Goff Phil: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7942. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I do not know what it is about this Government. All it does is oppose oppose oppose. You would think it would come up with some constructive debate about an idea that is a very good idea. Sometimes I get very tired with the negativism of this Government.I did have the opportunity to hear the submissions on the original Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill back in 2013. Sarah Dowie clearly was not in the House at that time so she did not have the benefit of listening to what the companies themselves told us. I am sure if she had listened to those companies then she would not have made the comments that she did. She said that the bill adds a level of bureaucracy but the key point that the commercial companies made was that the directions that would be given by the Minister to them would not take into account commercial realities and would not have the level of technical understanding to ensure that the ministerial directions on the private companies made sense and were the right way to go about it. So actually this is not about adding a level of bureaucracy; this is about protecting commercial companies against bureaucratic decision-making when those bureaucrats do not always understand the compliance costs the way in which their decisions will impede innovation and competition or that what the Government might do through the ministerial directive actually has huge commercial implications for the companies.I listened to a whole range of those companies. I listened to Vodafone to what was then Telecom to the Telecommunications Users Association to InternetNZ to Google to Facebook to the New Zealand Law Society and to Microsoft. Every one of those organisations had difficulty with this legislation that was rammed through Parliament at the time. So I congratulate Clare Curran because I think that what her legislation is doing in the House today is dealing with a problem that the companies themselves identified and the Government of the day then refused to respond to.I would like to talk a little bit about the Vodafone submission. Here it is—an important company. It runs my telephone network and that of many of the members in this House. It actually asked specifically for what Clare Curran’s bill provides for which is a technical advisory board. Vodafone pointed out that this idea was an idea that has been implemented successfully in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has similar legislation that imposes obligations on telecommunication companies but it had the wisdom to say: “Before we start directing these companies in a way that goes to the heart of their commercial operations let’s have a consultation process. Let’s have an equal number of technical representatives from the communications industry and the security agencies with an independent chair.” If that is good enough for the Mother of Parliaments to pass through in the United Kingdom why not adapt this idea to New Zealand?The powers that the Government has given itself are incredibly intrusive. A private company has to notify the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) about procurement decisions. They have to engage with the GCSB on design build and operation of networks. They have to get the permission of the GCSB when they want procurement. So what Vodafone was saying is that in order to make sure the Government gets its decisions right for heaven’s sake give the private sector the chance to have an input before the bureaucracy and the Minister—who may know nothing about the commercial implications of their decisions—so they do have to take into account what the private sector’s concerns might be. This is not about adding bureaucracy; this is protecting the companies against ill-informed bureaucratic decisions.What the National Government is saying in the House tonight is that it wants to keep on ignoring the private sector. Creeping socialism by the National Government—it wants to control the private sector without giving the private sector the benefit of being listened to about the implications of Government decision-making. People are getting more and more fed up with the arrogance of a Government that says it has all of the answers and that will now tell a private company every detail about how it should run its operation without having any reciprocal obligation to listen to what that commercial entity has to say. I think this is a very good bill and I commend it to the House.