Mallard Trevor: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: 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:12585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I moveThat it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it reconsider Part 1 of the bill for the purpose of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in the name of David Shearer set out on Supplementary Order Paper 331 . The Supplementary Order Paper will prevent access to the content of New Zealanders’ emails unless absolutely necessary under section 8A inserted by clause 6 of the bill. I think we could probably give a signal that this is a debatable motion. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just carry on.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I was just being kind to the staff. Otherwise they could be there for an hour or so.Mr SPEAKER: I will equally assist there. That is not the member’s job. Would the member continue with his contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you Mr Speaker. What this Supplementary Order Paper will do is it will prevent access to the content of the emails under section 8A of the bill unless absolutely necessary. Neither the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003 nor any of the amendments that are currently in the Prime Minister’s name offer such a protection. This Supplementary Order Paper would legislate to make Parliament’s intent clear and New Zealanders’ expectation that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. Point of order the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assume that we are entering into this debate on the basis of Standing Order 173 which does make it clear that someone can move that an instruction is given to the Committee of the whole House. What it also says is that any debate on the question for an instruction is restricted to the subject matter of the motion not in this case the Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Mallard is speaking on. It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill or any other matter to which the motion relates. That makes it very clear that Mr Mallard’s current content is well outside the Standing Orders. He shouldsimply be making a case for the House to consider his motion as it is written not the various reasons that might be behind his choosing to move this today.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order that is exactly what I was doing. What I was explaining to the House was what was in the Supplementary Order Paper. I was not debating the merits of it—I was not debating the merits. I was speaking exactly to the question that I had proposed to the House. Mr Speaker if you remember exactly what I said it was—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need to hear that. Can I say to the member that Mr Brownlee is right to point out that this is a very narrow debate. I will follow very closely the contribution from the member and will expect that he will be within the Standing Orders. I invite the member to continue.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I agree with you Mr Speaker that it is a relatively narrow motion it is a relatively narrow question and it is actually quite a narrow amendment. It is a very specific amendment. The reason that we need to deal with the question now rather than previously is that it has become clear from the statements of the Prime Minister including a very good article by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  where the Prime Minister’s lack of understanding on the bill and on this specific question became clear. What the Prime Minister has indicated since the last time the House was in Committee is that there was an arrangement whereby he would be trusted in order to—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This strays once again well outside what is permissible for a debate of this nature. I say again that the subject matter of the motion—the subject matter of the motion—is what this is all about. For Mr Mallard to start straying into what he believes is some particular revelation from aNew Zealand Heraldarticle etc. does not meet the test for the Standing Orders.Chris Hipkins: Mr Speaker I have had a chance after Mr Brownlee’s first intervention to look at the relevant Speakers’ rulings. I refer you particularly to page 81 and the first ruling on that page which makes it clear that “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So therefore it is perfectly in order for a member moving such a motion to outline the reasons why the Committee should have the power to consider that Supplementary Order Paper.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member to refer to that Speaker’s ruling again.Chris Hipkins: Speakers’ ruling 81/1. The procedural motion which is the second part of it states: “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So it is important therefore that the amendment needs to be able to explain why the Supplementary Order Paper should be debated.Mr SPEAKER: I think in fact the point raised now by Chris Hipkins has very much strengthened the point made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. The Hon Trevor Mallard must remain very tight in his debate and frankly tighter than he was before he resumed his chair.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am going to try to take the point that I had begun to make to the point where you and the rest of the House can understand its relevance. The situation has moved since the House last debated this issue. That is why I am suggesting it and why the Leader of the Opposition has a Supplementary Order Paper that involves reconsidering Part 1 of the bill for the purposes of considering the Supplementary Order Paper. I am explaining how the world has changed. The world has changed with two points. First of all the Prime Minister made it clear in theNew Zealand Heraldthat there was an element of “trust me” in this—Mr SPEAKER: Tighten the contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —and what the Opposition is saying is that given that that is the Prime Minister’s approach we will accept him at his word and we will reinforce that with the Supplementary Order Paper.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are straying into a justification for the Supplementary Order Paper. The question is simply: should the House recommit time or go back to consider a bill that was given a considerable amount of time last week because of some revelation that Mr Mallard and his colleagues seem to have woken up to—or more important have decided to make some interpretation of? It is absolutely essential that for matters like this where the House is extending the right under the Standing Orders to recommit the House to a particular course of action—to instruct the Committee of the whole House—we do stick tightly within the rules of debate. Mr Mallard is not doing that.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the Hon Trevor Mallard to now continue his contribution but he must tighten it up. Otherwise I will have no choice but to end the member’s contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: OK. The reason the House needs to reconsider Part 1 is that since it considered Part 1 new information has come to hand. That new information came to hand in two ways. One was a statement quoted by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  from the Prime Minister as to his understanding of the legislation. That was something that was different. It differed from what had been said previously about the legislation by the Government. The second was the indication that the Prime Minister has made that it is his opinion that a comment that he can make at the third reading will be something that is interpreted in the court over and above what is in the substance of the bill. That comment has also been made since the House was last debating this part in Committee.On the latter point I think I am probably one of the few members who has been cited in the court as a result of comments made in the House as to the interpretation of what was a bill at the time but which is an Act now. What the court made clear at that time was that the comments were useful in interpreting a particular section of that Act but what is also absolutely clear is that that section of the Act has to actually exist in order for the courts to interpret it. The proposal here as part of the reconsideration that is being suggested by the Labour Party—and which I understand is being supported by a number of other parties—is that because this new information is available what we should do is put in front of the House a question on which the House can decide and possibly I think even unanimously agree.I want to make it very clear that nothing I am saying now will indicate that the Labour Party will support the bill. Even if this amendment—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Just to make it clear this is a reconsideration of a particular matter to improve the bill to pick up the Government’s suggestion made since the House was last in Committee. We want to pick up the Government’s suggestion and get something—you know we are from the Opposition and we are here to help. What we are trying to do is get the bill into the form that the Prime Minister indicated over the weekend or certainly in the period since the Committee last sat was how he wanted the law to be in. So what this Supplementary Order Paper does and it is Supplementary Order Paper 305—Grant Robertson: It’s 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Grant Robertson: 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I apologise. In fact I am sure my colleague will move an amendment to my motion because somewhere between the morning and theafternoon the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of David Shearer changed its number from 305 to 331.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s called snapper.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re just calling it snapper now.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well really they are different sizes of snapper. I am sure Mr Brownlee does not think it is fair that commercial fishermen—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now we are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well if I am not allowed to respond to an interjection from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Oh—Mr SPEAKER: The member has responded adequately.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —that was an invitation from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has responded.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —to focus on the question of snapper.But the point I am making is the same point that the Prime Minister has alluded to since the House last sat. The question was whether Kiwis are worried about this and in particular about the very narrow narrow question about whether when their emails are picked up as a result of the cyber-surveillance—the cyber-space surveillance and that is the area that we are talking about—there should then be the right to open them. So there is a Supplementary Order Paper that sits in there. I will not go into the merits of it but what the Supplementary Order Paper does is make it clear that that is not a ground for opening those particular ones and that consent is necessary. I just again want to somewhat go back over the area that I have traversed and say that this is exactly the practice that over this last weekend the Prime Minister said that he wanted. The Prime Minister said that he wanted the legislation to be interpreted in a way so that New Zealanders’ consent would be obtained before their emails that were obtained as a result of the mega-data cyber-surveillance clauses in the bill could be looked at.Again it is relatively unusual for the Opposition to be tidying up after the Prime Minister. I think that we had some debate about whether we should just leave the question for the courts to interpret. As I indicated earlier—and I am absolutely certain that the Attorney-General will have advised the Prime Minister that it is better to have something in the particular Act that goes through rather than just a comment in his third—[Interruption ] Well this is exactly the point Mr Speaker. I know you are telling me to come narrow but I am being very very specific about the comments that were made over the weekend by the Prime Minister about this intention in this particular area to have this clause—this very clause—not written into the bill but written into his third reading speech.This is Parliament. This is the Parliament of New Zealand. We pass the laws. They are not dictated in a speech by the Prime Minister.