Mallard Trevor: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionMallard Trevor: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14038. Text is subject to correction.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Well that was a pathetic contribution. I think it is fair to say that there is an old rule in this House that if you do not know anything about it keep your mouth shut because people will think you are a fool. But if you get up there is a likelihood of proving it. And the member just proved that rule.Clare Curran: She’s the chair.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: She was the chair of the Law and Order Committee and the complaint even from the officials was I understand that the member who waschairing the committee just did not bother either reading or understanding the papers that were put in front of her—not that there was that much there; not that the important people who should have given evidence were giving evidence but the member who was meant to be guiding the arrangements through the Law and Order Committee was just so slow and so hopeless that it was an embarrassment to the parliamentary system.I think it is fair to say that it is only in recent days that I have turned my mind to this particular piece of legislation the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. I have not had any involvement with it before. What has become clear to me is that Part 4 unusually for a bill is where the substance and the mechanisms sit. One looks at the registration system the requirement to register the method of application what is on the registration information the purpose the contents the operation and access and the rest of it.I want to ask the Minister a question as to access to the register. Why is it so secret? Why is all the detail on that register so secret? If we have—Ian McKelvie: Why do you think?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well no hang on we are not talking about the private information of individuals that the Government Communications Security Bureau is going after. It is a question of who is registered and on what basis they are registered. Why is that a secret? No no answer. No answer from thenoddies opposite. Their heads all go down and they cannot answer. It is a genuine question. Why can we not know as New Zealanders who are the network operators in New Zealand? Why can we not know? What should be secret about the fact that someone is operating a network here?Ian McKelvie: You’re not much of a detective.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: What? Well the bill is so useless—so useless—that no one can explain. It should be pretty clear to most people who is operating a network. So why keep the fact that they are operating a network and are registered to do so a secret? No explanation. The registrar will not even be able to tell us whether Vodafone is registered or not because that is a secret and there is no access. You are not allowed to access it. It is an offence to have it accessed. It is an offence to reveal.Frankly this is nonsense legislation. I do not want to be too critical of my colleagues and I know that Clare Curran has written a superb minority view on this bill but I do not think that actual question—she might have missed one. Why should we try to keep secret the fact that Vodafone will have to apply? Vodafone has more than 4000 customers no doubt about it and will have to apply for registration as a network operator. Why should we keep secret the fact that Vodafone has gained registration as a network operator? One will be able to tell within 3 months whether Vodafone has got its registration or not because if it has not got its registration the switch goes off.Louise Upston: Are you talking about this particular part of the bill?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am talking about Part 4 the changes to the register the security clearance the registration and the certification all of which relate to whether or not a particular operator is able to operate or not and the requirements to keep it confidential.The next point and I think a number of my colleagues are going to be interested in this particular area is the method of nominating employees for clearance. In a slightly jovial way I earlier indicated that even members of this Parliament in their former lives have failed clearance checks in the past. When I cleaned the windows of the defence department as a job when I was a student—I was a window cleaner—I was accompanied by a guard who had a pistol. We are talking about the very early 1970s when pistols were actually relatively unusual in New Zealand at that time. But it was there it was open and it was obvious.The most secret part in those days was the economic espionage section. As an economics student I thought it really interesting that the two books that they had on the shelves because at the time they were studying Viet Nam and the economy of Viet Nam were Samuelson andLipsey which were stage 1 books. They were stage 1 economics books and they were the only books that were on the shelves of the most secret part.But the point that I am making is that people have to submit for vetting; that the operators certainly those that have got more than 4000 customers have to nominate a person or persons who are vetted. The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) goes to work in a way that Grant Robertson described—sorry the SIS I presume will do the vetting on behalf of the GCSB for these particular individuals.I would like also to turn now to clause 75 of the bill. What it says here is that “A network operator must comply with a notice under section 72 or 73 despite anything to the contrary in any deed or contract”—or most important—“or any other enactment.” So the question that I have is that if a court makes an order under another particular enactment and the director of the GCSB issues a notice why should the director of the GCSB override the High Court of New Zealand? Why should the GCSB director a close friend of the Prime Minister have the right to override the High Court or for that matter the Supreme Court of New Zealand? It is just wrong. It is absolutely wrong. It gets the law of New Zealand upside down and back to front.In New Zealand what we are meant to do is have legislation that is interpreted and ruled on by the courts and the Minister and his lackeys do not have the right to tip it over. I do not go a long way back but I rememberFitzgerald v Muldoon because that case established that principle pretty well. That principle is that if you want to change the law if you want to tip over a decision of a court you come to Parliament and do it. You do not have the director of the GCSB write out a bit of paper get it ticked off by one of his mates and override the rule of law in New Zealand by that particular process.Clause 75 also says that the operator must comply even if the compliance notice involves a breach of an obligation of confidence. If that obligation of confidence is established by a court in New Zealand then my view is that it is absolutely wrong for the director of the GCSB to make an order that overrides that court order. It is just wrong. If the GCSB does not like it there are two avenues: you appeal—and appeal again if necessary—and if you do not like the result at any of those—