Jones Dail: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Jones Dail: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:622;Page:17219] 
6.  
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: Has she received any reports from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor in relation to national security risks as a result of the recent Supreme Court declaration that it had the power to consider bail for Ahmed Zaoui? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service) 
: 
 No. 
Dail Jones 
: Will the Minister take up the offer from New Zealand First approved by its caucus today—and I have been given the authority to express it—to amend Part IVA of the Immigration Act under urgency if necessary back to its pre - 25 November 2004 judicial interpretation given by for example Justice Paterson in the High Court on the Zaoui case when he stated and I quote from the Supreme Court decision that he was satisfied that the legislative intent was that a person detained under Part IVA has no right to apply for release on conditions. He also said: “An inherent jurisdiction cannot exist against this specific legislative intent”; if the Minister will not support that offer why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No the Act will be reviewed after the completion of the Zaoui case. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Minister agree that there will be very few reports from a part-time inspector-general in a poorly resourced office and that that inspector-general and the barely functional Intelligence and Security Committee of our Parliament are grossly inadequate to monitor a service that as the reputable journalist Jane Clifton puts it is “perfectly capable of sinister incompetence and incompetent sinisterness.”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No no and no. I refer the member to the front page of today’s  
Dominion Post 
. 
Dail Jones 
: Is the Minister aware that Auckland University senior law lecturer Scott Optican has said that allowing the Supreme Court to hear Zaoui’s bail application is “absolutely unusual” and that it would effectively be “writing a new page in the history of bail”; if so why will the law not be changed in order to put a halt to that action protect the integrity of New Zealand’s national security and prevent our national security services from becoming the laughing stock of the Western World? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The court has ruled that it has inherent jurisdiction to consider the bail application. I should say that it has not ruled that the Government has been free to release Mr Zaoui; it has ruled that the court has inherent jurisdiction to consider a bail application. That will proceed through to completion by the court. No doubt that matter itself will be part of the review of the Act subsequently. 
Dail Jones 
: What does the Minister intend to do to take up the challenge seemingly issued by the Supreme Court to present to it the substantial information regarding Zaoui’s history available to the Minister and if she does not intend to present the substantial information to justify Zaoui’s detention and the expenditure of about $1.5 million on his detention will she take the honourable step and resign as Minister in charge of the SIS as the ultimate responsibility for that debacle—which it would then be—must rest with her as the Minister? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think that the ultimate responsibility for what the member calls a debacle lies with the Act passed in 1998. That is why it is clearly in need of review. This is the only case that Act has had to deal with and clearly it has not been satisfactory.