Donald Rod: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
Donald Rod: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4382] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 To pick up on one of the last points that Simon Power made it would be extremely helpful if there was a member of the committee in the Chamber who could give some clarification as to why the committee added the words “whether in New Zealand or abroad” to clause 8(1)(d). Our difficulty here is that most of us were not on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Indeed unlike any normal select committee if we had wanted to attend a meeting of that committee when it was considering this bill we would not have been allowed to because it is not a select committee it is a statutory committee. It would be good if a Government member or even one of the Opposition members who is on the committee could take a call on that. 
Simon Power made another point that I would like to respond to. He is right to say that clause 7(2) limits international well-being and economic well-being as being relevant only to the extent that they are affected by the actions or intentions of foreign organisations or foreign persons. But that does not stop the Government Communications Security Bureau from spying on New Zealand citizens. We are told that the Government Communications Security Bureau will not spy on New Zealand citizens or permanent residents for the purpose of intercepting their communications but clearly if the bureau is eavesdropping on communications between foreign individuals and organisations and New Zealanders then it must be gathering information on those New Zealanders as part of that purpose. One cannot tell me that the Waihopai spy station turns on the tape when a foreign voice is talking and then immediately turns it off when a New Zealand voice is talking. In fact the Inspector-General has clarified in one of his numerous reports that the Waihopai spy station does collect information or intelligence on what New Zealanders are saying insofar as it is needed to make sense of the foreign information it is collecting. So we know that it is collecting information about New Zealanders even though clause 7 is meant to qualify the scope relating to the interception of communications involving foreign organisations and foreign persons. 
We now come to what we see as the most ridiculous aspect of clause 7(2) and that is the inclusion of New Zealand’s international or economic well-being which mirrors what was in the Security Intelligence Service legislation. As we see it that clause is really part of the Government’s attempt to keep both those intelligence agencies relevant in the modern era. It was desperate to move beyond security or defence because the cold war was over and of course it can now thank George Bush for opening up a new front in terms of persecuting people of other religions. However at the time that provision was added to the bill it was very difficult to see any justification for it. Indeed we cannot see any justification for it now. It goes beyond the core purposes of the agency which are about the security and defence of New Zealand. If there is to be an organisation doing that work—and we believe there should be such a unit within the police force—then its role is about security and defence and terrorism and espionage. Its role is not about international or economic well-being. The bill we were debating before tea which was the Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill is about one organisation among others that should be looking after our economic well-being and we have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to look after our international well-being. We do not need a body called the Government Communications Security Bureau being able to trawl across our communications—whether they are made by phone fax or email—looking for anything that might be an issue in relation to our international or economic well-being. 
The bureau has been given a brief that is far too wide and justification for it that is far too broad especially in the context of there not being any proper parliamentary scrutiny of what the agency does. I know there is an Intelligence and Security Committee but it does not provide parliamentary scrutiny. We do not know the extent to which the Government Communications Security Bureau is using its Echelon dictionary systems supplied by the National Security Agency in the United States to spy on political parties from overseas that happen to have a relationship with parties in New Zealand or internationally.