolutely opposed to this flawed piece of legislation in front of this House. The Green Party stands for good educational outcomes good representation when it comes to those councils and good outcomes for our kids. What we want to see is students going forward with the best education system in the world and I do not believe any Government member can say that this is going to be the outcome of this flawed ideological bill which simply tries to express the Minister’s ideological ideas when it comes to education and tertiary education.This bill which is quite large should actually be four bills given the scale of reform that has been crammed into it. You have got the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reforms the biggest attacks on the governance of tertiary institutions since the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Act in 2009 and a raft of new provisions around international education and quality assurance. This bill is not only enormous in size; it is also enormously unpopular. We heard from Catherine Delahunty who spoke about the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand part of the bill and said that the Education and Science Committee saw 1037 written submissions. Of these 1032 were opposed. Only five—only five—actually supported the bill and you saw exactly the same with the university council changes.For anyone who has just tuned into the broadcast the status quo is that our universities have a number of guaranteed seats on their university councils—the supreme governance body. They comprise around 12 to 20 members. They undertake a number of roles. There are a number of guaranteed representatives such as one to three members of the academic staff one to three members of the general staff one to three students etc. What this bill does by providing ministerial appointments is massively reduce the university council size and that is why the Green Party is opposed to this part of the bill which I am going to speak on.What we see is further tangible evidence of the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment’s invasive meddling in our university sector. This is a Minister who used to talk about nanny State but he is quite happy to take a nanny State approach to our universities from determining who is on the council to how many people will be there and what will happen with the student levies. He is a Minister who has a got a hands-on approach invading our independent universities. We see the removal of representation for the most significant university stakeholder. That is students. The Minister wants to see more corporate board members on our councils. I want to see students on the councils—the stakeholders or the “customers” in the National parlance. They are the people who really count and whom the whole education system is for. The bill confuses management and governance and conflates the shrinking size of that with efficiency outcomes. What we are going to see is lessened autonomy brought about by this bill and that is exactly what all those more than 1000 submitters raised concerns about—protecting the institutional autonomy. This relates to our international rankings. This is one of the measures with our international university comparative rankings—the relative autonomy of the institutions. They are concerned about protection of universities as critics and the conscience of society and the retention of staff and student voices.The fact is that this is a bill with absolutely no solid evidence. You only have to look at page 1—literally page 1—of the regulatory impact assessment which talks about the significant risks with proceeding: that students and staff may feel particularly disenfranchised and that the costs may erode the benefits. This is just on page 1 of the regulatory impact assessment. We only have to look at what happened with the institutes of technology and polytechnics sector. There you could argue that there was some poor financial management and some challenges in that sector. There was a case for action potentially. There has been no evidence and no case brought for this bill. In fact when you look at all the challenges facing the sector in the regulatory impact assessment—from strategic investments the impact of massive open online courses competition for students—I think this is exactly the type of challenge that we should have students on the councils for to provide their voice and their say.What this bill is simply doing is providing a ministerial overview and more invasive meddling in our university sector just like the levy. When we look at the track record of the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment we see in the appointments that Minister Joyce has made that only five out of 30 have been women only one out of 30 have been Māori none out of 30 appointments have been Pasifika and two-thirds have been chief executive officers or company directors. What we see is more corporate takeovers of our university sector. I want to stand up for a student voice a staff voice and good educational outcomes.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):I would like to start off by just addressing some of the comments made by one of the members across the way there talking up the Government’s Investing in Educational Success policy—a policy that was designed to remove expert teachers and principals from their classrooms or schools for a couple of days a week so that they can go and help people in other schools which on the face of it sounds OK until you actually examine the detail of what that will mean in schools. You see the place where learning occurs is at the interface between a teacher and the student. When you happen to take a teacher out of the classroom for a couple of days a week and when a relieving teacher comes into a classroom we know—all of us know from our experiences in school—that except in the case where that relieving teacher is an exceptional relieving teacher it is just never the same and learning is not the same. I really want to put to bed now this notion that taking teachers out of the classroom for 2 days a week and bringing in a relieving teacher to relieve is actually going to raise achievement. It may help teachers in other schools who are getting the help of the expert teacher but it is never going to help the children in those classrooms who are having the relieving teacher there.We are searching for a reason for the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). It appears that the National Government is following the mantra that if it ain’t broke let us smash it with legislation. It is absolutely hammering something that does not need to happen.I would really like to take up the issue that my colleague Megan Woods raised around section 161 of the Education Act guaranteeing academic freedom. That academic freedom is now in jeopardy but it is not just that. Section 75 of the Education Act gives boards of trustees the complete discretion to run the school as they see fit. Section 76 gives principals the complete discretion to manage a school as they see fit. But a part of this bill is about imposing audits of appraisals on schools. So 10 percent of any practising certificates that are going to be renewed in a given year are going to be audited.The schools’ appraisals systems are going to be audited. Let us do the maths. There are about 45000 teachers throughout New Zealand and every 3 years those teachers have to have their practising certificates renewed. That means that in any given year there are going to be 15000 teachers needing to have their practising certificates renewed. Ten percent of that means that there are going to be 1500 appraisals audited. I ask the question: who is going to do this work? Is it going to be the Education Review Office? I do not know. If it is the Education Review Office will it have the time? Will it have the resources to enable it to conduct these audits? If not who is it going to be? Are these people going to be respected and knowledgable educators who can go in to schools to check out the efficacy or otherwise of any appraisal system?The bill talks about consistent standards in this appraisal system. If we have somebody go into a school in Invercargill and somebody go into a school in Kaitāia how do we get the consistent standard and how do they moderate? The bill says “consistent standard by auditing and moderating the appraisals …”. Everybody in education who is worth their salt knows that “moderation” is a pretty fraught word. We can have moderation of a writing sample—a child can do a writing sample in a classroom and two teachers in classrooms adjoining each other can actually moderate that and because of the difficulties of moderating they can come up with different grades for that piece of writing. So how can we ensure the consistency and the moderation of an appraisal auditing system throughout the country? It also takes away the principal’s right to run the school as he or she may see fit under section 75 of the Education Act.We have heard that there were hundreds—I heard over here thousands—of submitters and of those submitters I am told that only 13 actually supported this bill in full. If we cannot get the education system and teachers across the board to support this basically we are going to resort to Draconian measures to enforce it and that is not good for trust either.I do want to raise something that has been puzzling me in terms of clause 353 around registration. It says: “The Education Council must register an applicant under section 352 if satisfied that the applicant—(a) is of good character;”. I have got no arguments with that; that is fine. It says: “(b) is fit to be a teacher;”—that is fine. It says: “(c) is satisfactorily trained to teach;”—yeah that is cool. It says: “(d) meets the criteria for teacher registration …”—yeah nothing wrong with that. And it says: “(e) either—(i) has not been convicted of a specified offence listed in Schedule 21;”—which I have here and I will read it out soon—“or (ii) has (in accordance with the provisions of any other relevant enactment) been granted an exemption by the chief executive in respect of every conviction for a specified offence listed in Schedule 21.” And you think “Hmm that sounds um reasonable. People may err and they may get a conviction but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re unfit to teach.”—until we look at schedule 21 and the specified offences.The first specified offence is “sexual violation”. So if I go back and read this—I had to read it a couple of times—it says that the chief executive may actually grant an exemption or the potential is there for the chief executive to grant an exemption for somebody who has committed sexual violation. The second specified offence is “attempted sexual violation and assault with intent to commit sexual violation”. So that is someone who has tried and failed to rape somebody. The third one is “sexual conduct”—look the list goes on and there is nothing here in these specified offences that I could see that would make sense for a chief executive to even try to consider granting an exemption for and I think that that particular part of the bill is absolute nonsense.I am concerned about the possibility of teachers being gagged. We know that this Government does not like criticism of any form. We have heard other members speak about the potential gagging of teachers. This is what will happen if a teacher dares to raise their head above the parapet and criticise education policies such as the Investing in Educational Success policy. Chances are that they could see themselves up in front of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) if they are not careful and if they push the boundaries too much. So we are concerned that teachers are going to be prevented from making public comments on Government policy and criticising education policy. I think it is essential that teachers be able to have their say around educational matters because there is nothing wrong with seeking alternative or contrary views. It just makes the educational argument stronger.There is another part of this bill that concerns me and that is around the powers of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand and we will go into this in greater depth during the Committee stage. It is around the council being able to charge for any goods or services it provides in accordance with its functions. I am really concerned that—[Interruption] Yes in terms of user-pays as Megan Woods says but in terms of the function of auditing the appraisals is this a service that schools do not want but are going to actually have to pay for as a part of this bill? The Labour Party opposes this bill in its entirety.MELISSA LEE (National):I rise to take a very short call on the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I just want to start off by saying that all parents want to see their children succeed and particularly in my community the Korean community education is a major thing. Often I think I was bit of a failure in my mother’s eyes because I did not complete my PhD. Education is a big thing in the Asian communities so I am very pleased to see that provisions in this bill actually strengthen pastoral care for international students. Our international education sector is worth $2.6 billion and we are hoping to increase that.There are also provisions in the bill to strengthen the ability of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to contribute to the higher-quality tertiary education sector which I am very pleased about. It means that the authority is able to do its job and better prevent dishonest education providers from trying to rip off the Government as well as students. Often it is actually the foreign students who get ripped off as well because they do not understand the system in New Zealand. They are often sent over here by parents who do not really know the system and we should do everything we can to protect these students who come here. Our reputation is paramount in making sure that our education sector is actually growing. I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party):I am grateful for the indulgence of the House as I get up at this late stage. I read an interesting comment once that said that the colour of truth is grey. In my brief experience of parliamentary debate I am acutely aware that for some bills we will be challenged by the linear thinking required by the vote—either a vote of support or a vote of opposition and nothing in between. The Māori Party is far more accommodating of difference than such an approach allows. We see positives and we see negatives and we are always aware of the potential for change.In this bill therefore we voted in support at the first reading on 21 July this year. In taking that vote we were supportive of the recognition in the bill that wānanga need councils that reflect their unique status as institutions characterised by āhuatanga and tikanga Māori. The other issue that shaped our vote was the impact that the party had enjoyed in relation to Māori representation. Prior to the intervention of former Ministers Sharples and Turia the legislation stated that councils “could” consider the issue of Māori representation. Following their intervention the specific wording in the bill was changed from “could” to “must”.In light of these moves we supported the bill’s referral to the Education and Science Committee confident that the public consultation process would enable us to be informed by the views of students tutors administrators governors and of course whānau hapū and iwi as well as representatives from the teaching profession. As is now well known 937 submissions were received with the majority of them not supporting the proposed changes to the bill. Although we do not resile from our support for increased Māori representation to reflect that at least one member of the wānanga or university council is to be a Māori representative as a result of the select committee feedback—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.