Curran Clare: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionCurran Clare: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14327. Text is subject to correction.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): The Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill is a shoddy badly drafted badly constructed undemocratic piece of law that degrades the privacy of New Zealand citizens and New Zealand businesses. We will not and do not support it. The Minister for Communications and Information Technology should be ashamed to have put this legislation before this House in this form. When Labour wins Government next year this law and its accompanying legislation the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation which has turned into law will be gone. A comprehensive and independent review of our surveillance organisations in particular the GCSB followed by new security legislation with checks and balances and new legislation that ensures that the privacy of New Zealand citizens and business is protected particularly in the digital environment will be implemented. Twin pillars—that is what we require; twin pillars of legislation and of democracy for both privacy and security. It is not an either/or; it is both.I would like to refer to a third reading speech on the GCSB legislation—the speech by David Shearer where he said: “We will act on day one in office to commission the full review that we have promised. We will seek agreement across this Parliament for terms of reference … We will replace this law”—and that is the GCSB law and today I am saying the same about the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill—“with a world-leading one that is based on the findings of that comprehensive inquiry because the only way we will ever win back people’s trust which has been so sadly lost right across this country is to get an enduring solution thatworks in the best interest of this country.” That is the Labour Party’s unequivocal position on this piece of shoddy legislation.This legislation provides enormous powers—enormous powers—to the GCSB to other agencies and to Ministers including the Minister for Communications and Information Technology who spoke just before me. There has been no case made during the passage of this legislation for the enormous powers that it is providing to the GCSB and to Ministers—enormous powers particularly in the definitions and in Part 3 of the bill. There are no appropriate checks and balances and no independent scrutiny accompanying them. The only independent remedy open to people who have disagreed with what is happening behind closed doors in private is to seek a judicial review. That is at the very end of the process. The economic impact on networks as a result of this bill could be very serious. That is why I have introduced a member’s bill that amends this bill in the interim before Labour wins Government. It would create a technical advisory board to act as a buffer against the GCSB and against a Government Minister exercising surveillance powers with no independent scrutiny or accountability. At least that would provide some measure of checks and balances that would go some way towards mitigating the effects of this bill.This bill enables the GCSB to go into our telecommunications networks to control the means through which we send and receive communication. It enables the GCSB to recommend to the Minister that the Minister gives it extraordinary and secret powers over a service provider—over any one of these networks such as Gmail such as Facebook such as websites and such as Skype. Services caught up in the definitions in the bill could include any website or interactive piece of software. Organisations that could get caught up include schools universities and libraries. That may not be the Government’s intention but it is the result of this badly drafted law. It is the result of a Minister who has refused to listen to submitters and has refused to listen to the public who have questioned what the widespread implications are of this piece of legislation. When the Minister said that nothing has changed in the definitions—well the technology has changed. The technology has changed and that is where the problems arise in this piece of legislation.This piece of legislation will create a chilling effect on New Zealand business. The Minister has been warned over and over again and New Zealand businesses have pleaded that this bill creates ambiguity around the definitions of what constitutes a network and provides powers that are too broad and without checks and balances to the GCSB and to individual Ministers including herself.The potential costs which have not been properly debated in this House of this legislation are enormous. I want to refer to some of them today because there was a set of supplementary submissions provided to the Law and Order Committee that was not allowed to be taken into account during discussions in the select committee. The submissions were not allowed to be discussed officials were not allowed to comment on them and we were not allowed to seek any extra advice on the implications of those costs. I want to refer to what some of those costs are. For instance 2degrees which is one of the telecommunications companies produced a submission saying that the likely impact would be many millions of dollars “from lost revenue damage to brand and customer satisfactions and lost sales opportunities.” This was in regard to just one part of the law. It said that many millions of dollars could be added if there is added delay restoring customer service and major delays could result in severely dented customer confidence and revenues that it added in its submission could be fatal to the business.Even Chorus put in a supplementary submission on this piece of legislation. It said that there was potential to impose significant costs on network operators. It said that it could not provide exact costs without knowing what concerns the GCSB or the Ministermay raise or want remedied but there was potentially very wide scope and therefore considerable uncertainty as to the cost implications. Vodafone also gave a submission on the costs. It said that the bill could result in a reduced level of competition from vendors with consultation introducing delays in network projects and that these could be very significant. Finally Enable Networks which is rolling out ultra-fast broadband around the Christchurch and Canterbury region—the Minister’s own region—gave more specific costs. It said that there could be $150000 per annum just for operational changes to change its business. It said that there could be a $400000 per year difference as a result for its annual operating expenditure. If there was a requirement for it to change a vendor within its business then that could cost in excess of $50 million—$50 million. That is extraordinary. Another thing that has to be mentioned is whether or not there is the capacity for the GCSB to undertake these new powers in their current state without a proper review taking place.This is a very poor piece of legislation. The context in which it is being debated is ill-thought-out and rushed. It is in the context of widespread spying allegations across the world to which New Zealand should be paying attention. There should have been a widespread public conversation about what the justification was for this law where the evidence was that this law was needed to provide those powers and what the privacy implications were for New Zealanders.