Dunne Peter: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
Dunne Peter: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4375] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I will take a brief call on Part 1. As the member who preceded me said this bill which I think has significant support in the Chamber—certainly it has support from United Future—changes the status of the Government Communications Security Bureau. It formalises it into a Government department for the purposes of enhancing its accountability. 
I often think that when members of this House and members of the public become interested in matters of security and seek greater accountability for the security agencies and that is subsequently achieved either through reports to the Intelligence and Security Committee or other discussions that take place what becomes clear is how little we have to be secret about. We do not have an agency here of the capacity of the CIA or some of the great intelligence agencies of the world—that is not the size and scale of operation in New Zealand—but it is none the less a significant agency and it is important to see its operations its objectives and its functions coded in a particular statute. 
But I make the point that there will be those—I suspect it may be those whom the member who preceded me was referring to when he talked about the nature of the submissions that legislation of this type attracts—who will not be satisfied even with a legislative framework for the Government Communications Security Bureau who will still feel that something sinister is going on and who will still believe that various secrets are being purveyed to other nations at the expense of New Zealanders and that somehow we have a right to know. I say to those people that they will never be satisfied by whatever legislative environment is put in place. 
I guess that there is a sense of concern amongst a number of people about what is being collected about people and about why people are being spied upon or snooped upon or whatever language one might want to use. There is a natural reaction in such circumstance to say: “We are a small country with very few secrets therefore we do not need the services of an intelligence agency.” I would have thought that international events at this time and the climate that we have been living in over the last 2 or 3 years would indicate that one of the great protections we have in a free society is the fact that information that is relevant to the protection of freedom is gathered and passed on to the relevant authorities. 
I am fascinated as at the moment I happen to be reading Bob Woodward’s book about the Bush White House’s reaction to September 11 and the tragedy that befell the United States at that point. What becomes clear throughout that is the value of intelligence in determining a nation’s response. Members may well say that that is utterly irrelevant to the New Zealand context. It may well be in terms of its scale but the point remains the same. We do need to have information gathered about potentially damaging and subversive activities we do need to have an ability to have that recorded in a way that is proper and we need to have it dealt with accordingly by the relevant agencies. 
I think there would be legitimate public outcry if our intelligence agencies were utterly unaccountable were not treated the way that this bill seeks to treat the Government Communications Security Bureau and were basically allowed to run their own show. But that should not lead people to assume that because we are going to have a more rigid and accountable regime all the information that is gathered somehow now comes into the public domain. The very nature of intelligence services means that will never be the case and there will need to be some protection some security and some secrecy. That is ultimately the protection for all of us. So this bill is a positive step forward. It will enhance accountability. 
The member who preceded me spoke of an exchange that took place at the Government Administration Committee some time in the early 1990s and the mystery that seemed to be attached to that. My only direct dealing with the intelligence services was as a Minister of the Crown involved in a citizenship case. I was contacted by the Security Intelligence Service and asked to hold my decision relating to Mr X because further inquiries were still proceeding. Some months later I was advised by the director that I could now make my decision because those inquiries had been completed. When I asked him the nature of the inquiries he told me that it was not my business but I was free to proceed which I thought was a rather bizarre state of affairs given that I had to decide on this particular person’s eligibility for New Zealand citizenship knowing that he had been investigated by the Security Intelligence Service and that the service had found it unnecessary to proceed any further. I was none the less completely in the dark as to what the event was about. 
Those stories may often occur but the point I am making through that illustration is that the climate we are now moving into where there is potentially greater accountability will I think enhance the understanding of members of this House of the way in which our intelligence services operate albeit that it may not satisfy them. It will also put the intelligence services on more notice about their accountability.