Little Andrew: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):The reality about the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is that its name is totally misleading because this is not some sort of benign and innocuous reconfirmation of an existing piece of legislation or for that matter an affirmation of an existing organisation in its current form. This legislation makes radical changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) as we presently know it and to the powers that it will be allowed to exercise. The name of this bill is very important. What we call it will be very important. And it is very important because of what we know. The way that this debate has been conducted—not so much in this House but in other forums around New Zealand—has been to mislead many New Zealanders about the reality of what is happening.The truth about it is that the way the bill is drafted gives extraordinary extensions to the powers of the GCSB not the least of which is its change in definition from “computer system” which is the language presently used and is the area in which the GCSB is statutorily mandated to operate to “information infrastructure”. The definition of “information infrastructure” is as wide as you could possibly imagine. It includes “electromagnetic emissions”. It includes “communication systems and networks”—entire networks. It includes what is described as “information technology systems and networks and any communications carried on contained in or relating to those emissions systems or networks”. There could not be a more comprehensive definition of the way that information and communications are carried and conveyed in New Zealand today. That sets the scope for what the GCSB is now going to be allowed to do.So to say or to give the impression in its title that this bill is simply about reaffirming or tidying up what the GCSB presently does is just totally misleading. On that basis the GCSB is given the power to intervene into intrude on and invade the privacy and the protections that every citizen would ordinarily expect and is entitled to expect when it comes to communicating and storing digitally information about themselves. That is one of the critical things about the way this debate has been conducted.It is not just peculiar to this legislation but certainly peculiar to this Government that basic citizens’ civil or human rights which we have enjoyed which are confirmed in legislation that we have and which are confirmed in international agreements are continually put up now as conditional on some other agenda or objective that this Government has. It is no longer enough to claim an inherent right to privacy. That is now dependent upon something else that this Government might put up like an economic or corporate condition that might be overlaid with it. This is the insidious thing about this piece of legislation.We are entitled to a basic right of privacy. We do have a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure which this bill compromises. We do have a right to freedom of expression. Those rights are not dependent upon anything else; they stand on their own. We are entitled to claim those and we are entitled to have those rights protected and this bill fails to do that. So the name of this bill and the impression that has been given from the outset and throughout has been misleading.The scope of this bill is now extended to intruding on New Zealand citizens. It was originally confined—and all the drafting of the present Act makes it very clear—to foreign intelligence and intelligence on foreign citizens. Now this bill makes the giant leap and gives the power and the scope to the GCSB to intrude upon the privacy and the protections of every New Zealand citizen.The safeguards that we would ordinarily expect in a piece of legislation like this are non-existent. There is an attempt at providing safeguards but the exclusions and the exceptions make them a nullity make them nugatory and proposed section 14 as set out in clause 12 is the classic. There is a loophole there in the protection against interception of New Zealand citizens’ communications and digital information and that is not good enough. It goes on to say that anything that is incidentally obtained by the GCSB is not to be considered as having been obtained unlawfully. [Bell rung ] That is the—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The member needs to seek a call if he wants another one.ANDREW LITTLE: Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have probably implied that it is Andrew Little so I will give him the call.ANDREW LITTLE: Thank you Mr Chair. I apologise. I was thrown by the bell and it was happenstance as we discovered earlier today. I say that without wanting to accord any undue levity to this piece of legislation because this is a grave matter and despite every effort by this Government to reduce its significance and to minimise it to the citizens of New Zealand the reality is that citizens have woken up to the insidious powers contained within this bill. One of those aspects is that it goes on to say that even though there is a defined scope of the information that the GCSB can secure and the level of interception that it can indulge in there is a proviso that says that anything obtained outside those powers is not to be regarded as having been obtained unlawfully. Well that is no protection at all. That is like all of the so-called safeguards in this legislation—that is there are exceptions to them that mean that they mean absolutely nothing at all. And that is what is so frightening to those who have looked closely at the legislation—those who do not sit inside this Chamber but those institutions and organisations on whom this House routinely relies to provide independent scrutiny of legislation and give advice to us.The Intelligence and Security Committee heard from submitters not the least of which was the New Zealand Law Society and let me be very clear about that. The original submission from the New Zealand Law Society was drafted by probably one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent human rights lawyers Dr Rodney Harrison QC—in fact not just one of but the pre-eminent New Zealand human rights lawyer.Hon Trevor Mallard: He got his Queen’s Counsel for good reason too; not because his mates gave it to him.ANDREW LITTLE: He got his Queen’s Counsel because he did what most Queen’s Counsel are required to do and that is to take difficult unpopular cases and argue them through the full hierarchy of the courts and he did very well. He was very clear about the extraordinary encroachment on citizens’ rights that this bill represents. Then when the Prime Minister introduced his Supplementary Order Paper 306 it was not Dr Rodney Harrison QC who commented on that but another Queen’s Counsel Austin Forbes QC a former president of the Law Society and a man of great eminence in the legal community and in the New Zealand community generally. He said that the Supplementary Order Paper that the Prime Minister put up provided no further safeguard than was there before and he reiterated and confirmed what the Law Society had said—that nothing less than a full inquiry into the need and the rationale for thechanges to this bill and an investigation into its impacts was required. That was a point taken separately and independently of the Law Society by the Human Rights Commission and by the Privacy Commissioner as well which are statutory bodies we look to in order for them to give us advice about the legislation that is passing through this House. It is wrong for their advice to be treated as dismissively and as derisively as it has been by this Prime Minister and this Government.This is a very sad day for New Zealand and this week will be a very sad week for this House as we pass this legislation in contempt of those with great authority and wisdom who are telling us it is not the right thing to do. No one is arguing against the need for good security agencies—well-supported and well-resourced security agencies—but when we take a step in this House and pass legislation that intrudes extraordinarily on the basic rights and protections that every citizen in this country is entitled to have and to have upheld by this House and the enforcement agencies of government then that is a step that we should take very very cautiously and very very carefully. We should take it with full knowledge and understanding of the impact that we are making. We do not have that luxury with this piece of legislation because it has been rushed through pushed through and bulldozed through by a Government that is no longer listening to the people of this country. People are concerned and they are right to be concerned because whichever way you read this legislation it is simply cause for great fright and fear.This legislation should not be named the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. It should be the “Unfettered State Security Agency Bill” or it might be called the “Government Communications Security Bureau (Extraordinary Powers) Bill” because that is what it is and that is why New Zealand citizens are concerned. Not a single member of the Government has stood to defend it today and that is even more outrageous in terms of this important and very sensitive piece of legislation. Every citizen is entitled to look to every member of the Government and ask: “How do you defend this bill?”.