Little AndrewANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I acknowledge the Minister the Attorney-General who has just spoken. In particular I want to acknowledge the efforts that he has gone to personally to discuss the matters raised in the Cullen-Reddy report and as the legislation has been prepared a couple of discussions that he has had with me and colleagues of mine from the Labour Party as he genuinely strives to achieve that bipartisan or multipartisan result on this piece of legislation. I acknowledge that. I do have some comments to make about the role of the Attorney-General in relation to some of the provisions in this bill and I do want to say from the outset that the comments I make are absolutely no reflection on the Attorney-General who has conducted himself since he has acquired the responsibilities for these agencies with considerable distinction. In a liberal democracy such as ours where we cherish freedom including the freedom to dissent and where we also cherish the rule of law the question is always about where the balance lies between arrangements that maximise our freedom which must hopefully be just about everything but also the powers that are sufficient to ensure our security. That is where the debate on matters like this always lies: what it is that is going to mean that those who wish to express and exercise their freedom of speech and go about their lawful business can do so without interruption and without intrusion but on the other hand accept that in the environment in which we live we do need to ensure that the interests of citizens collectively and individually and the interests of the State also need to be protected. As the Minister said this bill comes out of the Cullen-Reddy review—the first independent review of our security and intelligence legislation. The fundamental achievement of this legislation is that it combines multiple existing pieces of legislation into one single piece of legislation which has the benefit of ensuring that the powers that are defined for the agencies are at least drafted in a consistent way. That is a positive development if we can achieve it. The development of the legislation to date—as so often happens when dealing with an issue or a requirement that develops over many years' time multiple pieces of legislation often conceived in different circumstances but all heading towards the same objective are drafted in different ways and it is right that every now and again we step back to ensure that what is happening or what is provided for in our legislation is achieving what was originally intended but without encroaching on citizens' rights. I do not argue and have not heard any argument to suggest that we do not need agencies dedicated to the protection of New Zealand citizens to the protection of the country's economic interests and to the preservation of a functioning democratic State. Those interests must be at the forefront. But the reality is that we do not live in a benign environment. We do have threats to our physical security and they come from within and they come externally. We do have threats to our economic interests as well and perhaps the single biggest class of threat we now experience is cyber-security where not just public agencies but private companies and private agencies can come under threat from abroad because of the technology that now exists. If we are going to undertake the task of preserving and protecting our interests as a nation State the citizens in it and the economic interests within it then it will be necessary to have agencies that have intrusive powers. But as I began by saying we must always ensure that that is in proper and appropriate balance. The bill is a good start and for that reason Labour will be supporting this bill at this reading and we look forward to a good discussion and a good examination by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. The bill is a good start but there remain issues and I am going to go through just a handful of them that we have at this point. The issues that I am about to adumbrate are not implied criticism of the warrant provisions and the safeguards and the Minister talked about the triple lock—he did sound a bit like a window salesman to be honest when he said it. But this is not a criticism of those provisions. I think it is a helpful development and in fact the provisions as drafted are a greater safeguard than what exists at the moment and we should be pleased about that. It is also clear given the setting that we are debating this in that the beefed-up office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that we now enjoy has proven itself to be a good check and balance on the agencies and the exercise of their powers. We should be very proud of the work that that office has done recently. The reports that have been presented I think have been robust and thoroughgoing and I think they ought to give citizens an assurance that there is at least a good check and balance in that regard. But of course we should not just rely on safeguards happening after the event. If there is an erroneous exercise of a power and an undue or unlawful interference or intrusion on privacy then we should not just rely on a process that happens afterwards. We need to ensure that what happens before provides safeguards as well. There are a handful of issues that I want to just cover off. The first is the definition of national security" and the Minister has indicated that the Government's position is to throw that open to the select committee to have a good examination and debate about it which is certainly a useful approach. I actually thought that the Cullen-Reddy review got that about right—that there needs to be a level of specificity but we do need to understand exactly what national security means and what it is that we are protecting. That is absolutely fundamental in this bill because the motivating objective to the powers being exercised is in most cases the protection of national security so we do have to get that right. But there are some obvious questions. What is a threat to the safety of New Zealanders? Why is it proposed that the Cullen-Reddy recommendations about tests of imminence and serious harm be removed from the definition as it appears in this bill? What is a threat to a New Zealand Government operation? Protests in the high streets of New Zealand may amount to a threat to the operations of at least a Government department but that should not be a basis on which people are prevented from expressing their dissent from expressing their opposition or from showing protest. So the definition is vital. We do need to get it right because it is so important to this piece of legislation. The next point I want to make is in relation to warrants and the Minister has talked about the three tiers effectively. Bearing in mind that these warrants are to allow activity that would "otherwise be an unlawful activity" for an authorised purpose this is where the rubber hits the road. It is possible for warrants to be issued subject to conditions—clauses 60 and 61 cover that off—but it does not indicate what those conditions might be. What sorts of restrictions could the Attorney-General and the judicial commissioner either individually or together where specific powers are being exercised—what conditions can they put on the warrants sought for? So we need to get clarity on that. I am particularly concerned about clause 69 and the urgent warrants where a warrant can be applied for orally and indeed in very urgent circumstances by the Attorney-General alone—that can last between 24 and 48 hours. This is where I think citizens are entitled to not only be concerned but to ensure that the select committee gives very close and detailed examination to those powers. I want at this point to raise one of the issues about the role of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General is the Minister responsible for our Crown Law Office and is responsible for all of our Crown prosecutions and is often actively involved in prosecutions involving matters of public policy. So is it right that the Attorney-General should be the one exercising in whole or in part the power to issue a warrant that can lead to the gathering of information or evidence which could lead to a prosecution that may then be under the oversight of the Crown Law Office? It looks to me on the face of it that there is a conflict there that is not justified in our form of Government and I think that needs to be examined closely. It is interesting that the Chief Justice did not want serving judges to act as judicial commissioners for the very reason that she was concerned that those same judges would be rubbing shoulders with judges who will be hearing cases potentially involving evidence gathered on that basis. So I think we need some consistency there. The next point I want to make is about access to data and it is interesting that this bill reflects some modifications on the recommendations made by the Cullen-Reddy review but I still do not see a justification for broad access to for example data about passports when the agencies—when they are seeking that information to clarify the citizenship status or otherwise of a named person—know that person and can apply for a warrant accordingly. I note just in that regard clauses 103 and 104 relate to access to databases and that it is to be done through inter-ministerial agreement and the detail will be in those agreements and we need some indication about what might appear there. Finally I just want to make the point about the Intelligence and Security Committee because that is the political oversight and I express now the views I have expressed publicly about the Prime Minister or any Minister with ministerial responsibility for the agencies acting as chair of that committee. In other jurisdictions other arrangements are found and I think that is fertile ground for the select committee to examine and for members of the public to express their views about. We know that agencies like the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service like the Government Communications Security Bureau and indeed the National Assessments Bureau are vital to protect citizens' interests and a functioning democracy and that there are always going to be tensions. I welcome this bill I welcome the debate that we will get to have about it and I thank again the Minister for the constructive approach he has taken so far in prosecuting this legislation."