Parker David: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12602. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):Thank you for this my first call on this third part of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Can I begin by referring to section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. This is the Act that is amended by clause 38 of the bill. The Prime Minister has been telling members of the New Zealand public that they should not be too concerned about changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation because the oversight powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee are being changed and expanded. I want to explain why that is in practice no solace at all. It is because this legislation does not change one iota the limits to the jurisdiction of the Intelligence and Security Committee.I am going to read from section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. It says: “The functions of the Committee are—(a) subject to subsection (2) to examine the policy administration and expenditure of each intelligence and security agency:”. So subject to subsection (2) the Intelligence and Security Committee can examine the policy and administration of the GCSB. But then you read subsection (2) and it specifically excludes from the functions of the committee the very thing that the Prime Minister suggests we should take solace from. Subsection (2) says: “The functions of the Committee do not include … (b) inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive …” then that is defined by saying that operationally sensitive includes “any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information;”. So there is absolutely no protection in the functions of the oversight committee—the Intelligence and Security Committee—into what the GCSB might be doing whether it is looking at just metadata or whether it is looking at the content of emails because the legislation of that—Hon Anne Tolley: It’s no different from the law that the Labour Government passed.Hon DAVID PARKER: What is that?Hon Anne Tolley: It’s no different from the law that the Labour Government passed.Hon DAVID PARKER: The difference is that we were not giving the GCSB the power to look at the content of New Zealanders’ emails.Hon Anne Tolley: Neither are we—not without a warrant.Hon DAVID PARKER: You are—you are—and the Prime Minister is now saying that he is going to read something into the third reading debate that is meant to somehow limit the effects of the earlier parts of the law which have already gone through the Committee stage. Then he says that we should take solace from the fact that the oversight committee’s powers are being extended. Well they are not being extended in any material way in respect of their oversight function of what the GCSB does operationally because subsection (2) of section 6 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act says that the functions of the committee do not include “inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive including any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information;”.I want the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General to take a call and tell me whether I am wrong that somehow I have misread the Intelligence and Security Committee Act and that there is a real oversight function of that committee that extends into looking at intelligence collection or production methods that are being used by the GCSB because my reading of the subsection that I have just read out is that that is expressly put beyond the jurisdiction of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There is no way that the Prime Minister even if he wanted to could allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to have a look at whether the GCSB was going too far in its oversight of information systems going so far as to look at emails and whether it could look at them.This should be contrasted with the protections that we have where other arms of the State do this sort of thing. There are occasions when the police want to have a look at the content of emails. They get a warrant. They have to go to an independent judge.Hon Anne Tolley: As it does under this bill. They have to get a warrant.Hon DAVID PARKER: Under this bill whether a warrant is granted or not remains ever secret. Under the—