Robertson Grant: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Defamation Action Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Agreements for Policing Execution of Search Warrants and Collection and Retention of Information by the NZSISText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Defamation Action Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Concerning the Agreements for Policing Execution of Search Warrants and Collection and Retention of Information by the NZSIS[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11077. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):Thank you for the opportunity to make some remarks on this interim report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege concerning the agreements for policing execution of search warrants and collection and retention of information by the New Zealand SIS.The first point I want to pick up is the Attorney-General’s comment that it is an interim report. I understand that the reasoning for that is the desire of the Privileges Committee to ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee had the advantage of having this information in front of it. When it comes time to deal with the full report and assess that I believe that there are a number of quite serious questions to answer here. I absolutely acknowledge the point that the Attorney-General has made that there have been agreements entered into over a period of time by Speakers with agencies that may have the ability to come in and demand things of members of Parliament. It is important to put on the record of Parliament the fact that we must jealously guard the rights and privileges that are afforded to us. We have already in the earlier debate on the report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege concerning a defamation action had this discussion that perhaps the phrase “parliamentary privilege” does not encompass exactly what it is that we are talking about here.An awful lot is invested in the early days when you become a member of Parliament—and we are about to hear from two new members who are about to enter into the fray here—and it is made very clear to us when we go through the pomp and ceremony at the start of each Parliament how the privileges afforded to MPs are gained. The Speaker takes a trip to Government House and there is a communication about that. It is a very important right of parliamentarians to be able to represent their constituents and to be able to undertake those conversations on behalf of their constituents knowing that they have protection in doing that. Any notion of coercion or anything like that around these matters is something that we must be very very concerned about. So I respect the agreements that Speakers have made that govern their arrangements for the police and for the SIS in the execution of their warrants.The first and main point I want to make on that is that what I see through those agreements and indeed in what is discussed in this interim report is a very large weight upon the Speaker to be the person who acts on behalf of members of Parliament as to whether or not they are sufficiently protected and whether or not the interest of the SIS or any other agency in them is justified. I do believe that we are investing in the Speaker a significant power but also the pressure that may be on that individual is I think extremely difficult. We are talking about highly politicised situations here and I do not believe we should enter into this area without considerable thought. That is actually a matter for the final report on this particular issue but I do think we as a Parliament need to give some thought to whether or not the Speaker needs wider support around that kind of decision. Should for instance there be some form of code or some general principles to which the Speaker looks when making decisions about whether or not warrants are justified—whether or not members of Parliament can beincluded within that? I have significant concerns about what threshold would need to be passed for it to be right and proper for the SIS to be monitoring or looking into the activities of a member of Parliament. That must be an extremely high threshold if it is to be justifiable. I think this Parliament needs to look very closely indeed when it comes to the final report at whether or not we believe we as parliamentarians have sufficient protection from undue attention from those investigating agencies. Various Speakers have made their decisions on that. I accept that. I understand that that is the process that we are under at the moment but I do think we need to tread very warily indeed in those areas.The second matter that I want to talk about is the matter for which this interim report has been created. That is because currently the Intelligence and Security Committee is considering the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. At the outset I want to say that the Labour Party opposes that legislation. We believe that that legislation is a band-aid attempt to cover over what has been going wrong in the Government Communications Security Bureau in recent times the lax oversight of the Prime Minister as the Minister responsible for the bureau and the fact that we have never gotten to the bottom of the Kim Dotcom case or indeed of many other activities that have now been revealed that the bureau is involved in.We have a report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that tells us that there are a number of cases in which it is arguable that the spying undertaken on New Zealanders was legal—arguable that it was legal. Presumably that means that it is also arguable that it was illegal. That is the situation we are now left with. The Government is determinedly rushing through legislation—I think submissions on that legislation close tomorrow—and there has not been sufficient time in the view of the Labour Party for submissions to be properly heard on this legislation. We are strongly of the view that there needs to be an independent inquiry into the activities of our intelligence agencies. I have to say that seeing this matter being referred by the Privileges Committee to the Intelligence and Security Committee only adds to that concern because we do believe that the issues that have been raised on this in the committee are important.A matter that appears specifically in the interim report is around the question of whether or not extending the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau—which is what the legislation in front of the Intelligence and Security Committee does—means that effectively the bureau could end up in the position of monitoring the activities of MPs. That has not been foreseen until now. It represents a very significant example of the extension of the powers. This report deals with the matter of the oversight of the execution of those powers so it deals with whether or not as MPs we have the ability to complain to the Inspector-General about what oversight the Inspector-General might have over any complaint that an MP might make. But I think it is very important to go back to the root cause of that and the root cause of that is the extension of the powers of the bureau and we have not in my view had sufficient time or time for the depth of study required to actually look at whether or not that is justifiable.Certainly one of the concerns that this side of the House has had—and it has been a very topical issue in recent days—is that the bureau is part of a wider international network. Information collected by the bureau as it is by the other partners in the Five Eyes network then becomes part of a pool of information that other countries can access. It would be a concern I would think if that information about MPs as an example was able to be accessed by foreign intelligence agencies and that is the kind of issue that we need to investigate within a wider review. At the moment we have a piece of legislation about the Government Communications Security Bureau goingthrough. Here we have a Privileges Committee report that is actually about the SIS and the police yet the bureau through that legislation that is front of the Intelligence and Security Committee may well end up helping the SIS or the police in the execution of their work. So it is an extremely tricky area.I am glad that the Privileges Committee has referred this to the Intelligence and Security Committee but it has referred only one element of the issue: the element of oversight. I believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee needs to think about the privileges of MPs within the context of the whole legislation and the extension of the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau. The Government should not be rushing that legislation through. We should have an independent inquiry into all our intelligence agencies at which point we would be able to see where MPs fit in. I am however glad that this interim report will find its way to the committee.