Peters Winston: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16268. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): There is a long history of cross-party consensus on intelligence issues in New Zealand. That is as it should be. We all believe in the defence of New Zealand and the protection of our people and their interests from foreign threats. Unfortunately as the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and the Minister responsible for the GCSB the Prime Minister has dramatically failed this nation. Today of course he has not put himself in a position to respond to questions in this Committee. The security services are of critical importance but the Prime Minister has shown only his casualness and incompetence and prefers to go and have a cup of coffee downtown.Hon Annette King: Is that where he is?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is where he was when this was all relevant.David Bennett: Oh we’re going to have a speech all about it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well you are getting a brilliant speech of course. The question is whether you have got the intellectual capacity to absorb it. In the area of the security services the public must take so much on trust alone. That is because nearly all the work has to be done behind closed doors. The security services work in the shadows. Therefore for the sake of Mr Bennett from the Hamilton seat that he will soon lose it is imperative that this trust is not abused as it has been.You see Mr Bennett some people in this country are concerned about civil liberties. I know that Mr Bennett is not. Illegality has been tolerated and then plastered over with legislation. The legislation that the Government drafted and passed as amending legislation has left people anxious and alarmed at what is seen as an erosion of their civil liberties. There has been a fundamental loss of trust in the area of the security services and it is entirely due to the Prime Minister’s behaviour. Appointing an old mate to head the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was a mistake and should never have happened but it is totally consistent with the PM playing games with due process.And let me say about his denial with regard to the Coatesville raid that there is no Western leader president or prime minister in any self-respecting democracy who would ever believe the Prime Minister’s denials that the head of the GCSB and the intelligence services in this country is the only one of numerous people who does not know. Has he sacked somebody for not informing him? Has he got rid of them for not informing him? No because he wantonly wants to avoid the fact that some of us know that he knew and we will prove it. We will tell you the Ministers over there one by one who were in the know. It is either their backsides or his but they are going to be named as things unfold in the next few weeks in this Parliament.The public has no confidence that the Prime Minister will act with the highest integrity in relation to security issues. His credibility has gone. I mean see the way that he is dealing with the other parties in this Parliament: the ACT Party United Future and the “Looney Tunes” Party that thinks that the vapour trails are poisoning the New Zealand population. You know I can see why he has had a Damascus experience and now he wants to talk to that safest and wisest of political parties New Zealand First. Heall of a sudden realises the game is up and unless he can try to make it up and get some sort of sanity back into the political environment then he is going to go down in a screaming heap. Why? It is because the internal National Party polls tell Mr Brownlee or “Mr Fix-it” Steven Joyce that things are not looking too good that there is a soft underbelly of flakiness and that if that goes it is goodnight Gerry goodnight Mr Bennett—and goodnight both Hamilton seats.Oh I know that nervous look. I have seen that nervous look before. I know what it is like—smiles above the deck knocking knees under it. It is all because the Prime Minister in whom they propose so much trust and who said he is bright intelligent and alert is in charge of two security services and the only person who does not know what is going on—he claims wantonly mistakenly erroneously and falsely—is him. My comment to Mr Brownlee filling in today is this: Mr Brownlee you as Minister know that what he is saying is not true so why do you not confess on his behalf?Report noted.