Robertson Grant: Urgent Debates — Dotcom Case—Inquiry into Government Communications Security Bureau Actions 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Urgent Debates — Dotcom Case—Inquiry into Government Communications Security Bureau Actions 
[Sitting date: 27 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5757. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. What an incompetent shambles this Government is at the moment. What we have seen around the actions of the Government Communications Security Bureau and the whole of the Kim Dotcom case is a circus from the Government and its agencies. And the ringmaster of that circus is John Key. 
John Key is the person who has the oversight on behalf of all New Zealanders for our security agency. He is the sole democratic check on how our security agencies behave. In fact it is written in law. Section 8(3) of the Government Communications Security Bureau Act says that the functions of the bureau are “subject to the control of the Minister.” That is a significantly higher test than almost any other ministerial responsibility there is yet this Minister has been unable to tell us anything about the activities of his agency—the agency that spies on people. These are serious powers that the people of New Zealand accept will be provided for if there is a democratic check. That democratic check is the Prime Minister and he has not fulfilled his responsibilities. 
The Prime Minister does not seem to know anything about Kim Dotcom. He claims that the first time he heard of him was on 19 January 2012. Well by the time the Prime Minister had heard of Kim Dotcom the following people who interact with the Prime Minister on a reasonably regular basis had: the Solicitor-General knew the police knew the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand knew Crown Law knew John Banks knew—but then he forgot—Maurice Williamson knew Jonathan Coleman knew Simon Power knew Nigel Bickle from Immigration New Zealand knew the media knew John Key’s electorate office knew because they had had contact with Kim Dotcom and a man named Chris who was a contractor on Kim Dotcom’s mansion knew as well. But John Key did not know. 
Chris the contractor had worked it out but John Key did not know that Kim Dotcom was in his electorate. It defies belief and it speaks of a Prime Minister who is so relaxed and so casual now that he is not bothering even to provide proper oversight of the organisations for which he is responsible. 
Here is the list of things that Mr Key does not know. As we have said he did not know about Kim Dotcom until the day before the police raid and he did not know until 2 weeks ago that the Government Communications Security Bureau—the organisation under his control—was actually spying on Kim Dotcom and his associates on behalf of the police. Until this week he apparently did not even know that a ministerial certificate to prevent details being released of what the Government Communications Security Bureau had been doing was provided by his deputy Bill English as Acting Prime Minister. And what New Zealand is being asked to believe is that when Bill English acting as Prime Minister and on behalf of John Key signs off a ministerial certificate John Key will not know about it and that John Key’s chief of staff was not involved nor any of his staff. 
 I was once a staff member in a Prime Minister’s office and I can tell this House with certainty that when the Prime Minister is away the Prime Minister’s office staff continue to work for the Acting Prime Minister particularly on an issue of national security. We are asked to believe that Bill English did not think to tell the Prime Minister did not think to brief him when he came back to New Zealand and did not tell him at the various Cabinet meetings that have taken place. He simply did not bother to say anything and we are asked to believe that. If that is true it speaks of a dysfunctional Government whose members are unable to communicate with one another about serious matters such as the national security of New Zealand. 
While we are talking about Mr English and that ministerial certificate the ministerial certificate says that Mr English spoke with the Government Communications Security Bureau about its activities. He had to take advice from them before he signed the ministerial certificate. So he knew about the activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau yet he supposedly did not tell the Prime Minister. All of these people who know this are in the Prime Minister’s life and somehow he does not know about it. He was not even able to tell this House about whether his department the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet actually knew anything about it either. This is a Minister whose attitude is now so relaxed that he has completely taken his eye off the ball. 
New Zealanders deserve better from the Prime Minister. No matter which party is in charge New Zealanders expect that the oversight of our security agencies is taken seriously. Mr Key told this House that he had had 15 meetings with the Government Communications Security Bureau this year. What was he discussing? Were they talking about the rugby or something? He clearly does not appear to have any information about the serious matters that the Government Communications Security Bureau is involved in. Once again the oversight function that the Minister has to provide is simply not being provided. 
The  
New Zealand Herald  
said in its editorial yesterday that the Prime Minister is the sole democratic check for New Zealanders on security agencies. He has let New Zealanders down on this issue. It is as if Kim Dotcom has some kind of amnesia field round him that causes people like John Banks and John Key to conveniently forget important details about what is going on in their areas. Mr Dotcom came to New Zealand in a blaze of publicity he then set fire to $500000 worth of fireworks to celebrate his residency and the Prime Minister did not notice and apparently neither did the Government Communications Security Bureau. 
The focus for this investigation that Justice Neazor has undertaken is the activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau. When we look at where Justice Neazor falls in terms of why things went wrong it boils down to this: the Government Communications Security Bureau was not apparently capable of understanding its own legislation as to who a permanent resident is. It was not capable of understanding that the Immigration Act had been changed in 2009 to alter the definitions around who a permanent resident was. It was not capable between the New Zealand Police or the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand and the Government Communications Security Bureau of actually having a look at the immigration file which Immigration New Zealand has said that it passed to police. 
Even having said that the law was changed but there was a whole year between when the law was changed and when the police raid took place and when the surveillance took place—a whole year. It defies belief that the security agency is that incompetent that it could not stay in touch with its own law and clearly the oversight of the Minister in charge was lacking if that is the reason that it committed this error. 
In Justice Neazor’s report there is also a statement around how it is that the Government Communications Security Bureau even came to be involved in this situation because the bureau’s role is to monitor foreign nationals not to monitor New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. However Justice Neazor in his report has said that the Government Communications Security Bureau does have a role in assisting other agencies. It appears from the report that the reason that has now been given is that the police felt that in some way Mr Dotcom and his associates represented a danger to New Zealanders and that is the excuse that is now being used. 
I do not have the evidence in front of me but on that excuse the Government Communications Security Bureau then proceeded to be involved in this case. The Prime Minister as the Minister responsible for that should have known about this should have been advised about this. We have to bear in mind that this is a case involving the United States Government. This is a case where there was an extradition order signed at the highest levels of the US Government and we are expected to believe that John Key did not know about that. Murray McCully must have known about it. He has to have known about an extradition order involving Kim Dotcom but remember that the Prime Minister says he knew nothing about it until the raid itself. Not only that we have a situation here where the FBI are involved. The FBI and the US Government are involved. That would twig in most people’s minds that this was quite a serious issue but apparently not in these agencies and apparently not in the mind of the Prime Minister who is meant to be providing the oversight for this. 
It is quite clear that there has been a massive breakdown in communication among agencies. Those agencies have apologised today—well the Government Communications Security Bureau has. Where is the Prime Minister’s apology? Where is the Prime Minister’s apology to New Zealand for his failure to provide the oversight that he has signed up to under this Act? We have had an apology from the officials but we have had no apology from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has the job of control of the functions of this bureau and he has failed in that. The other security agency that the Prime Minister has some responsibility for is the SIS. It is quite clear that the SIS did have some knowledge of what happened in this situation. It was involved in the early days around the granting of the residency. Again another agency that reports to Mr Key on a regular basis knew this. 
So what we now have is a staggering display of incompetence by Government agencies a Minister who does not take seriously his oversight responsibilities a situation where the New Zealand taxpayer may be exposed to costs because of this incompetency and a situation where New Zealanders are losing confidence in the security agencies. They are losing confidence in the social contract that says: “Yes we will allow there to be some spying that takes place but only if we know that there’s some kind of democratic oversight.” That democratic oversight is provided by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has let New Zealanders down. They deserve better from a person whose job is to act on our behalf as citizens and residents of this country to ensure that our security agencies behave well. 
 There are so many unanswered questions in this debacle. It is quite clear that Mr Key will have to front up again to this House and explain how it is possible that he did not know that Kim Dotcom was in this country until he was briefed about the raids. It is implausible that he did not know but more than that he has let New Zealanders down by his lax oversight of his security agencies which he controls on our behalf. 
On this side of the House this report that we are debating today does not represent the end of this matter. It is a whitewash. There are questions around whether the Inspector-General can appropriately undertake this inquiry given his ongoing role working with the Government Communications Security Bureau. This situation deserves a thorough investigation so that we can get to the bottom of what role was played by the agencies of Government what role was played by Ministers and why the Prime Minister was not informed about these situations because in the absence of that kind of investigation New Zealanders will look at what the Prime Minister has done and they will question his honesty. And if New Zealanders are questioning the honesty of the Prime Minister that is a serious matter. This needs a thorough independent investigation so that New Zealanders can have confidence in their security services and get to the bottom of this. 
This has been a shambles and a circus from this Government. It has been staggering incompetence. There has been incredibly poor communication. The Government needs to take responsibility and ultimately the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for this debacle.