Volume 692 Week 51 - Tuesday 20 August 2013Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 692 Week 51 - Tuesday 20 August 2013[Sitting date: 20 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12569. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 20 August 2013Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Speaker’s RulingsElectoral Act—Registration and Recognition of United FutureMr SPEAKER: Honourable members on 13 August 2013 the Electoral Commission determined that the United Future party be registered in accordance with section 67 of the Electoral Act 1993 following the cancellation of its registration on 31 May 2013. Standing Order 34(1) provides that every party that is registered under Part 4 of the Electoral Act and in whose interest a member was elected at the preceding election is entitled to be recognised as a party for parliamentary purposes. The United Future party is a registered party. It remains a party in whose name a member was elected at the 2011 general election. It meets the requirements for recognition. Furthermore the Electoral Commission advises that it did not treat United Future’s application for registration as an application from a new party. The party did not cease to exist when its registration was cancelled.However in recognising a party I am not concerned with the general membership of political parties and whether that has changed; I am concerned only with the parliamentary membership of the party. The Hon Peter Dunne was a member of the United Future party at the 2011 general election. He remained a member of that party despite being declared an independent member for parliamentary purposes. The parliamentary membership of the United Future party has not changed. Therefore now that the United Future party is again a registered party it will from today again be recognised as a party for parliamentary purposes.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Could I ask you as to whether or not you have considered the letter I wrote to you that related to your last judgment in the House on the question that you have just covered now? If you recall I asked you to outline for me the legal authority that you thought you would be acting under. I am still waiting for that reply.Mr SPEAKER: I can advise the right honourable member that I certainly have considered that letter and considered it carefully in reaching the decision I made earlier in regard to the United Future party and certainly in the decision I am again making today.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I gather that what you have said relates to recognition in the House. It goes now to the question of taxpayer support for the United Future party which you have readmitted. The question is what is your answer on that issue which is why I wrote to you in the first place?Mr SPEAKER: Yes well the Clerk has advised me that you actually wrote two letters to me and both letters have been replied to. But in regard to the continued support for the United Future party my decision stands from today. From today United Future is again recognised as a parliamentary party.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am asking you about the question of parliamentary support. Are you saying that your announcement today means that what was the pre-existing situation before all this arose has now been restored as to parliamentary support as well—financially that is?Mr SPEAKER: Has the member finished?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes.Mr SPEAKER: Yes that is exactly what I am saying.MotionsEgypt—Internal Conflict and Restoration of DemocracyHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I seek the leave of the House to introduce without notice and without debate a motion condemning the violence in Egypt and calling for the restoration of democratic process.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to move a motion without debate. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.Hon PHIL GOFF: I moveThat this House condemn the killing and the violence occurring in Egypt and in particular the shooting of hundreds of unarmed protesters and call on all sides to desist from violence and for immediate steps to be taken to reinstate democratic process the rule of law and elections.Motion agreed to.Questions to MinistersGCSB—Legislative Reform Interception Powers and Funding1.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green)to theMinister responsible for the GCSB: Will the Government Communications Security Bureau be able to access the content of any New Zealander’s communications under the cybersecurity provisions of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Minister responsible for the GCSB):I am advised that a combination of the provisions in the bill specifically sections 8A 15A and 15C means that the answer is no not in the first instance. However approval will be considered for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to access content if a specific and serious cyber-intrusion has been detected against a New Zealander. In those circumstances the Commissioner of Security Warrants and I will need to be convinced that the action is necessary falls within the function of protection and will be limited to content that is related to the cyber-attack. The cyber-security function of bill clearly states that it is to protect the security and integrity of communications. It is not for spying or putting people under surveillance.Dr Russel Norman: So is it correct to paraphrase the Prime Minister’s answer as “No it cannot access the content of New Zealanders’ communications but yes it can access the content of the communications under certain circumstances.” and how are those two answers compatible?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In principle yes but it is worth remembering that in the event that content was looked at it would require another warrant. It would be highly specific it would be for the purposes of protection and it would almost certainly be with the agreement of the New Zealander.Dr Russel Norman: As he has now admitted that in principle yes the GCSB will be able to access the content of New Zealanders’ emails did he tell New Zealand onCampbell Livelast week that “they would not have access to the content”—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would just ask you to consider the supplementary question that is being asked because it makes a strong assertion at the beginning of what we hope will become a question. That is outside the Standing Orders and I think it is not appropriate for a matter like this to have such gross misrepresentation allowed in the House.Dr Russel Norman: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from Dr Russel Norman.Dr Russel Norman: As I am sure you have realised the difficulty is that the answer to the primary question originally was “No” but then the Prime Minister went on and said: “But in principle yes.” The problem that we are dealing with is that the Minister’s answer is incoherent so we are trying to deal with that.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No well I certainly do not think that last point of order was helpful. If I go back to the very first answer to the supplementary question the member’s interpretation of that answer is incorrect and I think that is the point that Mr Brownlee is now raising about the continued paraphrasing of the answer in the opinion of the member. I do not agree with the way that it has been paraphrased. I ask the member to continue asking supplementary questions but to bring them within the Standing Orders.Dr Russel Norman: Why did he tell New Zealanders onCampbell Live last week his sole substantial television interview on this issue that the GCSB would not have access to the content of their emails—to quote the Prime Minister—when he has just told us just now that in principle under certain circumstances it would?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well the member should stand corrected because it is not my only television appearance on the matter. Secondly the answer is correct that I gave onCampbell Live : no it is not possible but it would be possible to go and get a further warrant and do some work if required.Dr Russel Norman: OK. Then is the Prime Minister prepared to consider an amendment to make it abundantly clear to everybody including those of us in the Opposition who struggle to understand these things that the bill will not allow access by the GCSB to the content of the communications?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is not necessary. It is already in the law. In fact the function of cyber-security is clearly to protect not spy. If the member wants to know what spying looks like which is the claim he is making he needs to go and look at section 8B where the GCSB work is all about gathering intelligence and the capabilities intentions and activities of people. Of course that is in relation to foreigners. The member should tell me where he can see those provisions in the cyber-security. He cannot. The truth is that no one on that side of the House understood the legislation. That is why they spend so much time filibustering and wasting time instead of understanding the law. The people who look like fools are on that side of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is quite sufficient.Louise Upston: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports about the importance of security legislation like the GCSB legislation?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have. I have seen a report stating that “… the security of the realm should transcend party politics.” and “… I recognise the support that members of the Opposition are giving to the passage of this bill.” That statement came from none other than David Cunliffe during the debates in 2003 on the GCSB. They are the leadership qualities the Labour Party—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not in order. [Interruption ] Order! I have an interruption coming from Grant Robertson. Does the member want to take a point of order?Dr Russel Norman: Does the GCSB receive funding directly or indirectly from the Government of the United States?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is not in my interest or the national interest for me to answer that question. I do not think any Minister responsible for the GCSB would do so.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a long-term tradition in this House that a member’s interests—and the Prime Minister has said it isnot in his interests to answer the question. He can say it is not in the national interest but we know it is not in his interests already.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister I think stumbled over the first words as he started that answer. He said that it is not in the country’s interest for him to continue to answer that question and that is a perfectly satisfactory answer.Dr Russel Norman: Does that mean that the Prime Minister will not deny that the GCSB has received funding from the Government of the United States?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. It means that it is not in the national interest for me to discuss those matters.Louise Upston: Can the Prime Minister outline for the House the increasing threat that the National Cyber Security Centre has reported on?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I can. The National Cyber Security Centre reported that in 2011 it had 90 incidents lodged with it. These constitute serious incidents that do damage or compromise the target or company involved. In 2012 that number increased from 90 to 134. The number this year is already standing at 204 and we are not even near the end of the year. These attacks are steeply rising and putting at risk our Government and our private sector security. The GCSB has a vital role to play in combating this and that is why it is crucial the legislation is passed by the House.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister believe it is right or indeed lawful for the GCSB to receive funding from a foreign Government without informing this Parliament?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly the member should be very careful about jumping to any conclusions. It is not in the national interest for me to discuss those kinds of matters. But what is really interesting is that 24 hours before we finally pass the GCSB legislation that member does not even have a question on the matter.Louise Upston: Has the Prime Minister seen any other reports relating to the process under which the GCSB legislation is passed?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have. I have seen the criticism from Sir Geoffrey Palmer of the process the bill has gone through. I have also seen a report that the State-Owned Enterprises Bill which was passed in Sir Geoffrey’s name in 1986 had all of its final stages after the select committee stage taken in one day including Sir Geoffrey reading the third reading on a Saturday. That was a bill that completely redefined the Government’s role in business and corporatised Government State-owned enterprises and set them up to be privatised including the sale under Labour of New Zealand Steel Petrocorp the Post Office Air New Zealand State Insurance and Telecom. If he wants to know about process clearly he is an expert in the matter.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister believe in the basic principles of parliamentary responsibility for the Government’s finances—that is Parliament must know when the Government receives funding—if so how can an agency like the GCSB receive money from a foreign Government without Parliament knowing?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not saying it is or it is not.Economy—Business and Consumer Confidence and Manufacturing Sector Performance2.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore)to theMinister of Finance: What recent reports has he received confirming a further improvement in business and consumer confidence in New Zealand?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):It is reasonably clear now that consumer confidence and business confidence are becoming stronger. The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index increased 4.3 points to a seasonally adjusted 59.5. This is the highest July reading since 2002. This is clearly an indication of the kind of thing the Opposition calls a crisis in manufacturing where it isexpanding faster than it has in the last 10 years. Consumer confidence also rose over the last couple of months.Maggie Barry: How is the improvement in consumer and business confidence being reflected in other economic indicators such as job advertising and retail spending?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think it is important to remember that businesses and households remain cautious overall about their spending and investment decisions and any one of these indicators can fluctuate from month to month reflecting that caution. However there are signs of improvement on the back of a gradually improving economic outlook. Job advertising across newspaper and internet increased by 3.5 percent seasonally adjusted in July and theANZ Job Adsindex is now 4.5 percent higher than a year ago. Of course this is not yet happening fast enough because there are still too many people without jobs. That is why the Government intends to persevere with its Business Growth Agenda to assist businesses to make the decisions that will allow them to invest and employ.Maggie Barry: What were some of the contributors to the overall improvement in the BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index in July and how was this interpreted by analysts?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The improvement was reasonably broad-based across the whole manufacturing sector. Food and beverages had a reading in the manufacturing index of 69.6 which is very high. Petroleum coal chemical and associated product manufacturing was 65.8. Machinery and equipment was also strong. BNZ economists confirmed that they had maintained a positive outlook for the domestic manufacturing sector for some time linked to an upswing in construction and broader domestic demand improvement. So this is simply further evidence that a recovery is under way. It is still gradual and still not yet leading to a sufficient decrease in unemployment but the signs are promising.Maggie Barry: How does the state of New Zealand manufacturing compare with the manufacturing sectors of other countries?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It depends on whom you listen to. If you listen to Labour and the Greens they say New Zealand manufacturing is in a crisis. However if you look at the facts according to the manufacturing indexes New Zealand has one of the highest readings in the world. The New Zealand performance of manufacturing index is 59.2. A reading above 50 means expansion. In Australia the performance of manufacturing index is only 42 which corresponds to a slower growth outlook in Australia and a higher exchange rate. China’s performance of manufacturing index is just above 50 as is Japan and the eurozone. In the UK and the US it is 54 and 55 which is positive but not growing as fast as New Zealand manufacturing. If this is a definition of a crisis then we would be pleased to have more of them.GCSB—Legislative Reform and Interception Powers3.DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition)to thePrime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.David Shearer: Is it correct that section 14 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill which prevents targeting of New Zealand citizens for intelligence-gathering purposes does not prevent targeting of New Zealanders for cyber-security purposes as outlined under section 8A of the bill?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Section 8A makes it quite clear in terms of cyber-security what the purpose is. In particular it says: “to do everything that is necessary or desirable to protect the security and integrity of the communications and information infrastructures …”. That is backed up by section 15A which makes it also quite clearunder what purposes a warrant can be issued which of course would be required. It says it has to fit the purpose of performing the function under section 8A. I am sorry the member does not understand the law but that is his problem not mine.David Shearer: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was very specific. It actually asked about section 14 of the bill—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to repeat his question.David Shearer: Thank you. Is it correct that section 14 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill which prevents targeting of New Zealand citizens for intelligence-gathering purposes does not prevent targeting of New Zealanders for cyber-security purposes as outlined under section 8A of the bill?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is getting confused. Section 14 applies to New Zealanders not in relation to cyber-security. That is section 8C. Section 8A is in relation to cyber-security.David Shearer: Would it not be better that the protection of New Zealanders against cyber-intrusion by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) be stated clearly in the bill to give them reassurance that their content will not be accessed?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is the very point; it is in the law already. It is in the law and—Hon Members: No it isn’t.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes it is. I am afraid it is in the law. It is in relation to section 8A which makes it quite clear in terms of cyber-security that the function is for protection not for surveillance. Section 15A makes it quite clear that a warrant is required. I have made it quite clear that within those warrants—and I am spelling out what no other Prime Minister before me has actually ever done and that is tell the House how I am going to be using the warranting provisions.David Shearer: Is there a specific clause in the bill that will allow a two-stage warrant process as he has outlined?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes. What I have said is under section 15A of the bill a warrant will be required that has to fit the purpose of section 8A and that is about the protection of data. I also made it quite clear that those warrants will exclude content being viewed from New Zealanders—David Shearer: No it won’t.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes it will and the member who is a member on the Intelligence and Security Committee will be able to check up any time he likes by asking the director when they come once a year.David Shearer: That is reassuring! Does he agree that the fact that he has needed to clarify the law through the media and through a third reading speech which we are expecting show that rushing through legislation as important as this in an ad hoc manner does not give New Zealanders reassurance?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No the opposite. Actually this side of the House completely understands the legislation and has. This side of the House has made it quite clear right the way though that the cyber-security function is about the protection of data. It is about protecting secrets not getting other people’s secrets which is what section 8C is all about. This side of the House came into Parliament to debate the legislation understanding it. That side of the House had absolutely no clue spent hours and hours and hours on Part 1 making stuff up through a filibustering process and now when it finally understands the law it wants to—David Shearer: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that has gone on long enough.Mr SPEAKER: The member might well say that but that is not a point of order and it is not his role to determine whether it has gone on too long.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. I have a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is a point of order. I want to know why you did not stop the Prime Minister in that finishing diatribe—it went on for a long time.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I am the one who determines when a question has gone on for long enough. In that particular case I was rising to my feet as the member David Shearer rose to his feet. But I not the right honourable gentleman will judge the length of answers and the length of questions.David Shearer: Is he prepared to include a protection of New Zealanders against cyber-intrusions in his legislation and support my Supplementary Order Paper on the matter?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is already there.David Shearer: No it’s not.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: You see when you do not understand the law and then all of a sudden you act like a bush lawyer—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is not going to help the order of the House.David Shearer: Is the Prime Minister saying that the Law Society the Human Rights Commission the Privacy Commissioner Geoffrey Palmer and many others also do not understand the law?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes.David Shearer: Did he or anyone in his office ever contact the Labour Party to obtain broader support for the bill?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot believe the member is asking that question. If he wants me to answer it I will get on my feet and do so.David Shearer: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that was a question. Did he or anyone in his office ever contact the Labour Party to obtain broader support for the bill—you contact me?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: OK—[Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want to hear the answer.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: OK. Yes Mr Speaker. After one of the Intelligence and Security Committee meetings I asked Mr Shearer whether he would like to come to my office to have a discussion. We sat down and had about a 30-minute discussion where Mr Shearer said: “Keep this confidential. If you come out and say we’ve done it that won’t look good and I don’t want you shouting it out about the House.” My deputy chief of staff went to see Mr Goff and also went to see Mr Robertson. On numerous occasions we reached out and at one point—Grant Robertson: No no no. Don’t make stuff up.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the member really wants to get down and dirty members of the Labour Party said they did not understand the law.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Bledisloe Cup was on Saturday.David Shearer: So he is saying that he initiated contact with me after the—[Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has every right to have his supplementary question heard.David Shearer: Is he saying that he made contact with me after the Intelligence and Security Committee meeting and that it was my request that he should remember that?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am afraid the member is wrong. I went up to the member after the Intelligence and Security Committee meeting and said “Do you want to come to my office?” to which the member said yes and I said that we would probably takethe stairs to avoid the other guys. We actually waited for the other members in particular Dr Norman to leave so that he did not see you coming up to my office. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! If members on the right-hand side wish to see the balance of question time they should respect the position I take when I stand and call for order.David Shearer: In the course of that discussion did he say to me that he did not really care whether we supported it or not because he already had Peter Dunne over the line?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I did not say exactly that I did not care. What I—[Interruption ] No. I will paraphrase the words roughly. What I said was that we had the numbers to pass the legislation and I knew that if for political reasons he was just going to carry on the way he was going because Grant Robertson was calling the shots fair enough—we would just get on and do it. The member also said he wanted a sunset clause and I said you have got to have rocks in your head if you want to have that because if you ever want to be the Prime Minister you will never get the Greens over the line.Dairy Products Whey Protein—Joint Ministerial Inquiry into Contamination Incident4.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country)to theMinister for Primary Industries: What announcements has he made on a Ministerial inquiry into the recent whey protein contamination situation?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):Yesterday the Minister for Food Safety and I announced that the Government has agreed in principle to establish a joint ministerial-led inquiry. We have released the draft terms of inquiry for the Government’s investigation into the whey protein concentrate contamination incident. We also announced that we have invited Miriam Dean QC to chair the inquiry. The terms of reference and the appointment of the chair will be formalised once the Inquiries Bill has completed its legislative passage.Shane Ardern: What will the ministerial inquiry cover?Hon NATHAN GUY: The inquiry is split into three parts. Part A will report into how the potentially contaminated whey protein concentrate entered the New Zealand and international market and how this was subsequently addressed. Part B will report into the regulatory and best-practice requirements that govern the food safety regime against the background of this incident in relation to the dairy industry. The final part compares practice across international jurisdictions.Shane Ardern: Why is the Government establishing a ministerial inquiry?Hon NATHAN GUY: New Zealand’s primary sector exports are crucial to our economy making up over 70 percent of our total merchandise exports. New Zealand has a strong reputation as a trusted exporter—in particular a trusted exporter of safe and quality food. This inquiry is about strengthening our already strong system and ensuring that New Zealand continues to uphold this strong international reputation.Trans-Pacific Partnership—Investor-State Dispute Provisions5.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First)to thePrime Minister: Does he have confidence in all of his Ministers?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister of Trade kept him abreast of all aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations; if not why not?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is fair to say that the Minister of Trade keeps me up to date on an ongoing basis. We do not go through every chapter line by line but he does give me an indication of how things are progressing.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has his Minister of Trade informed him as to whether or not contained within the secret pages of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the ability for foreign companies to sue the New Zealand Government—yes or no?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What the final parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership look like in relation to companies and the way that they can operate have not been concluded yet so it is not possible to say whether that would or would not happen. There are various technical provisions that might be contained in the legislation when it ultimately goes through the agreement but they have not been finalised yet.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Finalised or not in these negotiations are there provisions within the Trans-Pacific Partnership thus far draft form or otherwise that would see or enable foreign companies to sue the New Zealand Government—yes or no?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not going to go through the individual parts of it now because this is a negotiation that is being held with all of the interested parties—in fact the Minister is in Brunei at the moment undertaking those negotiations—and they have not been finalised yet.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the deal is for the betterment of the New Zealand people why is he keeping this matter secret from them and also from this Parliament in contrast to the US Government having kept its US Congress members informed? Why are we—both outside this Parliament as New Zealanders and inside this Parliament—being treated differently?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: My understanding is that this is a fairly stock standard way of New Zealand undertaking free-trade agreements—that there are negotiations that occur and they for logical reasons occur behind closed doors but fully in the knowledge ultimately that not only will the deal be made fully public but it actually has to be ratified by Parliament—Rt Hon Winston Peters: No what about now?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well there is no point in doing it now—Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well we do not know what is actually on the table and what is off. We will know that when we get to see a final deal. Even I have not seen that yet.Snapper 1 Fishery—Briefings on Policy Proposals6.DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition)to thePrime Minister: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.David Shearer: Did his Minister for Primary Industries brief him on the options for snapper management before he put them out for consultation?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the question is whether the Minister took it to Cabinet no he did not. He could have if he had wanted to but also it was OK that he did not.David Shearer: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question really was about briefing him not taking it to Cabinet.Mr SPEAKER: Can the right honourable Prime Minister please address that part. It was not whether it went to Cabinet; it was whether the Prime Minister had been briefed.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I was not briefed about that particular point but what is true is that when I saw the initial discussion that took place in the media there was then a discussion that was actually prior to the point where they went out to consultation.David Shearer: Will he be attending any of the public meetings called by recreational fishers to specifically discuss the options for changing snapper quota?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I probably will not be attending any of the meetings but interestingly enough it is the issue that does get raised with me as I have said when I go around the country from one end to the other. The interesting thing at all those publicmeetings is that I have had a lot of feedback from New Zealanders because they constantly raise this issue.David Shearer: Has he or any of his Ministers spoken to Peter Goodfellow the National Party president about the snapper quota levels?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.David Shearer: Does he agree with the view that “What we want is a sustainable fishery. Secondly we’ve got to put the rights of New Zealanders to go out and catch fish as the top priority and then we look after the commercial catch after that. We don’t reverse that order. That has to be the order because that is our right as New Zealanders.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes but I am also aware of the fact that what has actually taken place in relation to significant natural area 1 which is the area that is in question is that after some scientific work done by the Ministry for Primary Industries there have been concerns about decreasing snapper fisheries in the Bay of Plenty area. As a result of that the decision was made to go and have a look at consultation. From the top of my head 7200 tonnes of fish are estimated to be caught in significant natural area 1 with 4600 of those tonnes being taken by commercial fishers. At the moment about 2600 tonnes are taken by recreational fishers but because recreational fishers are more in number and they are becoming more efficient at catching fish the estimates from the ministry is that they are possibly taking an extra 1000 tonnes on top of that. The process now is to go through to see whether there need to be changes to either the balance between commercial and recreational fishers the size of the fish or the bag limit to see whether it is possible to ensure that the fishery is sustainable. I think that is what all New Zealanders want. I realise that there is emotion around the issue but the Government is carefully feeling its way through so that it is not just us who can catch the fish but other people can.David Shearer: Does he think it is fair that a commercial fisher can catch a snapper as small as 25 centimetres but a recreational fisher has to go to 36 centimetres—like these fish—is that fair?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In the weekend I took the liberty of reading John Armstrong’s column which was about his new chief of staff. If she is really advising him to come into Parliament—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption ] Order! Now would the Prime Minister address the question that was asked.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That may or may not be fair. I seek leave for the member to table the 36-centimetre snapper—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. Question No. 7 Alfred Ngaro. [Interruption ] Order! I have called Alfred Ngaro.Child Protection—Legislative Reform7.ALFRED NGARO (National)to theMinister for Social Development: What announcements has she made to better protect children from abuse and neglect?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development):More than 50 children have died in the last 5 years because of extreme abuse and we know many of their names. We have all had enough and it just has to stop. In the next month we will be introducing to the House significant legislation with sweeping changes to protect vulnerable children.Alfred Ngaro: What changes does the legislation introduce to get tougher on those who abuse children?Hon PAULA BENNETT: One of the changes that this legislation will introduce is the new child harm prevention orders targeting adults who pose a high risk of going onto hurt more children by imposing tough conditions and restrictions. The court will be able to place these new civil orders on adults with a history of serious convictions or those who on the balance of probabilities are believed to have been responsible for seriously abusing or killing a child.Alfred Ngaro: How will these changes better protect children in situations where children have previously been removed from parents?Hon PAULA BENNETT: This is an area that has been of concern for some time but under these changes parents who have seriously abused or killed children will have to prove they are safe to parent again if they go on to have another child. Currently it is only when those abusive parents have a subsequent child and come to the attention of Child Youth and Family that the child’s safety is assessed. Child Youth and Family then has to prove that the child would be unsafe in order to remove them. We will reverse this burden of proof and the parent will have to prove that their child will be safe in their care.Jacinda Ardern: How much in total has been budgeted to fully implement her child protection legislation across the next 3 financial years?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I would need to go back and have a look but from memory around $20 million.Businesses—Financial Support from Government8.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour)to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that one of his main priorities for 2013 is to “bed in” welfare reforms “because that is where by far the biggest fiscal benefits lie”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):Yes but I would point out to the member that any fiscal benefits arise from getting people off dependency on welfare and into work which has a benefit for them and a benefit for the community. It also benefits the Government’s books. I might say that the early signs of the impact of welfare reform are positive.Hon David Parker: When he was weighing up the $30 million taxpayer-funded corporate welfare payment to Rio Tinto why did he decide that getting the Meridian Energy fire sale through was more important than securing genuine—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption ] Order! I ask the member to look at the preliminary question that has been asked. He must ask a supplementary that is connected to that.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It might be convenient for the Government for us to completely signal everything in a primary question but it was about welfare payments and so is the supplementary question.Mr SPEAKER: Well I certainly did not hear that part. I will invite the member to ask his question again but if it is in relation to welfare and the welfare system I will accept that argument from the member.Hon David Parker: When he was weighing up the $30 million taxpayer-funded corporate welfare payment to Rio Tinto why did he decide that getting the Meridian Energy fire sale through was more important—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Questions need to be based on reasonable propositions. You cannot make an assertion like that and expect that the Minister would treat it seriously. To suggest that there is a whole activity taking place here—Hon David Cunliffe: That’s not a point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is actually. [Interruption ] Well he would be very encouraged—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just finish his point of order. I did not catch who was interrupting.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well he referred to a fire sale. That is not a reasonable thing to do in a question even if it were close to the primary question which relates to welfare reform.Hon Trevor Mallard: There are lots of types of welfare. Some of it is the sort that Paula Bennett is in charge of and some of it is of the sort that the Minister of Finance is more directly responsible for and tends to be in the form of one-off grants to companies. This question did not refer at any time—at any time—to the type of welfare for which Ms Bennett is responsible.Mr SPEAKER: I have heard sufficient. On this occasion I agree with the points raised by the Hon David Parker and the Hon Trevor Mallard. It does refer to welfare. I think it is a long bow but it still does refer to welfare and I will accept the question. In regard to the point made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee quite often supplementary questions have some quite significant assertions—some wild assertions on occasion. I leave it then for the Minister to deal with that in the way the Minister chooses when he answers. So we will now have the question repeated by the Hon David Parker.Hon David Parker: When he was weighing up the $30 million taxpayer-funded corporate welfare payment to Rio Tinto why did he decide that getting the Meridian Energy fire sale through was more important than securing genuine employment guarantees for the smelter workforce?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We do not apologise for having a bias in favour of jobs. That runs through the wide range of policy including welfare policy. We understand that the Opposition is against jobs but we are for them.Hon David Parker: Why has he added Chorus to the corporate welfare beneficiary list by overriding the Commerce Commission’s determination regarding copper broadband pricing resulting in a wealth transfer of up to $160 million from consumers to Chorus shareholders?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is speculating on what might or might not happen in respect of the Commerce Commission’s determination. But as I understand it that member’s party is in favour of the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband—Hon Steven Joyce: No no—they’re against.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Oh they are against it now? OK so they are against the jobs at the smelter they are against the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband they are against mining on the West Coast and they are against drilling for oil—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is sufficient.Hon David Parker: Given that his Government has signalled its intent to override the determination of the Commerce Commission on copper broadband pricing how can other businesses and investors expect a level playing field when his Government continues to pick winners and dole out corporate welfare when it suits?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the member will know from his interactions with businesses their confidence is generally rising. They have got a pretty high level of confidence actually in the Government’s policy framework. That member will also know that business sees the Government as reasonably pragmatic. Occasionally we make decisions such as in the case of the smelter to ensure that the contract was signed and completed. It is not the preference of the Government to do that regularly if at all but in that case we believe it was warranted. If we had not made that payment and had that contract secured the Opposition would be saying today that we were indifferent to the jobs of several thousand people in Invercargill.Hon David Parker: Why does his Government treat big businesses much more generously—Chorus Rio Tinto and Skycity—while thousands of smaller businessesand other smaller telecommunications companies that follow the rules continue to struggle?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is simply not correct. In each of the examples that he quotes the Government has made some pragmatic decisions such as in the case of Chorus to secure the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. If the member believes that he could have secured that—perhaps up to 10 years earlier than the network might have been completed—by some other method then he should let us know. The Government does not apologise for the occasional pragmatic decision to achieve the greater good. In respect of smaller businesses the Government has an extensive programme much larger than it was under the previous Government to support businesses of all sizes to innovate to invest another dollar and to employ another person and it seems to be working.Housing Affordable—Assistance for First-home Buyers and Legislative Reform9.Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie)to theMinister of Housing: How is the Government making KiwiSaver support for first home buyers and the Welcome Home Loan scheme fairer?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing):The two schemes are about helping families on modest incomes get into modest first homes. But the income and house price caps have been out of date and this has created unfairness. For instance as many people in Southland are getting assistance as those in Auckland where the housing challenges and population are far greater. We are increasing the house price caps by $100000 in Christchurch $85000 in Auckland and $50000 in areas like Hamilton Tauranga and Nelson. Lifting these house price caps and the income limits will help KiwiSavers access a bigger deposit when buying their first home. We are also trebling the number of Welcome Home Loans to 2500 per year. This will ensure in light of today’s announcement from the Reserve Bank that first-home buyers who are buying modest homes will get preference in respect of mortgage finance.Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What specific progress has the Government made in the last month in its housing affordability work programme?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Work is progressing at pace on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill which has been reported back to the House and is crucial to increasing land supply particularly in Auckland. Major reforms to the Resource Management Act were announced on 10 August which will require councils to make provision for at least a 10-year supply of land. We also announced changes last week to development contributions. These have risen more than any other component of new house price over the past decade and can be as much as $64000 per section. The previous Government in 2002 expanded these charges and took away any right of appeal. We will be introducing amendments to Parliament later this year that will constrain these costs and help both the affordability and supply of housing.Greenhouse Gas Emissions—2020 Target10.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green)to theMinister for Climate Change Issues: Does he agree with the statement made in 2009 by then Minister for Climate Change Issues Hon Dr Nick Smith in reference to New Zealand’s previous target of 10 to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 that “…a less ambitious target would undermine New Zealand’s clean green environmental reputation”?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Acting Minister for Climate Change Issues):Yes and that target of 10 to 20 percent below 1990 levels still stands. Just as was the case when the Hon Dr Nick Smith made those comments that target is conditional on there being a comprehensive global agreement. In addition to this just last week we announced anunconditional target of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 which we will meet irrespective of what other nations are doing. This unconditional target makes it clear that New Zealand is absolutely doing its fair share to address global climate change.Dr Kennedy Graham: Why has this new unconditional target been described by New Zealand’s leading climate policy and science experts including Associate Professors James Renwick and Ralph Chapman and Professor Jonathan Boston at Victoria University as “disappointing and inadequate” and that it “does not provide the leadership on climate change that New Zealand needs.”?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Dr Boston fundamentally got a number of technical matters just plain wrong. He should go back and do his homework before he starts lecturing the Government. The fact of the matter is that the international reputation of this country in terms of our unconditional target has been enhanced. It has been seen around the world as acting progressively and responsibly and as creating a positive precedent. Countries have been impressed not only that we have set a firm target but that we are leading the way by applying the Kyoto Protocol rules outside of the Kyoto Protocol under the convention.Dr Kennedy Graham: Which other developed country does the Minister plan to nominate to make up New Zealand’s shortfall given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prescribes 25 to 40 percent cuts for developed countries by 2020 but New Zealand is committing to 5 percent?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I am not in the business of telling other countries what to do but the fact of the matter is that our unconditional target compares very favourably with our traditional trading partners’ actions. If we go through the countries the fact is that when you look at Australia America and Canada—trading partners of New Zealand—we have a good unconditional target that shows us absolutely doing our fair share.Moana Mackey: Is he concerned that a recently released section 89 report shows a huge increase in deforestation and foresters exiting the emissions trading scheme in droves over the last year which will make achieving even his very modest target difficult; if so what is he planning to do about it?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No I am not concerned. The fact of the matter is that Moana Mackey plainly has her facts wrong again. More trees have been planted than cut down since National has been in Government. Although 26000 hectares of forest have been cut down under our Government 42700 hectares have been replanted. The fact of the matter is that—I know that again Moana Mackey does not get this—foresters plant they cut down and they replant again and under this Government they have replanted more than they have cut down.Food Safety—Standards and Monitoring11.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman)to theMinister for Primary Industries: Does he have confidence in the Ministry for Primary Industries’ standards for approving recognised agents?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):Yes because the base requirements confirm that agencies must have the right competencies qualifications skills and experience and meet performance standards. These have not changed since 1999. Many of these standards are based on international standards from the International Organization for Standardization and these are used worldwide. However it is worth noting that yesterday the Government announced details of a proposed ministerial inquiry into the recent whey protein concentrate contamination issue. Part B of the inquiry will report back on any recommended legal regulatory or operational changes and the Government will consider these recommendations very carefully.Hon Damien O’Connor: Has the establishment of a joint venture between AsureQuality and China’s No. 1 dairy company Mengniu in any way compromised the ability of New Zealand food producers to have the world’s best testing and monitoring of their products prior to export?Hon NATHAN GUY: No I do not believe so.Hon Damien O’Connor: Given the discovery in China of high nitrates dicyandiamide and melamine in our dairy products and the failure to detect these in New Zealand does he believe that the $26 million in cuts from the Ministry for Primary Industries have affected the quality and capability of the food safety system?Hon NATHAN GUY: The member keeps using that $26 million figure and that is factually incorrect—factually incorrect. The latest food safety budget has decreased by only $340000. The member should get his facts correct.Hon Damien O’Connor: Given the statement by the Prime Minister in a speech to the New Zealand - China forum in April this year in China that “we have very high food safety standards backed up with world-leading technology so that consumers can have the utmost confidence in our products.” does the Minister consider that both he and the Prime Minister have failed in their promise to the Chinese people?Hon NATHAN GUY: No. The reason why we have established the ministerial inquiry—and it is worthwhile for the member to have a read of that because Part B is going to address some of the issues in order to show to New Zealand domestic consumers and to our international trading partners the seriousness with which we treat our food safety systems. We need to reassure them that we have strong and robust systems in place.Hon Damien O’Connor: Supplementary Mr Speaker—Mr SPEAKER: No. I am advised that Labour has used its full number of supplementary questions.Health Targets—Elective Surgery12.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National)to theMinister of Health: What progress has been made on providing better access to surgical first specialist assessments?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health):I am pleased to advise that the number of New Zealanders getting assessed by hospital specialists to see whether they need elective surgery has risen by 40000 under this Government to a record 294000 assessments. This is a 16 percent increase under this Government—an average increase of 8000 a year. This stands in stark contrast to the period between 2001 and 2007-08 when the number of people who were able to access surgical specialist appointments basically flat-lined.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You heard the last part of that answer. Where in the primary question was that sought by the questioner and why did you allow him to finish that way?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has a perfect right to answer the question as he sees fit. There was nothing out of order with the answer from the Minister.Paul Foster-Bell: What advice has he received on the benefits for patients of this significant increase in first specialist assessments?Hon TONY RYALL: Surgical specialist assessments are the gateway to elective surgery which can relieve pain and restore quality of life. As an example the number of patients who have received an orthopaedic first specialist assessment is now 20 percent more. Nearly 10000 more orthopaedic assessments are being delivered each year compared with 2008 under the Labour - New Zealand First Government. This is a great credit—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There he goes again and—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just give his point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well I am.Mr SPEAKER: Well do it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If you do not mind I got just a few words out.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member has raised a number of points of order today that have not been valid. I give the opportunity for the member to stand again and raise a point of order but without the introduction.Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that the Minister has repeated the same offence that I complained about before and that is that he is now talking about for example a New Zealand First - Labour Government. There never was one. That was misinformation for a start. It is not part of the supplementary question being asked in the first place. That is the point of order I seek to raise and I have a right to raise it in this House.Mr SPEAKER: The member has a right to raise a point of order and on this occasion he has raised it. I have ruled that I did not think the answer was out of order. I had already done that so the member is effectively questioning my ruling. I will not continue to take it from the member.Hon TONY RYALL: An example is that the number of patients who have received an orthopaedic first specialist assessment is now 20 percent more. Nearly 10000 more orthopaedic assessments have been delivered each year than in 2008. This is—[Interruption ] Who was in Government then?Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a part—Hon TONY RYALL: This a great credit to the hard-working staff involved and I want to thank them for their effort in providing even better services for New Zealand patients.Urgent Debates DeclinedState-owned Energy Companies Sales—Meridian EnergyGreenhouse Gas Emissions—2020 TargetMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Clayton Cosgrove seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the Government’s announcement about details of the float of Meridian Energy. The announcement today simply confirms that instalment receipts will be used in the Meridian share offer expected in November. For there to be a particular case of recent occurrence there must be a new situation of significant and sufficient importance to warrant a debate being held. The accumulation of information in regard to an issue is not of itself a particular case of recent occurrence. The urgent debate procedure is a means of debating matters of importance that have occurred. Furthermore where the House has only recently considered an issue in principle every subsequent decision under the legislation will not necessarily justify setting aside the business of the House. The application is therefore declined.I have also received a letter from the Hon Maryan Street seeking to debate the decision by the Government to set a target of a 5 percent emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020. The member has not provided any authentication with her application which in itself is a reason not to accept it. The announcement allows for action to be taken in the interim while the Government works towards a binding agreement under the United Nations framework convention that will apply from 2020. It is part of an existing situation. I am not convinced that it heralds a new development ofsignificant importance and sufficient importance in itself to warrant a debate being held today. The application is also declined.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand the requirement for authentication. I have exactly four footnotes authenticating the assertions I have made and the need for the debate. Secondly the last time a debate of this nature was sought by my colleague Grant Robertson at the end of last year the Speaker then said that because there were Government decisions pending it was not appropriate to take up the time of the House. Last week’s announcement represents the decision that has been awaited and that was the grounds on which I thought it was time for the House to put aside time for this debate.Mr SPEAKER: I appreciate the point the member is making. The second point she made was certainly included in her letter and I acknowledge that. I have ruled that it is not of significant importance and sufficient importance to warrant a debate today. That is the end of the matter. But I am quite happy to meet with the member in my office after question time to explain further my decision.Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment BillInstruction to CommitteeHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I moveThat it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it reconsider Part 1 of the bill for the purpose of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in the name of David Shearer set out on Supplementary Order Paper 331 . The Supplementary Order Paper will prevent access to the content of New Zealanders’ emails unless absolutely necessary under section 8A inserted by clause 6 of the bill. I think we could probably give a signal that this is a debatable motion. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just carry on.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I was just being kind to the staff. Otherwise they could be there for an hour or so.Mr SPEAKER: I will equally assist there. That is not the member’s job. Would the member continue with his contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you Mr Speaker. What this Supplementary Order Paper will do is it will prevent access to the content of the emails under section 8A of the bill unless absolutely necessary. Neither the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003 nor any of the amendments that are currently in the Prime Minister’s name offer such a protection. This Supplementary Order Paper would legislate to make Parliament’s intent clear and New Zealanders’ expectation that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. Point of order the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assume that we are entering into this debate on the basis of Standing Order 173 which does make it clear that someone can move that an instruction is given to the Committee of the whole House. What it also says is that any debate on the question for an instruction is restricted to the subject matter of the motion not in this case the Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Mallard is speaking on. It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill or any other matter to which the motion relates. That makes it very clear that Mr Mallard’s current content is well outside the Standing Orders. He shouldsimply be making a case for the House to consider his motion as it is written not the various reasons that might be behind his choosing to move this today.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order that is exactly what I was doing. What I was explaining to the House was what was in the Supplementary Order Paper. I was not debating the merits of it—I was not debating the merits. I was speaking exactly to the question that I had proposed to the House. Mr Speaker if you remember exactly what I said it was—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need to hear that. Can I say to the member that Mr Brownlee is right to point out that this is a very narrow debate. I will follow very closely the contribution from the member and will expect that he will be within the Standing Orders. I invite the member to continue.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I agree with you Mr Speaker that it is a relatively narrow motion it is a relatively narrow question and it is actually quite a narrow amendment. It is a very specific amendment. The reason that we need to deal with the question now rather than previously is that it has become clear from the statements of the Prime Minister including a very good article by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  where the Prime Minister’s lack of understanding on the bill and on this specific question became clear. What the Prime Minister has indicated since the last time the House was in Committee is that there was an arrangement whereby he would be trusted in order to—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This strays once again well outside what is permissible for a debate of this nature. I say again that the subject matter of the motion—the subject matter of the motion—is what this is all about. For Mr Mallard to start straying into what he believes is some particular revelation from aNew Zealand Heraldarticle etc. does not meet the test for the Standing Orders.Chris Hipkins: Mr Speaker I have had a chance after Mr Brownlee’s first intervention to look at the relevant Speakers’ rulings. I refer you particularly to page 81 and the first ruling on that page which makes it clear that “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So therefore it is perfectly in order for a member moving such a motion to outline the reasons why the Committee should have the power to consider that Supplementary Order Paper.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member to refer to that Speaker’s ruling again.Chris Hipkins: Speakers’ ruling 81/1. The procedural motion which is the second part of it states: “The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” So it is important therefore that the amendment needs to be able to explain why the Supplementary Order Paper should be debated.Mr SPEAKER: I think in fact the point raised now by Chris Hipkins has very much strengthened the point made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. The Hon Trevor Mallard must remain very tight in his debate and frankly tighter than he was before he resumed his chair.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am going to try to take the point that I had begun to make to the point where you and the rest of the House can understand its relevance. The situation has moved since the House last debated this issue. That is why I am suggesting it and why the Leader of the Opposition has a Supplementary Order Paper that involves reconsidering Part 1 of the bill for the purposes of considering the Supplementary Order Paper. I am explaining how the world has changed. The world has changed with two points. First of all the Prime Minister made it clear in theNew Zealand Heraldthat there was an element of “trust me” in this—Mr SPEAKER: Tighten the contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —and what the Opposition is saying is that given that that is the Prime Minister’s approach we will accept him at his word and we will reinforce that with the Supplementary Order Paper.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are straying into a justification for the Supplementary Order Paper. The question is simply: should the House recommit time or go back to consider a bill that was given a considerable amount of time last week because of some revelation that Mr Mallard and his colleagues seem to have woken up to—or more important have decided to make some interpretation of? It is absolutely essential that for matters like this where the House is extending the right under the Standing Orders to recommit the House to a particular course of action—to instruct the Committee of the whole House—we do stick tightly within the rules of debate. Mr Mallard is not doing that.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the Hon Trevor Mallard to now continue his contribution but he must tighten it up. Otherwise I will have no choice but to end the member’s contribution.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: OK. The reason the House needs to reconsider Part 1 is that since it considered Part 1 new information has come to hand. That new information came to hand in two ways. One was a statement quoted by Audrey Young in theNew Zealand Herald  from the Prime Minister as to his understanding of the legislation. That was something that was different. It differed from what had been said previously about the legislation by the Government. The second was the indication that the Prime Minister has made that it is his opinion that a comment that he can make at the third reading will be something that is interpreted in the court over and above what is in the substance of the bill. That comment has also been made since the House was last debating this part in Committee.On the latter point I think I am probably one of the few members who has been cited in the court as a result of comments made in the House as to the interpretation of what was a bill at the time but which is an Act now. What the court made clear at that time was that the comments were useful in interpreting a particular section of that Act but what is also absolutely clear is that that section of the Act has to actually exist in order for the courts to interpret it. The proposal here as part of the reconsideration that is being suggested by the Labour Party—and which I understand is being supported by a number of other parties—is that because this new information is available what we should do is put in front of the House a question on which the House can decide and possibly I think even unanimously agree.I want to make it very clear that nothing I am saying now will indicate that the Labour Party will support the bill. Even if this amendment—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Just to make it clear this is a reconsideration of a particular matter to improve the bill to pick up the Government’s suggestion made since the House was last in Committee. We want to pick up the Government’s suggestion and get something—you know we are from the Opposition and we are here to help. What we are trying to do is get the bill into the form that the Prime Minister indicated over the weekend or certainly in the period since the Committee last sat was how he wanted the law to be in. So what this Supplementary Order Paper does and it is Supplementary Order Paper 305—Grant Robertson: It’s 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Grant Robertson: 331.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I apologise. In fact I am sure my colleague will move an amendment to my motion because somewhere between the morning and theafternoon the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of David Shearer changed its number from 305 to 331.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s called snapper.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re just calling it snapper now.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well really they are different sizes of snapper. I am sure Mr Brownlee does not think it is fair that commercial fishermen—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now we are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well if I am not allowed to respond to an interjection from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are truly straying.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Oh—Mr SPEAKER: The member has responded adequately.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —that was an invitation from the Leader of the House—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has responded.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —to focus on the question of snapper.But the point I am making is the same point that the Prime Minister has alluded to since the House last sat. The question was whether Kiwis are worried about this and in particular about the very narrow narrow question about whether when their emails are picked up as a result of the cyber-surveillance—the cyber-space surveillance and that is the area that we are talking about—there should then be the right to open them. So there is a Supplementary Order Paper that sits in there. I will not go into the merits of it but what the Supplementary Order Paper does is make it clear that that is not a ground for opening those particular ones and that consent is necessary. I just again want to somewhat go back over the area that I have traversed and say that this is exactly the practice that over this last weekend the Prime Minister said that he wanted. The Prime Minister said that he wanted the legislation to be interpreted in a way so that New Zealanders’ consent would be obtained before their emails that were obtained as a result of the mega-data cyber-surveillance clauses in the bill could be looked at.Again it is relatively unusual for the Opposition to be tidying up after the Prime Minister. I think that we had some debate about whether we should just leave the question for the courts to interpret. As I indicated earlier—and I am absolutely certain that the Attorney-General will have advised the Prime Minister that it is better to have something in the particular Act that goes through rather than just a comment in his third—[Interruption ] Well this is exactly the point Mr Speaker. I know you are telling me to come narrow but I am being very very specific about the comments that were made over the weekend by the Prime Minister about this intention in this particular area to have this clause—this very clause—not written into the bill but written into his third reading speech.This is Parliament. This is the Parliament of New Zealand. We pass the laws. They are not dictated in a speech by the Prime Minister.Mr SPEAKER: Just in relation to that last comment by the Hon Trevor Mallard it was not that I was telling him to get narrower; it was just that the speech was becoming highly repetitive and I give that as a warning to all other people who are contributing.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):The reality of everything that Mr Mallard has said in support of his motion is that nothing has changed in the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill or otherwise from last week when the Committee of the whole House gave this particular part of the bill Part 1 a very considerable amount of attention. To make acase that effectively says “Over the weekend we woke up and had another good idea and therefore we want to delay the passage of this bill as long as possible by instructing the Committee to go back on to areas that it has previously covered.” is completely inappropriate.One of the things that I think stands out here is the claim by Mr Mallard that any comment made in a speech in Parliament has no relevance to any piece of law. He is not the only member who has found himself quoted at various times by judges who have considered how a piece of law is to be interpreted so that is a spurious argument that is being mounted in favour of reserving the Committee an additional amount of time for consideration of Part 1. I would also say that when the Committee does spend so much time on one part of one bill and when the speaking arrangements for that part are so heavily weighted toward those who are opposing the part it seems quite unreasonable that when the House has made a decision in favour of that part those who oppose it should come back in here and say “Look we want to have another go. We want to take some more time.”What this is all about essentially is trying to back up Mr Shearer who found himself last night in front of a crowd who for once was interested in what he might have to say and then overstepped the mark by indicating that he was going to take this matter back to Parliament. [Interruption ] Well using the provisions of Standing Order 173 to try to achieve a bit of face-saving for the Leader of the Opposition is not acceptable either. I do not believe that any case has been made at this point for the House to consider supporting the motion moved by the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’ve finished now.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I know.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): A point of order the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am just making it clear to the Leader of the House that I was being polite and waiting until he had finished. I just want to seek from you a ruling with regard to the numbering within the motion that I moved. I used a piece of paper that had been supplied to me which noted that the motion related to Supplementary Order Paper 305 when in fact it should have been Supplementary Order Paper 331. The question is whether under the typographical error clause you will just change what I moved or whether it is necessary for an amendment to correct that to be moved. It is a matter I have discussed with the Clerk but I think we had better get—Hon Gerry Brownlee: You’d need the leave of the House for that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am happy to seek the leave of the House if members opposite are willing to substitute Supplementary Order Paper 331 for Supplementary Order Paper 305.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say that it had been read into the minutes of the House but a typographic mistake does not make the instruction invalid. I call the honourable member Russel Norman.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):Thank you Mr Speaker—Grant Robertson: I don’t know about that Mr Speaker.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: Mr Robertson I hope will get his opportunity very shortly. This is an important motion and I speak to the motion. It is an important motion and I say this as someone who has sat through the whole of the Committee stage and all of the other stages of this bill and who has sat here as we have worked our way through the parts of the bill. Essentially what this motion does is empower theCommittee of the whole House to go backwards back to Part 1. I think it is actually essential that we do go back to Part 1.For those who do not know the structure of the bill Part 1 is the kind of substantive amendments to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) Part 2 is about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and Part 3 is about the amendments to the Intelligence and Security Committee. Parliament is currently on Part 3. The Committee of the whole House is currently dealing with Part 3 which is of course in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee. So it is very difficult when we are dealing with the Intelligence and Security Committee to move the kind of amendment that Mr Shearer has proposed because clearly—Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s why we had the debate last week.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: —that amendment needs to happen under Part 1. Mr Brownlee has said it should have been done last week under the Part 1 debate. I assume that is what the member is arguing. Am I correct?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Of course.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: That is right. He may well have a good point were it not for the Prime Minister’s intervention. The reason this is significant is that the Minister in charge of the bill the Prime Minister of New Zealand has made some very large and controversial statements and assertions around the meaning of the legislation. Mr Shearer’s amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 331 is to try to put into black and white law those kinds of assertions. So the reason we need to go backwards in time for the Committee of the whole House to be empowered to deal with Part 1 again is so that we can deal with the issue that was raised by the Prime Minister himself which Mr Shearer’s amendment tries to deal with.This debate is obviously very constrained to the procedural issues around the motion that is in front of us and I appreciate that but of course the reason we are having to go through this procedural process is that the content of the amendment itself on Supplementary Order Paper 331 cannot be considered under Part 3 of this bill. Simply if we tried to put this amendment which I think is a legitimate amendment into Part 3 it would clearly be in the wrong part of the bill. So it is I believe a perfectly reasonable procedural motion to say that we should go back to Part 1.This amendment by Mr Shearer is probably one that most members of the Committee I would hope could agree with. The Prime Minister has told us that the bill already means this so I cannot see what the possible problem is—well he has told us it does mean this and it does not mean this; he has told us both things. But anyway most members of the Committee surely can agree with the amendment that Mr Shearer is moving which is essentially to put into black and white law the Prime Minister’s interpretation of the legislation.There is an issue around interpretation and this relates to the Interpretation Act itself. The issue is whether the Minister’s speech in the third reading will carry as much weight in front of a court as black and white law—that is the question. We all know those of us who have read the Interpretation Act that black and white law always carries the day against a Minister’s speech. If the black and white law is clear—in this case in my opinion enabling access to the content of emails under the cyber-security function of the GCSB under this bill—as I believe it is then it does not really matter what the Minister says it means in his third reading speech. The judge will make his or her own mind up based on the black and white law.That is why it is important that we empower the Committee to go backwards to Part 1 in order to put into black and white law the interpretation that the Prime Minister has apparently taken to what this law means. I cannot see why anyone would have a problem with that given that it is the Government’s own position that the law alreadymeans this—well sometimes it says that it does not mean this but put that to one side—and why anyone would have a problem with us empowering the Committee to consider Mr Shearer’s amendment so that the black and white law can sync with the—Hon Dr Nick Smith: You had your chance. You missed it. You filibustered.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: I am not filibustering. This is a very simple procedural issue. It is great that the Hon Dr Nick Smith accuses us of filibustering because we are attempting to put into the legislation the very point that the Prime Minister says is what it means. What exactly is the problem here? Sorry I should not be responding to the provocative comments of Mr Smith over there.What we are trying to do is simply do a procedural motion that would enable the Committee of the whole House to put into black and white law the interpretation that the Prime Minister has introduced. Why time is very important in this—because it is all about time the order in which things happen—is that the Prime Minister made these statements after the debate on Part 1 had already happened. That is what is significant. If the Prime Minister had made this statement before Part 1 then the Government would I believe have a legitimate gripe with us as to why we did not move this amendment when we had the Part 1 debate. That would be a legitimate criticism. But the Prime Minister made these statements after we had completed the debate on Part 1 and we cannot move this amendment in the current part we are on which is Part 3. If the Prime Minister had made those comments before then I think Mr Brownlee would have a legitimate complaint.Hon Gerry Brownlee: This sounds so whiny Russel—so whiny.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: But Mr Brownlee I am afraid the Prime Minister made the comments after we had completed the Part 1 debate and that is why it is a very reasonable proposal that the Labour Party is putting for us here—to go back so that we can consider this clarification amendment—because it has to be included within Part 1. So that is why I think this is a reasonable motion and the Green Party will be supporting it.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I rise to speak in support of Mr Mallard’s motion. I am going to make three points around the three parts of the motion. The first part of the motion is the notion of an instruction to the Committee of the whole House the second part of the motion is around the question of that instruction being the reconsideration of Part 1 and then the third part of the motion is the specific amendment for which there would be a motion of reconsideration. To talk to the first of those three elements of Mr Mallard’s motion the instruction to the Committee of the whole House it is unusual for Parliament to issue an instruction to the Committee of the whole House. The Committee as most members will be aware and people watching may be aware operates quite independently from the operations of this House when we sit here with the Mace in place ready to do our work as a Parliament. We act as a Committee. In order for this Parliament acting as it is now with the Mace on the Table to issue an instruction as Mr Mallard is asking in his motion is unusual. That is because the business of the Committee of the whole House normally takes place in an orderly fashion and in such a way that it proceeds through and returns to us with a report back to this House on the activities of the Committee.The reason an unusual event like this instruction occurs is that often something occurs between when the Committee deals with something and then when the House next comes to deal with the matter. That is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today where it is necessary to undertake the unusual move of instructing the Committee because in the time since the Committee dealt with Part 1 the Prime Minister has made a very definitive statement about the meaning of a clause within Part 1—section 8A inserted by clause 6 within Part 1 of the bill.Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s right and he’s correct.GRANT ROBERTSON: He has made a very definitive statement. That definitive statement was not made before the Committee considered Part 1. So the unusual experience—and I can see it is disturbing for Mr Brownlee—of the House issuing an instruction to the Committee has to be justified. It is not something we would undertake lightly but we do so because there has been a significant development in the meaning and the interpretation of a clause within Part 1. Therefore Mr Mallard’s motion to move an instruction to the Committee is justified in this instance in my point of view.The question then in the instruction is should we reconsider Part 1. Just to recap—and it is important to do this—Part 1 of this bill is the substantive section of this bill. It is the part of the bill that amends the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. The other two parts of the bill actually amend other Acts so Part 1 is the substance of this bill. The section that is addressed within Supplementary Order Paper 305 is around the functions of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) so it is absolutely core to the purpose of this legislation to the whole legislation itself. This is not a trivial matter we are asking to be reconsidered by the Committee; it is the core of the functions of the GCSB. So when we are issuing here the idea to reconsider Part 1 the only way that we can provide clarity about an essential part of this bill is to go back and reconsider Part 1.We are unable now—as we are in the Committee of the whole House up to Part 3—to amend Part 1. There is only one option for this and that is to go back and reconsider Part 1. When we were considering Part 1 there was no definitive statement in the public arena of the fact that the content of New Zealanders’ communications including emails were not able to be looked at under section 8A inserted by clause 6. That statement was made by John Key to Audrey Young—Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s in the bill.GRANT ROBERTSON: Gerry Brownlee interjects and says that it is in the bill. It is not in the bill. That is the whole point of this exercise. It is not in section 8A. It does not make that clear. It is not in section 15A inserted by clause 14. It is not in section 15C. It is nowhere in those places. When John Key makes a definitive statement that New Zealanders’ communications—the content of them—cannot be accessed we on this side of the House say “All right. Put it in the law. Do not just say it to Audrey Young in an email; put it in the law. Make it clear.”Hon Anne Tolley: It is in the law.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not in the law Mrs Tolley.Hon Anne Tolley: It is in the law.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not in the law. What clause? What clause is it in Mrs Tolley? What clause? She cannot answer because it is not. That is why we have to ask the Committee of the whole House to reconsider Part 1 because the Prime Minister has moved from a situation when this Committee was originally debating Part 1 where there was no definitive statement about whether or not the content of New Zealanders’ communications including emails would be possible. He made those statements after the Committee went through Part 1 and then said it on television after Part 1 had been debated. He then repeated it. It was then printed in the newspaper on the basis of a written email—a communication from John Key to Audrey Young. That is new information about Part 1. That means that the Committee of the whole House has not been able to fully consider Part 1 when the Committee went past that last week. That is why our submission and Mr Mallard’s motion say that we should be reconsidering Part 1.It is not good lawmaking for this House to find out that there is something definitive about Part 1 that is not expressed in the law at this time. Mr Mallard and others havealready mentioned the fact that Mr Key has subsequently said that he will make statements in his third reading speech and that that will make sure that the interpretation of Part 1 is clear. That is not good lawmaking. It is a far better practice and a far clearer practice to write down in law what is meant. The Prime Minister could not have been more definitive over the weekend when he said the content of New Zealanders’ communications would not be accessed as a result of section 8A. He made that clear after the House had gone through Part 1 and we on this side of the House submit that that means we should be reconsidering Part 1 because we cannot do that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: 8CA covers it.GRANT ROBERTSON: Gerry Brownlee has found 8CA. I very very much doubt section 8C could have anything to do with this because that is not about cyber-security Mr Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not. Section 8C is about assisting other agencies. It is a different clause Mr Brownlee. Section 8C is a different clause. We are talking about section 8A. Mr Brownlee has no idea about the structure of this bill whatsoever—no idea. Section 8A is cyber-security section 8B is the foreign intelligence function and section 8C is assisting other agencies Mr Brownlee—Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it’s not.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes it is. That is what it is. Gerry is wrong once again.I come to the third point which is the specific amendment that is included in Mr Mallard’s motion. The need for the specific amendment is because the people of New Zealand have been told by John Key that we have to trust him in order for their communications including emails to be protected. Mr Mallard’s motion says that we need to consider the Supplementary Order Paper from David Shearer that says that just having someone like John Key say “Trust me.” is not good law. What we need in the law is a statement. David Shearer’s Supplementary Order Paper 331 begins with the words “For the avoidance of doubt …”. It is quite clear that there is considerable doubt. John Key claims that it is all fine—trust him the content of communications will not be looked at. The Law Society Geoffrey Palmer and all sorts of other people have come forward and said: “We are seriously concerned here about whether the content of New Zealanders’ communications including email can be accessed.”This Supplementary Order Paper 305 covered by Mr Mallard’s motion says that for the avoidance of doubt let us say once and for all that the content of New Zealanders’ communications is not covered under section 8A. That is a perfectly reasonable suggestion—to go back and do something that apparently the National Government already agrees with. Well for the avoidance of doubt let us put that into the law. Mr Mallard’s motion should be supported. The Committee should reconsider Part 1 because John Key cannot make up the law as he goes along.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First does support the motion. We think that there are good grounds for a reconsideration of Part 1 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I agree with the Hon Gerry Brownlee that there has in fact been a very long debate. But in fact there has been a very great amount to debate on this bill and I for one did not get a full opportunity certainly to discuss all of the matters that I would have wished to debate even during the debate that we have had. It did take quite a long period to get through it as far as it has gone. But there remain a lot of issues that are un-debated so I do not accept the argument to begin with that the fact that there has already been along debate necessarily means that all the issues that members wish to debate have in fact been debated. That is a very important consideration for us.But there are some good reasons as I have said for reconsidering Part 1. The most important one of these is uncertainty. We have heard the Prime Minister today answer some very good questions I felt about Part 1 of the bill and that resulted only I believe in even more confusion and even more uncertainty than before those questions were asked and answered. Having regard to what the Prime Minister said and then rereading the clauses that were referred to both by those who have been asking the questions—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know you are a stickler for parliamentary procedure particularly good behaviour from members. It is very good behaviour for members to stick to the Standing Orders and the member speaking is straying well wide of Standing Order 173(5): “It may not extend to the principles objects or provisions of the bill [itself]” which the member is now doing. It is simply confined to the subject matter of the motion—in other words the question of should we or should we not open up Parliament. It is deliberately restrictive—there is no question about that—because when these Standing Orders were written as you are probably well aware there was a desire to terminate some of these interminable debates that Parliament had seen before on these sorts of motions.DENIS O’ROURKE: Speaking to the point of order I made it very clear during what I was saying that the reason why we should be considering this motion is the uncertainty around Part 1 specifically relating to the answers and questions in the House today. It has got nothing to do with the substance of those things. It has got to do with whether there is a need for further debate because of the uncertainty that has been generated by what has been said by the Prime Minister today and also at other times. It has got to do with that not the substance of the sections themselves.Hon Trevor Mallard: You probably do not need a lot of assistance here because the width of this debate I think was pretty well established during the contribution of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. He—as I am sure you are aware—substantially broadened away from what would otherwise have been considered appropriate. As you are aware once a debate has been broadened then members are allowed to respond as long as they do not get further outside and as long as they stay within the then broadened debate. As I moved the debate I worked quite hard to stay narrow. That was undone in the contribution of Gerry Brownlee.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just remind members that this debate is a very narrow one and it is on the reasons why we need to go back. I want to refer members back to Speakers’ ruling 81/1 which states: “(1) This is a procedural motion … and it is a narrow debate. The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper. (2) Members cannot debate the content of the amendments; they are tabled for members to look at.” Just to remind members I say that it is a very narrow debate and it has to be on the reasons why we need to go back.DENIS O’ROURKE: That is exactly what I was saying. The reason for us having to go back is that what we have already debated has been called into question in terms of whether what the Prime Minister claims the bill says and what it does say are the same thing. That is the uncertainty that I refer to because the Prime Minister has said in the House today that the bill says certain things especially with regard to section 15B inserted by clause 14 and section 8A inserted by clause 6 concerning the purposes of the bill. That has introduced a high level of uncertainty I believe and any of the public watching this debate would not have had any confidence that the National Government actually does know what this bill says and yet it has accused the Opposition of notunderstanding the bill and I think the reverse is the case. That level of uncertainty means that this motion is what we should be passing today so that we can deal with exactly those issues.A second issue is this: there has been concern expressed in the public even by those who purport to support this bill about the process for the passing of this legislation if indeed it does pass. That would be allayed significantly if the Committee of the whole House were permitted to look again at Part 1 which is the substance of this motion and is the substance of the bill as a whole. I believe that the people of New Zealand want to hear this Parliament look again at Part 1 so that we can make good law that is certain and that the people of New Zealand at least understand whether they support it or not.Finally what harm would it do for the Committee of the whole House to take another hour or two to look at a piece of legislation that has gained significant notoriety out there in the public arena? We need to look at that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it hasn’t.DENIS O’ROURKE: The opposition says no. Rather the National opposition says no but everybody in this country does feel—Hon Anne Tolley: You’re the Opposition.DENIS O’ROURKE: I said “the National opposition” the National opposition to us—Hon Anne Tolley: No no. We’re the Government the National Government.DENIS O’ROURKE: The Minister is wasting time. The issue is that people in this country want to hear this debate held again because they do not understand this and we should look at it again for those reasons.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I moveThat the question be now put .The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is a very narrow debate but I will take one more.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):For a start can I deal with just a couple of points that have been raised by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. He said that because the Part 1 debate on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill was long we should not be able to recommit.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t say that.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well I heard you say that. I might have misunderstood what you said but I thought you were saying that because there had been a long Part 1 debate it should have been raised as part of that debate and we should not go back. I think that is wrong. There was a long Part 1 debate because this is a serious matter and there are lots of hooks in it.The second point I would make is about this reference we have had that since that debate has concluded the Prime Minister can somehow fix this legislation in the third reading debate. That is a misapprehension of the relevance given to third reading debates by the courts. The courts only ever have regard to third reading debates in the event of ambiguity. They do it to cure ambiguity; they do not do it to rewrite the law. In this case it is clear that there is not ambiguity but that the Prime Minister wants to read this law in a different way to that which it naturally reads.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!Hon DAVID PARKER: “Rubbish!” says Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t say that.Hon DAVID PARKER: You did. You said: “Rubbish!”.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No I didn’t. If it had been me I would have said “Utter rubbish!”.Hon DAVID PARKER: OK “Utter rubbish!” from the Leader of the House.The problem arises from the fact that the definitions in respect of what the Government Communications Security Bureau can look at are so broad as to include the content of emails. That is the essential problem. It is not ambiguous. That is what the law says in this bill. The Prime Minister since we had the Part 1 debate in the Committee stage has said that he is not going to interpret it that way. When he is called to grant warrants he is going to—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I think I can—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well you probably can anticipate what I am going to say. The Hon David Parker is beginning to stray very very wide of the motion. You were good enough to allow him to make a contribution to outline why he thinks the Committee should put more time into a part that has been previously been decided upon but to start arguing the merits of the decision as he is now doing is not appropriate inside Standing Order 173(5).Chris Hipkins: Speaker’s ruling 21/2 stresses that it is the right of a member to raise a point of order but once a matter has been raised and has been ruled upon it is disorderly to continue to raise that matter. I have lost count how many times Mr Brownlee has raised the matter of relevance in this debate and each time the matter has been ruled upon therefore he must be getting into the area where he is becoming disorderly by continuing to interrupt members to question the relevance of it. The Chair is the judge of relevance. There can be no doubt that Mr Brownlee has a view of how the Chair should be interpreting the relevance of this debate but continuing to raise it with the Chair is disorderly.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just advise members that it is a narrow debate. I have been generous in my calling and I just caution members that we actually do need to debate this in the narrow way in which the Speakers’ rulings allow us to do so.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well the point as to process is driven from the fact that a third reading speech cannot fix legislation that is flawed. A third reading speech can be in very limited situations—Grant Robertson: That’s why we need this.Hon DAVID PARKER:That is why we need to recommit it.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s not.Hon DAVID PARKER: I am afraid it is Mr Brownlee. That is exactly the point. We have heard the Prime Minister say he is going to fix this in a third reading speech. A court can have regard to third reading speeches only in the case of ambiguity. We are saying it is not ambiguity; it is something that needs to be fixed in Part 1.In terms of the Leader of the House’s contribution that this was going to lead to a very long open-ended recommittal to Part 1 the motion itself says that the reconsideration of Part 1 is limited to the consideration of this one Supplementary Order Paper. It is not all Supplementary Order Papers. It is not the whole of Part 1. This motion if passed would allow the House to recommit to Committee stage “for the purposes of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in David Shearer’s name set out in Supplementary Order Paper 331”—I think it is meant to be read—“to prevent access to the content of New Zealanders’ emails unless absolutely necessary under section 8A.” So it is not an open-ended recommittal of Part 1; it is the committal of Part 1 for this very narrow consideration of this issue which since the Committee finished its consideration of Part 1 has been raised as an issue by the Prime Minister through the media.We are dealing with civil liberties. We are dealing with the power of the State to intervene in the private lives of New Zealanders. It seems to me that this is a very appropriate case—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Read the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: I have read the bill Mr Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Not well.Hon DAVID PARKER: I suggest I understand it at least as well as you—at least as well as Mr Brownlee. I am going to end my contribution there because the other points have been well made but this assertion by the Prime Minister that somehow a third reading speech can fix a flaw in the legislation is wrong.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country):I moveThat the question be now put .A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it reconsider Part 1 of the bill for the purpose of considering and if it thinks fit adopting the amendments in the name of David Shearer set out on Supplementary Order Paper 331.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.In CommitteeDebate resumed from 8 August.Part 3 Amendments to Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996(continued )Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I want to talk to Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Part 3 of the bill deals with the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. What this part of the bill should be about is providing proper scrutiny over an agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) which in this legislation is being given more power—considerably more power—and indeed power to actually intercept the emails of New Zealanders on cyber-security even though the Prime Minister denies that but will not let the House put explicit safeguards in place to ensure that that spying does not happen.Hon Anne Tolley: Just not telling the truth.Hon PHIL GOFF: The member has been challenged to nominate the clause in the bill that explicitly stops the Prime Minister allowing the GCSB to spy on the emails of New Zealanders in relation to cyber-security. It is not there. The Prime Minister knows it is not there and in fact the Prime Minister said to the papers on the weekend that he would say something in the third reading of the bill and that would fix it. He does not understand how this House works and neither does that member.Hon Anne Tolley: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are on Part 3 I think which is a very narrow part and has nothing whatsoever to do with the third reading.Hon PHIL GOFF: Speaking to the point of order the member has a cheek in raising that point of order because I was responding to the interjection where she sought to interrupt my speech which was on Part 3 of the bill and I paused for a moment to make a lie of what she was telling the Committee.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! You were going so well Mr Goff and then you used a word that we cannot use in this Chamber. When Ministers interject that invites further comment. But Part 3 is debate on clauses 37 to 40.Hon PHIL GOFF: As I was saying this is the part that should give real powers to the Intelligence and Security Committee to exercise oversight of the GCSB and the Minister responsible for the GCSB. What this part does not address is the fundamental conflict of interest that you have in having the Minister in charge of the GCSB not simply on the committee—that would be unusual in any other select committee—but actually chairing the committee. So the Minister who is supposed to be the subject of scrutiny in his oversight of the GCSB which has been very poor on his track record is actually chairing that committee and ensuring that that oversight does not take place.The Attorney-General had the effrontery in his speech on this part of the bill to say that the Intelligence and Security Committee was modelled on a select committee. It is nothing like a select committee and the Attorney-General understands that. The first thing a select committee would do when hearing a piece of legislation like this is it would call in the department that the legislation was about. Did the Intelligence and Security Committee call in the GCSB to question the GCSB about legislation that pertained to it and its activity? No. Why not? Because the Prime Minister is the Minister in charge of the GCSB and he forbade the committee to have the GCSB come in to say how its powers were proposed to be expanded under this legislation what its actual competence and effectiveness in exercising its current powers were and whether there was sufficient oversight over the select committee.I have been on this committee. This committee meets rarely—at best a couple of times a year. This committee when it meets meets briefly. The Prime Minister chairs it and shows his absolute boredom with the proceedings very obviously and sends through his body language a signal to the officials who are appearing before it that they had better not say anything about the committee. The officials get the clear message from the Minister that anything that they say that could lead to other questions by the Opposition would not be appreciated by their Minister. It is a total farce. It is a total facade to say as this part of the bill says that we will fix that by taking the Prime Minister out of the chair for part of the proceedings if it is about the financial review. Who is the Government going to replace him with? It is going to replace him with the Attorney-General or the Deputy Prime Minister. I have real confidence in the independence of those members to chair the committee in a way that gets the truth out and embarrasses the Prime Minister! Yeah right! It is a Tui billboard absolutely. That proposal is paper-thin. It has not even the pretence of producing oversight and accountability.If the committee was to work properly then maybe it should take its functions from the Regulations Review Committee. As you are aware Mr Chairman the Regulations Review Committee by tradition is chaired by a member of the Opposition. The member of the Opposition listens to the official advice and asks the hard questions. So why not have a member of the Opposition—in fact the Leader of the Opposition who is actually the Prime Minister in waiting—chair that committee? Then you might have some grounds for public confidence that oversight was taking place and that accountability was being enforced.You know I have looked at a range of other Western democracies around the world that have committees like the Intelligence and Security Committee. One point that both the Australian committee and the United Kingdom committee make absolutely clear in their rules is that no Minister should sit on the committee overviewing the intelligence agencies. What have we got from the National Government? We have got three Ministers on the committee. In the United Kingdom or Australia not one of those Ministers would be eligible to sit on it. If you look at the United States the President exercises executive authority over the National Security Agency. He is scrutinised by two committees—one in the House of Representatives one in the Senate—both separated constitutionally from the executive wing and often chaired by a member of a party that is not the party of the President. If you look at the Norwegian example it goes a step further. Its oversight committee actually does not even have members of Parliament on it.But the Attorney-General brings this fraudulent piece of legislation in Part 3 to the Committee and says: “Trust us we have strengthened the oversight.” He has done no such thing. He has done no such thing. New Zealanders—40 percent in the TV3 poll said they do not trust the GCSB and 89 percent said last night they do not support this legislation—will not be fooled for a moment by this legislation. This legislation does not give oversight. It is farcical in the pretence that it makes that it might do so.The fact is that both the Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Human Rights Commissioner have made it clear in their submissions to the committee that the oversight provided by the Government is inadequate. Both of those people are appointed by the Government and are appointed to protect the rights of New Zealanders and their reasonable expectation of privacy. Marie Shroff who is the Privacy Commissioner was Secretary of the Cabinet for 10 years. She understands about the workings of Government. She says we should not go ahead with this bill that it needs more work and that there is not much oversight. The Government has changed the membership of the Human Rights Commission completely to put its own people in. But even its own people say that these measures of oversight do not work that these measures of oversight are not sufficient and that the Government is giving enormous powers to the GCSB to intrude into the private lives of New Zealanders.We do not have accountability. The media cannot report because it does not have access to the information. There are not parliamentary processes. The Official Information Act does not effectively apply to what is happening in the GCSB. The Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission and the Law Society all say that we should go back to the drawing board. The protections are not sufficient. Yes we need a security—LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. This is an important part because it deals with the question of accountability and oversight of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Iwant to speak to my amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 313. I have moved this amendment in order basically to give the committee greater ability to inquire into these agencies. Currently the committee has a lot of constraints on it. If you think about a regular select committee if it is to be able to do its job it needs to be able to inquire into an agency to ensure that it is working.Currently under the Intelligence and Security Committee Act there are all these constraints—for example the functions of the committee do not include inquiring into any matter that is operationally sensitive. What this means is that basically the Minister can say that this is something that is operationally sensitive so you are not allowed to look at it. You might think that is OK and you would not want the secrets to come out. But if the Intelligence and Security Committee—operating essentially in secret because it meets in a closed session—cannot inquire into the operations of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the SIS then nobody else from the democratically elected Parliament outside of the Prime Minister can inquire into the operations.This is particularly important for the issue that was raised in Parliament today which was around whether the GCSB is in receipt of money from the United States Government. When I have asked written questions of the Minister responsible for the GCSB as to whether the GCSB has received money from the US Government and particularly the National Security Agency the Prime Minister has refused to answer those questions on the basis that these are operational matters and he does not comment on operational matters. We know from the United Kingdom that the equivalent of the GCSB the Government Communications Headquarters has received something in the order of £100 million from the US Government in order to do the work of the US spy agencies in Britain. We can only assume that the New Zealand spy agency the GCSB is also in receipt of money from the US Government. We cannot prove it. We do not have the evidence. We do not have Snowden’s leaks to show that it has been getting money from the US Government. But when we have asked questions about it the Prime Minister has blocked us on the basis that it is operationally sensitive.That is why my amendment on this part—which basically gives the Intelligence and Security Committee the ability to ask questions about things that might be operationally sensitive—is important. If we cannot even ask whether the GCSB has been getting money from the US Government—if that simple question is blocked by the Prime Minister on the basis that it is operationally sensitive—then we cannot ask some basic questions about the GCSB. If the GCSB is in receipt of many millions of dollars of US Government money—and we cannot prove whether it is or it is not but clearly the equivalent agency in the United Kingdom is so why would not the equivalent in New Zealand also be receiving US Government money?I mean there is a logic to this thing—that the National Security Agency is giving out large amounts of money to its Five Eyes partners. It has given a whole bunch of money to the UK. It makes sense that it has also given a whole bunch of money to the GCSB in New Zealand. And if we cannot ask those questions because they are blocked by the Prime Minister on the basis that they are operational matters then it becomes incredibly difficult for the Intelligence and Security Committee let alone Parliament as a whole to do its job of keeping the GCSB accountable. That is why I have moved an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 313 to basically give more power to the Intelligence and Security Committee to ask these questions.Obviously I cannot talk about what happens inside meetings of the Intelligence and Security Committee because under the statute under which it operates it is an offence to reveal anything that happens inside the meetings even though I have been on the committee for 5 years now. But essentially if you look at the statutes under which weoperate the GCSB can always block us asking questions on the basis of operational sensitivity. That is why it is very important that we remove this section from the Intelligence and Security Committee Act so that we can ask those questions.We cannot even get into the basic financial situation of the GCSB. You might think that the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot ask questions about whom the GCSB is bugging but surely the committee should be able to ask questions about the financial situation of the GCSB. But we cannot even ask questions about the financial situation of the GCSB—for example whether it is in receipt of large amounts of money from the US Government—because when we ask those questions as I did in my written questions to the Prime Minister he blocked the answers to those questions on the basis that they concerned an operational matter. It seems to me that the question of whether the GCSB is in receipt of large amounts of money is an issue of financial review as much as anything else. How are we meant to operate the powers of financial review over the GCSB and the SIS if we cannot even ask questions as to where their money is coming from—that is whether it is coming from offshore or whether it is coming from the New Zealand Government? We are not allowed to ask those questions.Under some of the improvements of oversight—and there have been some improvements some minor improvements and I have acknowledged those previously—one of those minor improvements is that the financial review sessions are meant to operate in public. This is an amendment that Peter Dunne managed to get up and it is a small improvement. But you realise how small the improvement is when in the financial review discussion of the GCSB which is meant to be happening in these public sessions we will not be allowed to ask—or at least we will not be able to have answered—some basic fundamental questions about where the money comes from even under the marginally expanded financial review powers that Mr Dunne has got put into this bill because we cannot ask the GCSB the question of where the money comes from and where its income comes from.You might think that it is just an act of generosity by the US Government that it gives the GCSB a whole bunch of money and it is an act of generosity that it has given £100 million to the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom. But if the GCSB is to be truly accountable to the New Zealand people this is in fact a critical issue. There is a saying is there not? He who pays the piper calls the tune. That is one of the sayings. When we—that is the taxpayers and people of New Zealand—are the ones who pay the money then it gives us some control over the purse strings of the GCSB because we are able to say “No we are not going to give you money for that.” if we do not like what “that” is or “We will give you money for ‘x’.” if we do like what “x” is.The problem is that if the US Government is a major funder of the GCSB—and based on the evidence from the United Kingdom and the Snowden papers it may well be true. Who knows? The Prime Minister will not answer questions on it. If the US Government is a significant funder of the GCSB then we lose that level of control over the GCSB’s functionality because if it wants to install a particular system that the New Zealand Government and taxpayers simply do not want to pay for then it can get funding from offshore to install those surveillance systems.I give you that on first hearing this may sound extraordinary. When I first heard that the National Security Agency had been funding the Government Communications Headquarters in the UK I could not believe it. It was only when it was confirmed by the papers that Edward Snowden released which obviously revealed the true extent of what is really going on with the surveillance state that we were able to establish that these large amounts of money were flowing from the National Security Agency in the United States into the other Five Eyes agencies and presumably into the GCSB. That is whythis amendment which might seem relatively small and perhaps not relevant to issues of financial review actually is entirely relevant to the financial review function. We cannot perform even the financial review function of the GCSB properly because the Prime Minister is using the defence of operational matters as a reason not to answer basic questions—for example the question of whether the GCSB is receiving money from offshore.There are a number of other issues that are related to this and I think Mr Goff has done a good job in covering those. They include the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee is dominated by Government Ministers when in other jurisdictions Government Ministers cannot be on such an oversight committee; the fact that the committee has limited powers of inquiry and this is a significant restriction; and of course the fact that in other jurisdictions members of Parliament are not on the committee which gives it much more independence. All of these things could have been dramatically improved in the way that we dealt with this had we gone through a proper process of holding an inquiry into these agencies so we could actually start from a sensible starting point of asking what kinds of agencies we want and what kind of oversight they should have. Then the law would follow from that including the oversight of the Intelligence and Security Committee which we are dealing with under this part. The law would flow from such an inquiry rather than our dealing with this bill in front of us which the Prime Minister and the Government are very keen to push through this Parliament.I would say to the National members of the Committee that you should support this amendment to the bill. It is a constructive amendment to the bill so that we can do proper financial reviews of the GCSB. Currently we cannot because the Prime Minister will not answer questions on them.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I moveThat the question be now put .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—JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): When I look around I see quite a few people calling and I am going to call—this is hard. Oh all right. I call the honourable member Jacinda Ardern.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):Thank you Mr Chair. That became quite the bidding war in the end. I just want to clarify that as we are debating Part 3 of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill there seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding on the Government benches that this overall bill extends the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to essentially spy on New Zealanders and of course that then extends to the oversight provisions that sit in Part 3. But overall that is a fundamental change to the way that the GCSB operates in New Zealand and to have members on that side of the Chamber try to claim that that is not case seems absolutely absurd. This is an incredibly short part of this bill but it is an incredibly important part because New Zealanders are seeking reassurances around the oversight of the GCSB which will hold this grand extension of powers. Unfortunately these oversight provisions are grossly inadequate and if anything would add to the nervousness of New Zealanders. That was certainly the case I think at the public meeting last night where these provisions were discussed at some length.I think it is helpful if we perhaps delve into the differences that you might see in the way that the Intelligence and Security Committee operates versus the way that any other committee that exists within a parliamentary context operates and the transparency—or the lack of it—that applies across these committees because that is essentially what Part 3 deals to. Well firstly this provision sets out that the Prime Minister is able to relinquish the chairmanship of the committee when it discusses the performance of the agency. This is meant to be the first element that is meant to give us great comfort.When we are looking at the performance of the GCSB do not worry because the Prime Minister who is involved in the appointment process of the head of the GCSB and who is the Minister responsible for the GCSB will relinquish the seat. Let us be clear. It would be the same if for instance we were to have Paula Bennett sitting as the chair of the Social Services Committee when it was about to review the Ministry of Social Development. It is an absolutely shameful suggestion to imply that that somehow gives us any sense of comfort that it will be a transparent examination because it essentially examines the Minister’s own performance by the performance of their department.But do not worry the Prime Minister will relinquish the chairmanship and will hand the chair over to—whom? Well potentially the Attorney-General or the Deputy Prime Minister. To again extend the example to another committee it is the equivalent of having Paula Bennett say: “Don’t worry I won’t review my own department. I’ll get my associate to come in and review the department.” What comfort can we as New Zealanders take from that level of transparency? Absolutely none. That is why again I do not think that New Zealanders can take from that any sense of security that this grand sweeping broadening of provisions will have at the very least the oversight that they deserve. However it is our contention that they should not exist at all.But then what is the second provision that is meant to give us comfort? Well the committee will be required to table its reports in the House and make them publicly available. The problem is that you know only what you know when you are a member of a select committee. I am able to scrutinise the Ministry of Social Development only to the degree that I understand what is happening within the Ministry of Social Development. That requires me to be able to extract information primarily through written questions for example or perhaps through the financial review process or by asking the Minister questions directly. What we have seen through the example laid out by my colleague Russel Norman is that we have got a case of the Prime Minister simply refusing to answer those questions. He is simply refusing to say for instance a pretty key piece of information around the revenue source of and potential payments received from external sources by the GCSB. I would consider that to be much more fundamental than an operational issue. I would consider that to be fundamentally an issue of our national security and yet that is something that we will not get any transparency around. So how can we have any degree of confidence that an annual report would require that kind of information?A second point—and I would love to hear from the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General on this issue—is that as a member of Parliament I can ask a chief executive directly through an Official Information Act request for operational questions to be answered if the Minister refuses to answer them. As it is our expectation that we can seek that operational information—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No—Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This is a bill of fundamental constitutional importance. The Committee has only recently embarked on it. I do ask your consideration of this.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well the member is trifling with me so he ought to be brief.Hon David Cunliffe: Yes Mr Chairman. In no way would I trifle with the Chair or with you. To my understanding there have been only a limited number of speakers on this part—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well let me clarify that. Please sit down. Let me clarify that. Part 3 has four clauses. There have been 16 calls on this particular bill. I have been listening off air. There have been a number of closure motions. There is a degree of repetition. All of the measures that I say the Committee needs to determine whether it wants to continue or not have now been met. So I am putting the question.Hon David Cunliffe: A fresh point of order Mr Chairperson—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): A fresh point of order.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are accepting everything that you have said. I seek your guidance in the situation where members of Parliament have only recently had the opportunity to come to the Chamber and have not had the opportunity to make a contribution on this part or on the previous one. Although this part is a short part by the number of clauses it goes to the heart of the issue that is the most controversial in this bill which is the degree of the independence of the oversight and the scrutiny of functions which it is accepted are in many ways important but are highly controversial. So I would again submit being one of those members who has not had an opportunity to speak to this part of the bill—and I know there are other colleagues here around the Chamber who are finding themselves in the same situation because of other duties—that you would use your good judgment and your balance—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): And that I have done and I will now put the question.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 305 in the name of David Shearer to insert new clause 37A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 308 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to insert new clause 39AA and to add new clause 41 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.add to section 6(1) the following new paragraphs:(g)to examine the policy and the operation of each intelligence and security agency on the receipt ofintelligence from foreign security agencies in circumstances where it would be unlawful for the intelligence and security agency to gather such intelligence:(h)to inquire into the extent of surveillance by the intelligence and security agencies including whether mass surveillance has occurred:(i)to inquire into the operations of the intelligence and security agencies as much as is necessary to determine whether the intelligence and security agencies look into the content of emails:(j)to allow the Committee to look into operational matters as much as is necessary to discharge the functions of the Committee notwithstanding section 6(2).A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes50New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 313 in the name of Dr Russel Norman to clause 38 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 3 as amended be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Part 3 as amended agreed to.ScheduleThe question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 306 in the name of the Rt Hon John Key to the schedule be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 in the name of Dr Russel Norman to the schedule be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes50New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the schedule as amended be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Schedule as amended agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I rise to speak on the title and commencement clauses and in particular in the first of my contributions to these two clauses I want to speak to my typescript amendment to the commencement clause. For colleagues who have not had the opportunity to see it yet the amendment that I am proposing to clause 2 reads: “This Act comes into force on the day that is 12 months after the date on which it receives the Royal assent and only after a full independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agencies has been completed and recommendations from the inquiry have been considered by Parliament.”The reason I am proposing to move that amendment in the Committee is that the haste and the rush that the National Government has been in to push this legislation through means that New Zealanders who are rightly concerned about the law balancing security and privacy have not had the opportunity to have those issues fully explored. It is unreasonable and unacceptable of this Government to trample over the rights of New Zealanders in order to see created a law that covers the intelligence agencies that act on their behalf go through in this haste. New Zealanders want to see a law that reflects our values and New Zealanders value privacy. They also value security. And it is quiteclear from the views of New Zealanders right across this country that they do not believe that the law as it has currently been drafted by the National Government creates that balance.What it does is grossly expand the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) tinker about with the oversight mechanisms and create a situation where New Zealanders continue to lose trust and confidence in their intelligence agencies. So that is why my amendment to clause 2 would say let us take the 12 months to have the full and independent inquiry that so many people want before we allow this bill to come into force.It is not just the Labour Party it is not just the Green Party and it is not just New Zealand First or Mana or the parties in this Parliament that are asking for this review; in fact the Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission eminent theorists like Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Law Society are all asking that there be a review because people are uncertain about the effects of this bill. They are uncertain about whether or not there is a balance in this bill to protect both privacy and security.This is relevant in terms of the commencement clause because we all know that the world has changed since the 2003 legislation went through. There are different kinds of threats to New Zealand’s security. That is absolutely true. But equally people all over the world are making much greater use of technology to communicate. People all over the world do their daily business keep up with their families and do all of the things that we do to communicate with one another in cyberspace. Therefore on both sides of the coin we need to see a balance of security the protection of New Zealanders and the protection of New Zealanders’ privacy.We have not through the process that this Government has undertaken given sufficient time to consider how the world has changed. We have not given sufficient time to create a law for our intelligence agencies that reflects New Zealanders’ values that reflects our commitment to democracy that reflects our commitment to transparency and that says we will have intelligence agencies that New Zealanders can be proud of not some model from overseas and not some model that panders to the interests of other people. That is why we must delay the commencement of this bill. We must delay it until there has been a full independent inquiry and the recommendations of that inquiry have come back to Parliament.In the end National can pass this law by one single vote. Well what does that do to New Zealanders’ confidence in security and intelligence? What it says is that National will politicise these agencies. It is prepared to do a “willing buyer willing seller” deal with Peter Dunne to push through something as significant as the powers of our intelligence agencies. This bill cannot commence until we go beyond the partisan politics of John Key and Peter Dunne until we get to the point that we can actually say that New Zealanders have a reason to be confident about this legislation. They cannot be confident that a bill that passes with a vote of 61 to 60 and commences 1 month after the Royal assent will give New Zealanders the ability to restore their confidence in this law.The proposed commencement date in my amendment is not only 12 months after the bill receives the Royal assent but also after we have the inquiry and that inquiry’s recommendations have come back to Parliament. It is important to know that the language of my amendment is that the intelligence agencies are subject to that inquiry. The intelligence agencies are not just the GCSB; they are also the SIS. It is very important that the SIS is included before this legislation commences. The Government actually had a review of the SIS under way and recommendations to change the law were ready to go and they got pulled. The Prime Minister has never satisfactorily explained to this House why suddenly the SIS was off the table and we wereconsidering only the GCSB. So my amendment to clause 2 is not just about whether or not we can get the GCSB into a shape that New Zealanders can have confidence in but actually that we understand all of New Zealand’s intelligence agencies and how they interact together. That is why I have moved an amendment to the commencement clause in order to delay that commencement date for 12 months and only after that inquiry is completed. I believe that that represents the will of New Zealanders that they understand the need for these agencies but they want them to operate in a way that is transparent that is accountable and that reflects the values of New Zealanders. Those kinds of principles have been sorely missing from the way that John Key and National have gone about this change and the way that Peter Dunne has presented himself as a “willing buyer willing seller”.My other comments that I want to make in the last couple of minutes of this call are around the title of this bill. The innocuous-sounding “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill” sounds technical. It sounds like a title you would give to a bill that would breeze through this House and New Zealanders would barely notice. It is an inaccurate title because fundamentally the title of this bill should mention the expansion of powers of the GCSB because that is what lies at the heart of this and John Key has consistently misled New Zealanders about that. This bill includes whole new powers and functions for the GCSB. The bill expands the functions that already exist around assisting other agencies. It includes New Zealanders in what was once a foreign intelligence agency. It puts New Zealanders right in there. It puts the content of their communications right in there. So the title of this bill should make reference to the expansion of the GCSB’s powers. That would be an honest title for this bill.The other title that members of the Committee might like to consider is the “Damage to Democracy Bill” because the process that John Key has gone about of finding a “willing buyer willing seller” with Peter Dunne and of pushing this legislation through the Intelligence and Security Committee without even hearing from the GCSB or the SIS or the police or the Defence Force damages our democracy. The dismissive way that John Key treats anyone who is a critic of this bill damages democracy. He threatens the Human Rights Commission’s funding. He says the Law Society does not know what it is talking about. He said today that if there was a terrorist threat David Shearer would run for the hills. Well David Shearer rightly said that he is the one who knows about terrorist threats. When he faced one in Iraq he ran in to help the people. He did not run for the hills. It is John Key who is doing the running. It is John Key who is running from his press conference because he does not want to answer the questions. It is John Key who is avoiding the questions in this Chamber.This bill should be titled the “Damage to Democracy Bill” because John Key has done huge damage to the way New Zealanders view our intelligence and security agencies—right from the Kim Dotcom affair to appointing his mate Ian Fletcher to run the GCSB to running this bill through the House so quickly that New Zealanders do not understand or know what this bill really does. But they know they are worried about it because they know that it is about the expansion of powers. The title of this bill is wrong. This bill is not a technical amendment to the GCSB legislation; it is a massive expansion of the powers of the GCSB without New Zealanders being given a say. This bill should not pass. The title should be changed. The commencement date should also be changed.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn):I rise to take a short call in this title and commencement clause debate on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I accept that it will be the last opportunity I have to speak to this bill before the vote is put. To echo the words of ourdeputy leader who has just spoken this bill is a travesty in terms of its title. It is not a clarification; it is a gross extension of the range and powers of these agencies. To be clear the Labour Opposition has never stated that we believe this State should be without these capabilities. But we are extremely clear as were the 2000-plus people who crammed into the Auckland Town Hall last night to make their heartfelt opposition known that it is not sufficiently balanced by proper and adequate safeguards of civil liberties and personal privacy.Let me summarise why that is the case. There are no protections against the mass surveillance of metadata because they are not included within the definition of “personal communications” as set out in the bill. Rather they fall within the definition of information infrastructure in the cyber-security provisions that include “all transmissions” including anything that goes across any electronic or wireless network. That means that every email every text message every phone call and every website visit of every New Zealander is able to be surveilled firstly in terms of its metadata without a warrant and secondly to establish a basis—and it may already be the case—for full interception without those warranting provisions at least through the cyber-security clause.The Prime Minister said on television and has repeated in this Chamber that he would personally rather resign before that happened. Well why would he not write it into the bill? The fact remains that New Zealanders will never know because there is no adequate oversight on this bill. There is no adequate oversight through the Intelligence and Security Committee. At best it will get a compendium report at the end of the year which will not include the details of what has been intercepted; merely the number of cases. That is not good enough. If the Prime Minister wants New Zealanders to accept his word then he should put an amendment in his own name to this bill that gives effect to what he has said on nationwide television. At the very least he should stand and face a press conference without scuttling for the door when the heat gets turned up and not have the temerity to insult our leader and other members of this House as being cowards when it is that member who has not completed his own press conference.But that is small beer alongside the true nature of this bill. This bill opens a door that will be difficult ever to close. To think that it is being done by the merest wafer-thin margin of one vote bought and sold for 30 pieces of silver and an overseas posting I find absolutely reprehensible. It flies in the face of decades of bipartisan handling of intelligence and security matters. It is not good enough for New Zealanders. It is not good enough for our ancestors who fought for the freedoms that this House is blithely putting aside—the Government is blithely putting aside—at the behest of one vote between a willing seller and a willing buyer a buyer who was willing to trade New Zealanders’ privacy down the river but was not willing to come to this debate and was not willing even to answer the questions in a press conference. But he was willing to insult David Shearer and other members of our party.This is a sad day for the New Zealand Parliament. This is a sad day for our democracy. This is a day when the New Zealand Government can hang its head in shame. It will be a day that New Zealanders remember when they go to cast their ballots in what is left of our democracy in next year’s general election. There are issues that come and go but they will remember that their freedoms have been compromised unnecessarily by a Prime Minister who may be adept at sleight of hand but is clearly not deep in principle.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I rise to speak on the title clause of this bill the Government Communications and Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Before I start I would just like to acknowledge the death a week ago of Bob Leonard who was one of the founders of the Anti-Bases Campaign. He will bewell-known to many people for dressing up as Uncle Sam at many of the Waihopai protests. It was people like Bob Leonard who drew attention to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the role of the GCSB long before many in the mainstream had perhaps picked up and understood its full significance. I think he would have very much appreciated the fact that the GCSB is now front and centre of the national debate as indeed it should be.In this title clause debate I would just like to talk about some aspects of the bill that have not come up so much before and one of them is its impact on New Zealand’s information and communications technology sector which I think has not been properly covered. Ian Apperley has written an article in theNational Business Reviewin I think just the last couple of days. He is a cloud-computing expert and he has talked about the impact of both the GCSB bill and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill or the TICS bill—which is its partner bill if you like—on the New Zealand information and communications information sector. Why this is important is that the GCSB bill will affect not just the Government but will also have a big impact on particularly cloud computing.The reason why it has a big impact on cloud computing relates to the access it provides to Government agencies to intercept all of the data that companies and individuals might be putting up into the cloud. The Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill the parallel bill to this one requires that providers of such services as well as internet service providers install a back door into their services through which the Government can simply help itself to the information contained. What this means is that instead of the Government having to go through the front door and make requests present warrants and so forth the Government can simply stick its hand into the cloud or into the data that is stored and take it without having to go through the front door of the company. What this means is that the GCSB bill empowers the Government to acquire all this information and the telecommunications bill which runs parallel to it makes it technically possible and very simple for the Government to get the information. That bill is interesting as well because it can also gag the companies from telling anyone that the Government has installed a back door on their systems.What this sort of legislation means is that there is a flood of companies leaving the United States now. So with the PRISM system which has been established in the United States you have probably got—I mean the article in theNational Business Review said that 10 percent of all the contracts have been cancelled across the United States. Many tens of billions of dollars’ worth of business is now leaving the United States because the United States is no longer a secure environment in which to store data because of the PRISM system and because of the back doors that have been installed in all these data storage systems. This is a very significant development and what we have seen in Switzerland which bases itself on a secure data model is that it has had a doubling of its cloud-computing services and the money that is being spent in Switzerland on cloud computing as it has established itself as a secure location for information.This is a very significant development for the information and communications technology sector in New Zealand. What we do not realise is that this Government’s attempt to cripple the New Zealand information and communications technology sector will cost the sector somewhere in the order of $2 billion over 3 years in terms of lost business as estimated by the article in theNational Business Review . This is a sector that is growing rapidly and it should be part of New Zealand’s future. It is part of a smarter greener economy for New Zealand. It deals with some of the issues around the distance from our markets because of course information is gravity-free so it is a greatway for us to make money while being a long way from our markets. And of course we have access to renewable energy so there are some real advantages for New Zealand in the information and communications technology sector in terms of building a smarter greener economy.But the bill that the National Government is supporting will cripple the information and communications technology sector. That view is coming from the experts themselves in the cloud-computing area and in the New Zealand information and communications technology sector and that is why we have seen such strenuous opposition coming from many of the leading companies involved there. What this means is that the Government which prides itself on economic policy and tells us how great it is in that regard is in fact passing a piece of legislation that cripples one of New Zealand’s growing and quite important sectors and I think that that is a little-understood part of this whole debate.The other part that I think is important if we are debating the title which is supposed to include the words “Government Communications and Security Bureau” is the question of who on earth this agency really works for. There is this whole issue about the global framework within which the GCSB operates. The issue that I have been raising is around the issue of funding but it also relates to the issue of the “Five Eyes” network.So the GCSB is a member of the “Five Eyes” network which is essentially run by the United States but has a number of smaller of countries of Anglo origin involved in it—that is Canada New Zealand Australia and the UK. What has become clear during the revelations from the Snowdon leaks is that these five countries working together as part of “Five Eyes” have been spying on a lot of other countries which are now extremely upset with the “Five Eyes” network and are very unhappy—particularly the European Union countries—that the United States and the United Kingdom have been colluding to spy on all their internet traffic. That is why the issue of the US Government’s funding of the GCSB is critical to this whole debate and why it was such a scandal in the United Kingdom when it was revealed that the US Government the National Security Agency had provided about £100 million in funding to the equivalent of the GCSB in the United Kingdom—that is the GCHQ or the Government Communications Headquarters.If these agencies are working independently of the Governments that they are supposedly reporting to because they have independent sources of funding—because the US Government will fund them in order to do activities as we saw in the United Kingdom—then who on earth do they work for? Do they work for us? Is it really the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau or is it some part of the US Government? If it is taking large amounts of money from the US Government in order to do what the US Government wants it to do that gives it an element of independence from New Zealand citizens who are supposed to be controlling it via the elected Government. And of course if it has its own sources of income that gives it an independence from the New Zealand taxpayer who provides the money.The Prime Minister said that under various circumstances he would resign if it turned out that theGCSB was involved in mass surveillance and so forth. Well my challenge to him is this. Will he resign if it is discovered that the GCSB is in receipt of foreign money? That is my challenge to the Prime Minister. He has said: “Well this mass surveillance thing. That won’t happen and I will resign if anyone finds out that I have been engaging in mass surveillance.” But of course how would we find out? It all operates secretly. So he does have that very important caveat. But will he resign if it turns out to be the case that not only was the National Security Agency providing £100 million—which is hundreds of millions of New Zealand dollars—to the equivalentagency in the United Kingdom but it was also providing millions of dollars to the GCSB in New Zealand or some other such support? Will the Prime Minister resign? He refuses to answer the question as to the funding of the GCSB and whether it takes foreign Governments’ money.For which other Government organisation would we think it was acceptable for it to be working for another Government? In respect of which other Government organisation would we say: “OK that’s OK. You are funded by another Government a foreign Government and you are working for that other Government. That is acceptable modus operandi and you won’t even tell us how much money you are taking from the US Government.”? It seems to me that it is fundamental to our democratic structure and the accountabilities to this Parliament that the GCSB and the Minister responsible for it should be forced to tell us as New Zealand citizens whether the GCSB is in receipt of money from a foreign Government but the Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to answer the question.My suspicion is this: if he could deny it he would. If the Prime Minister could deny that the GCSB was in receipt of money from a foreign Government he would deny it because it is very damaging. But he refuses to deny that the GCSB has been in receipt of money from a foreign Government. That leads me to the conclusion that it is more than likely that the GCSB just like its equivalent in the United Kingdom has taken money from the US Government and hence it does not work just for us. In fact it also works for others and that is entirely the problem with the oversight function.When you have a rogue agency like this which is not only breaking the law repeatedly but also possibly or quite probably in receipt of money from the US Government it is very critical that we have proper oversight in place and we do not have that kind of oversight. It is for that reason that the Green Party has consistently supported the call for a proper inquiry and we will be supporting Grant Robertson’s amendment to the title clause so that there is a proper inquiry before this legislation ever comes into force. Thank you.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I want to support the amendment in the name of Labour’s deputy leader Grant Robertson that this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill should not commence should not come into effect until after there has been a full and independent public inquiry. The reasons for that I think are obvious even to the Government members who are supporting this legislation. First what we have had is a poor process and a rushed process that has given the New Zealand public no confidence that the case has been made out for the significant expansion of the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). We have a public that has no confidence that the oversight mechanisms proposed in this legislation are anywhere near adequate to protect the privacy of New Zealanders living in a democracy and to stop the unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of individuals by an agency that works in secret and is being given more extensive powers.There is another reason that there needs to be a full independent public inquiry into this legislation. The tradition in this House has always been that consensus is sought because of the importance of democracy and because of the fundamental powers that can be exercised in secret by the security agencies. Consensus has never been sought by the National Government. It is a fact that John Key said to David Shearer that he was not interested in Labour’s support because he could get support from Peter Dunne. This legislation will go through on the vote of one discredited and disgraced member who was sacked—Hon Trevor Mallard: Two of them.Hon PHIL GOFF: —I will come to the second one in a moment—because he leaked the report on the GCSB. It is going through on the vote of one discredited member who said “under no circumstances” would he support giving the GCSB the power to spy on New Zealanders. That is what the strength of support for this legislation is: a man who broke his word who broke his promise that he would not support it—a man who leaked the report and was sacked by the Prime Minister for doing it.We want to talk about the second member whom Mr Mallard mentioned. He is the man who was intimately involved with Kim Dotcom but could not remember the helicopter ride could not remember the XL-sized person whom he went to visit in the biggest house in the country and most of all could not remember the $50000 that he asked for in the form of two cheques of $25000 each. I say to you that what this legislation needs is the basis of consensus of support across the House and the National Government has not even made the effort to do that—has not even made the effort to do that. There will be no confidence among the New Zealand public in a piece of legislation that is rammed through this House on the vote of two people in whom the public has no confidence who are disgraced and discredited members.I want to say another thing about why we need the full and independent inquiry. We need it because not only does there need to be a consensus of support across this House for such legislation and the extensive powers that it confers but also there needs to be a basis of trust and confidence by the New Zealand public and the New Zealand public has no trust and confidence in our security agencies. That was proven in a poll that was done by TV3 that showed that 40 percent of New Zealanders did not trust the GCSB and in a more recent but perhaps less scientific poll that showed that 89 percent of New Zealanders—50000 of them who gave their name and address in their email—said that they were against this legislation. It was 89 percent. We do not have the basis in this House or in this country for this legislation to pass. It is a disgrace that the Government is ramming it through against the wishes of New Zealanders and without proper process.The Government would not even let the GCSB give evidence and be questioned by the Intelligence and Security Committee. What sort of legislation is it that we are passing where the agency that we are giving extensive power to is not allowed by the Prime Minister to appear before the select committee? How do we know how efficient and effective that agency is when it is not allowed by the Prime Minister to be subject to scrutiny? How do we know whether those powers are justified or not?The Prime Minister in his panic talked about the Boston bombings and al-Qaeda. The Prime Minister knows as I know and every member of this House knows that those terrorist agencies and individuals can right now be placed under the scrutiny of both the SIS and the GCSB. Those sorts of scare tactics do no credit to the Prime Minister. The legislation is in place. What we do not have is legislation that also gives the GCSB which shares its intelligence with overseas agencies the power to spy on New Zealanders.You have got to think about the origins of this legislation. We are discussing this legislation because the GCSB acted illegally in the first place. It subjected Kim Dotcom to scrutiny for which it had no legal authority. Then when the Kitteridge report was produced it showed that the GCSB had put another 85 New Zealanders under surveillance for which it had no legal authority. You would think that this legislation would have responded to those two incidents by strengthening the safeguards that New Zealanders have against the abuse of power. You would think that that would happen particularly when the National Security Agency in the United States has been found to have illegally subjected tens of thousands of Americans to surveillance and when theGovernment Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom has been found to have been spying on its friends not its enemies. You would think there would have been caution. You would think that the Government would have reached out to the Opposition and said that yes we need security agencies—and the Opposition agrees with that—but we need them to be subject to proper protections of the rights and privacy of New Zealanders. That is not in this legislation.This legislation is patently inadequate. That is not simply the view of this Labour Opposition; it is the view of the New Zealand Law Society. But what does the arrogance of the Prime Minister tell us? That the Law Society does not understand what is in the law. Some of the top Queen’s Counsel in this country have condemned this legislation but John Key—minus “QC” or any other law qualification—says that they do not know what they are talking about. Then the Human Rights Commission which was established by the Government to protect the rights of New Zealanders says that this legislation will not do it gives intrusive powers and it does not provide safeguards against abuse. What does our Prime Minister do? He threatens the funding of the agency for having the temerity to do the job that under statute it is required to do in this country.Then there is the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner a woman who was the Secretary of the Cabinet for over a decade says that this legislation is not ready is not adequate and needs to go back to the drawing board. The Government ignores that comment from a woman who understands very well what this legislation could and should but does not provide. It is abundantly clear to the country and to this Committee that this legislation is not appropriate will not survive in this form does not do the job expected of it and does not protect the essential rights of ordinary New Zealanders to be protected against the abuse of powers by agencies that act in secrecy and have no scrutiny over them.Then we have the other problem. I do not know how you deal with this problem in legislation. The Prime Minister has enormous power of oversight and control but he misuses that power. He appointed the Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau by an appointment process condemned by the State Services Commissioner. He said when it was finally extracted from him: “Oh yes I do know this person but not very well.” He has known him since they were both children at school. They had dinner together which he did not ever admit and now the Prime Minister wants us to believe that we should pass a piece of legislation that will say something not because it is written into that legislation but because he will give a speech in the third reading debate and say “This is what I intend.” We do not need legislation that is what the Prime Minister claims he intends. We need clear specific and good legislation that says what this House means and this legislation does not do what the Prime Minister says that it does. There is every reason why this legislation should be reconsidered.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):This Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill undermines trust in our parliamentary democracy. It reduces the power the ministerial accountability and the oversight from what it could be. The lack of consensus around the bill which my colleague Mr Goff has drawn attention to places public trust on the line and puts it in jeopardy. That is not acceptable.This bill fails some simple tests of some simple management principles. I think that it could be renamed or more accurately named the “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment (Failure to Apply Simple Management Principles) Bill”. This bill does not clarify sufficiently the lines of accountability. That is a simple management principle. When you have set yourobjectives—and we do not quite know whether those have been adequately set either—then you have some clear lines of accountability for delivering them you have transparency and you have sanctions and rewards. Those are four simple management principles: you have a clear goal you have lines of accountability you have transparency around reporting and you have sanctions and rewards. Those are simple management principles. This bill does not adequately address these principles. It does not provide for them.The way to get adequate provision for these simple principles would be to have a full and independent inquiry. We know that that has been ruled out by the Prime Minister. He does not want to see the 88 illegal spying incidents that the Kitteridge report gets into to be looked further into—the leaked report I might add. He does not want to answer more questions about the journalist’s emails that were released or were not released—we are not sure quite whether the email was recalled or who was looking at what and why. He does not want to get into the Henry inquiry. He does not want to front up on this issue any more because it has been an embarrassment from start to finish.Everything to do with the Government Communications Security Bureau has been an embarrassment from start to finish for a Prime Minister who does not have adequate oversight of his department. That is where these simple principles if they were outlined clearly would make it much clearer whether the Prime Minister was doing his job—were he to be doing his job. They would I have no doubt be the recommendations of a sensible independent report that looked at these agencies. These particular principles ought to be strengthened. We ought to have clear purposes and goals we ought to have lines of accountability we ought to have transparent reporting and we ought to have sanctions and rewards for a Minister as to whether they are doing their job correctly. That is the job of Parliament. But what we are increasingly seeing here is a Prime Minister who does not know—or does not want to know—what is going on under his watch. He cannot duck this ministerial responsibility and nor should we put through legislation that allows him to do that when we know that New Zealanders are losing their faith in this agency that he is responsible for.Instead we should have the opposite. That is why the call has been put out by the Labour Party for a full and independent inquiry—to restore trust in these agencies. The Labour Party believes that New Zealand needs adequate security arrangements. In fact it wants the best possible security arrangements with the best possible guarantees given to New Zealanders that the powers of our intelligence agencies are exercised and not misused and that the surveillance that is done is properly and appropriately targeted.New Zealanders as a whole accept the need for security agencies but they do not accept that they should be snooped on without due cause without warrant and without clear lines of accountability back to the Minister responsible for these. That Minister is John Key the one who was running for the hills when it came to press conferences yesterday—not running in to help but running for the hills. That is our Prime Minister running away from these responsibilities. The bill that is here in front of us enables the Prime Minister to run further so we repeat our call for a full inquiry into the intelligence services.This bill also snubs the experts and could also be titled more accurately I would suggest the “Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment (Snubbing the Experts) Bill”. We know that the Human Rights Commission exercised its powers and took the unusual step of exercising a statutory power to issue a report directly to the Prime Minister because of the seriousness of the issues raised in this bill. John Key rubbished it tried to downplay it and threatened the commission’s funding but the report stated clearly “that a full and independent inquiryinto New Zealand’s intelligence services [should] be undertaken as soon as possible.” That is the first expert.The next expert the Privacy Commissioner suggested that because of the complex and dynamic environment this topic needs to be considered in further detail. The commissioner said: “The effects on individuals are potentially very significant and it is important to get the legislation right.” That comment by the Privacy Commissioner is backed up by New Zealanders. They believe that too. Likewise the Law Society—JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):I moveThat the question be now put .ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):The reality about the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is that its name is totally misleading because this is not some sort of benign and innocuous reconfirmation of an existing piece of legislation or for that matter an affirmation of an existing organisation in its current form. This legislation makes radical changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) as we presently know it and to the powers that it will be allowed to exercise. The name of this bill is very important. What we call it will be very important. And it is very important because of what we know. The way that this debate has been conducted—not so much in this House but in other forums around New Zealand—has been to mislead many New Zealanders about the reality of what is happening.The truth about it is that the way the bill is drafted gives extraordinary extensions to the powers of the GCSB not the least of which is its change in definition from “computer system” which is the language presently used and is the area in which the GCSB is statutorily mandated to operate to “information infrastructure”. The definition of “information infrastructure” is as wide as you could possibly imagine. It includes “electromagnetic emissions”. It includes “communication systems and networks”—entire networks. It includes what is described as “information technology systems and networks and any communications carried on contained in or relating to those emissions systems or networks”. There could not be a more comprehensive definition of the way that information and communications are carried and conveyed in New Zealand today. That sets the scope for what the GCSB is now going to be allowed to do.So to say or to give the impression in its title that this bill is simply about reaffirming or tidying up what the GCSB presently does is just totally misleading. On that basis the GCSB is given the power to intervene into intrude on and invade the privacy and the protections that every citizen would ordinarily expect and is entitled to expect when it comes to communicating and storing digitally information about themselves. That is one of the critical things about the way this debate has been conducted.It is not just peculiar to this legislation but certainly peculiar to this Government that basic citizens’ civil or human rights which we have enjoyed which are confirmed in legislation that we have and which are confirmed in international agreements are continually put up now as conditional on some other agenda or objective that this Government has. It is no longer enough to claim an inherent right to privacy. That is now dependent upon something else that this Government might put up like an economic or corporate condition that might be overlaid with it. This is the insidious thing about this piece of legislation.We are entitled to a basic right of privacy. We do have a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure which this bill compromises. We do have a right to freedom of expression. Those rights are not dependent upon anything else; they stand on their own. We are entitled to claim those and we are entitled to have those rights protected and this bill fails to do that. So the name of this bill and the impression that has been given from the outset and throughout has been misleading.The scope of this bill is now extended to intruding on New Zealand citizens. It was originally confined—and all the drafting of the present Act makes it very clear—to foreign intelligence and intelligence on foreign citizens. Now this bill makes the giant leap and gives the power and the scope to the GCSB to intrude upon the privacy and the protections of every New Zealand citizen.The safeguards that we would ordinarily expect in a piece of legislation like this are non-existent. There is an attempt at providing safeguards but the exclusions and the exceptions make them a nullity make them nugatory and proposed section 14 as set out in clause 12 is the classic. There is a loophole there in the protection against interception of New Zealand citizens’ communications and digital information and that is not good enough. It goes on to say that anything that is incidentally obtained by the GCSB is not to be considered as having been obtained unlawfully. [Bell rung ] That is the—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The member needs to seek a call if he wants another one.ANDREW LITTLE: Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have probably implied that it is Andrew Little so I will give him the call.ANDREW LITTLE: Thank you Mr Chair. I apologise. I was thrown by the bell and it was happenstance as we discovered earlier today. I say that without wanting to accord any undue levity to this piece of legislation because this is a grave matter and despite every effort by this Government to reduce its significance and to minimise it to the citizens of New Zealand the reality is that citizens have woken up to the insidious powers contained within this bill. One of those aspects is that it goes on to say that even though there is a defined scope of the information that the GCSB can secure and the level of interception that it can indulge in there is a proviso that says that anything obtained outside those powers is not to be regarded as having been obtained unlawfully. Well that is no protection at all. That is like all of the so-called safeguards in this legislation—that is there are exceptions to them that mean that they mean absolutely nothing at all. And that is what is so frightening to those who have looked closely at the legislation—those who do not sit inside this Chamber but those institutions and organisations on whom this House routinely relies to provide independent scrutiny of legislation and give advice to us.The Intelligence and Security Committee heard from submitters not the least of which was the New Zealand Law Society and let me be very clear about that. The original submission from the New Zealand Law Society was drafted by probably one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent human rights lawyers Dr Rodney Harrison QC—in fact not just one of but the pre-eminent New Zealand human rights lawyer.Hon Trevor Mallard: He got his Queen’s Counsel for good reason too; not because his mates gave it to him.ANDREW LITTLE: He got his Queen’s Counsel because he did what most Queen’s Counsel are required to do and that is to take difficult unpopular cases and argue them through the full hierarchy of the courts and he did very well. He was very clear about the extraordinary encroachment on citizens’ rights that this bill represents. Then when the Prime Minister introduced his Supplementary Order Paper 306 it was not Dr Rodney Harrison QC who commented on that but another Queen’s Counsel Austin Forbes QC a former president of the Law Society and a man of great eminence in the legal community and in the New Zealand community generally. He said that the Supplementary Order Paper that the Prime Minister put up provided no further safeguard than was there before and he reiterated and confirmed what the Law Society had said—that nothing less than a full inquiry into the need and the rationale for thechanges to this bill and an investigation into its impacts was required. That was a point taken separately and independently of the Law Society by the Human Rights Commission and by the Privacy Commissioner as well which are statutory bodies we look to in order for them to give us advice about the legislation that is passing through this House. It is wrong for their advice to be treated as dismissively and as derisively as it has been by this Prime Minister and this Government.This is a very sad day for New Zealand and this week will be a very sad week for this House as we pass this legislation in contempt of those with great authority and wisdom who are telling us it is not the right thing to do. No one is arguing against the need for good security agencies—well-supported and well-resourced security agencies—but when we take a step in this House and pass legislation that intrudes extraordinarily on the basic rights and protections that every citizen in this country is entitled to have and to have upheld by this House and the enforcement agencies of government then that is a step that we should take very very cautiously and very very carefully. We should take it with full knowledge and understanding of the impact that we are making. We do not have that luxury with this piece of legislation because it has been rushed through pushed through and bulldozed through by a Government that is no longer listening to the people of this country. People are concerned and they are right to be concerned because whichever way you read this legislation it is simply cause for great fright and fear.This legislation should not be named the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. It should be the “Unfettered State Security Agency Bill” or it might be called the “Government Communications Security Bureau (Extraordinary Powers) Bill” because that is what it is and that is why New Zealand citizens are concerned. Not a single member of the Government has stood to defend it today and that is even more outrageous in terms of this important and very sensitive piece of legislation. Every citizen is entitled to look to every member of the Government and ask: “How do you defend this bill?”.NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central):I moveThat the question be now put .KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Thank you very much Mr Chair for the chance to speak to the title and commencement clauses of the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Just as my colleague Andrew Little finished off in his speech by giving an alternative title to this piece of legislation I would also like to offer up an alternative. I would like to scrub everything other than the word “Security” and have the words “Peter Dunne Retirement Plan Security Bill” because the only reason that this piece of very important legislation is going to pass through the House is Peter Dunne. He is someone who went to speak to the media and said “I will never ever fathom voting for a piece of legislation where New Zealanders are spied on by the GCSB.” and no more than a week later changes his mind. I hope that the good people of Ōhariu take a look at the performance of Mr Dunne in this respect because he was someone who entered that “willing buyer willing seller” scenario and has bought himself a situation where I think we can ably call this bill the “Peter Dunne Retirement Plan Security Bill”.This bill has been rushed and has been pushed and has been bulldozed through this House and will pass with a wafer-thin majority of one vote: 61 to 60. I do not think that most New Zealanders are very impressed at the way this Government has gone about trying to get this legislation through the House this very important legislation with such a wafer-thin majority given the major concerns that people have about it. We certainly saw that in the protests 2 or 3 weeks ago and in the public meeting that washeld in Auckland last night with a turnout of somewhere between 1500 and 2000 people.I want to talk about an amendment in the name of our deputy leader of the Labour Party Grant Robertson which is looking to amend clause 2 the commencement clause within this bill. For the benefit of those listening and watching at home—and I think seriously there will be a sizeable audience of people watching this debate—Hon Maurice Williamson: Don’t kid yourself.KRIS FAAFOI: —not for any contribution from Government members who are so proud of this piece of legislation that the best that we get from across the Chamber is a closure motion. They are so proud of this bill that all we get from that side of the Chamber is a closure motion—that is the sum of the contribution.Hon Maurice Williamson: The last three viewers turned off when this member started speaking.KRIS FAAFOI: Get up and take a call then Minister. Get up and take a call and just show us how proud you are of this legislation. You are quite happy to interject. I would quite happily see you get up and take a call. But I doubt that you will get up and speak to it because none of the others have gotten up and had the—Darien Fenton: Gumption.KRIS FAAFOI: —gumption to get up and take a call. Getting back to before I was interrupted by the member who will no doubt not take a call and who will stay silent in theHansard  Grant Robertson’s amendment does look for this legislation to come into force 12 months after the date of Royal assent and only after a full independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agency has been completed. This is something that Labour has found fundamental during this debate around this bill. Some people at home may say that this is just political and that the Labour Party wants to see an independent inquiry just for political reasons.But let us just have a look at who else wants an independent inquiry: the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission said in a report that it put forward off its own back: “a full and independent inquiry”—Hon Trevor Mallard: Is David Rutherford a National Party member?KRIS FAAFOI: I do not know the answer to that question Mr Mallard. The Human Rights Commission said: “a full and independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence services [needs to] be undertaken as soon as possible.” I also want to give some context to those comments because when David Rutherford made those comments off his own back he got attacked by the Prime Minister. The Human Rights Commission office got attacked by the Prime Minister not just because of what it said but the Prime Minister said that it should watch out for what it says because its funding may be at stake—it should watch out for what it says because its funding may be at stake.But the Human Rights Commission went on. It said: “What we cannot be certain of without an inquiry of this nature is that the correct balance is being struck between protecting national security and the personal security of New Zealanders and protecting the other human rights of people in New Zealand and what diversions from the correct path may have been taken or could be taken without adequate safeguards and oversight in place.” The Human Rights Commission has serious reservations—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s ridiculous—a total lack of democracy in Parliament. This is just outrageous. This is outrageous.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The Clerk will conduct a party vote.Hon Trevor Mallard: That is outrageous.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Does the member not want a party vote?Hon Trevor Mallard: Yes of course we want a party vote—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): We will now have a party vote.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I moveThat progress be reported in order to request from the Speaker a ruling as to whether seven calls on the first three clauses of this bill are sufficient for democracy in New Zealand.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): You are moving that the Speaker be recalled?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the Speaker be recalled. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption ] Is the member seeking a party vote? That is a departure from what normally happens. I have declared—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Before you do I raise a point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No no we are now—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Well that creature should apologise for what he said.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The Speaker shall be recalled.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Mr Speaker you have been recalled to pass judgment. I believe that the motion said it is on whether seven calls were sufficient on the first three clauses of this bill. Let me put that in context. We have been debating this issue for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. It is clauses 1 and 2 of the bill. There have been 15 calls 12 of them from members of the Opposition. Can I also say that from a Chair’s point of view there have been a number of calls before new information was brought in. I determined that it was time for the Committee to decide whether or not it wished to continue the debate so after three closure attempt calls I did accept the closure motion. Furthermore a party vote had been agreed and we were very close to calling the result of the party vote when the point of order was made and a motion was moved to recall you.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I think that a relatively accurate summary of the situation has been given by the Chairman. The debate had been going for about 1 hour rather than 1 hour and 10 minutes according to our record. Six Labour members and one Green member had had the opportunity to speak. There were a number of members who were going for the call. Mr Speaker I have asked for you to be recalled more in hope than expectation because this is a very important bill. It is one for which I think there is no doubt—there is unanimity in the Chamber—that at issue are the liberties of New Zealanders and that is a reason why this bill should be treatedin the Committee generously rather than in the tight manner that it has been. As part of this and probably in the House rather than in the Committee I want to apologise to the Chairman for the rather intemperate comments that I made to him during the party vote because they were not appropriate but they were a result of my surprise at the closure being called so quickly.My expectation for this sort of debate would be that it would go on for at least 50 percent longer and probably twice as long as it has given the importance of the bill. This is not a minor fisheries regulation fixing up - type bill. It is not a Statutes Amendment Bill. It is probably the most important bill affecting the liberties of New Zealanders that we will be dealing with in the term of this Parliament. Therefore to cut out members when I think at least six members were prepared and wanting the call appears to me not to have the fairness that we expect in a Chamber and in a democracy.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):We are dealing with clauses 1 and 2. I was sitting in the Minister’s chair throughout. The last contribution from the member for Mana focused mainly on why Government members were not taking a call. It was becoming very repetitious. As the Chair of the Committee said the question that the motion be agreed to had been voted on and just as he was about to begin voting on the substantive motion the point of order was raised but not before the member for Hutt South had screamed out hysterically that the Chair of the Committee was patently biased. That was a comment that at least he has had the decency—well it would be hard to say that he has had the decency because he has none but the semi-decency—to apologise for.Dr Russel Norman: Mr Speaker—[Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. Dr Russel Norman.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):From the Green Party’s point of view this is a very important bill and there has been only one Green speaker on the title clause although I do acknowledge that the Chair gave me two slots and I appreciate that. My colleague Mr Browning has been seeking the call for some time and as the third-largest party in Parliament we would expect to get more than one speaker on the title clause of such an important bill. So we were quite disturbed when the Chair accepted the closure motion.Mr SPEAKER: I thank all members for their contributions. I have been watching the debate from my office anyway. I certainly want to acknowledge the apology from Trevor Mallard for the way it was raised. I do appreciate that this has been a lively debate. It is one that people clearly have very deep feelings and beliefs on and that is fully accepted. However I want to refer to two Speakers’ rulings that might assist in making my decision: Speakers’ rulings 64(4) and 64(5). Speakers’ ruling 64(4) which has been reinforced a number of times by different Speakers clearly says that the Chairperson is in the best position to judge. He is the person who has listened to the debate. Speaker’s ruling 64(5) of course says that it is not for the Speaker to second-guess what might happen if the question is put. So I accept and thank members for their contributions. The question has been put. It is now for the Committee to determine whether it is accepted.In CommitteeDebate resumed.Clauses 1 and 2(continued )The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House is in Committee on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Can I respond to the member who apologised. I did not hear the member. Had I heard him Iwould have required him to apologise. I will just make it clear that there was a bit of noise. I think it probably best that we cast the votes again because I am not sure what stage we were at. So I will ask the—[Interruption ] Oh we have cast them all. They are all here. The Clerk has done a sterling job. In the closure motion the Ayes were 61 and the Noes were 60 so the motion is agreed to. I will now put the questions.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 1 agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): There is an amendment in the name of Grant Robertson a typescript amendment to clause 2. This is out of order on two conditions. Members might like to have a look at Speaker’s ruling 117(2). I think members might be aware of this Speaker’s ruling which requires that an amendment cannot be determined on an indeterminate event. Secondly it is against the will of the Committee expressed when the Committee voted on clause 25A which required the provision of an inquiry.Grant Robertson: A minor detail.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): A minor detail. So we will put the question on clause 2.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 2 agreed to.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):I moveThat the Committee divide the bill into the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Billpursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 307.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):The Labour Party is going to oppose this particular Supplementary Order Paper because it is our view that it will be appropriate to have such a confused such a badly drafted such an ill-advised bill in the most confusing form that it can be and that will be as a result of having a stand-alone piece of legislation rather than having this in the various bills as is the intention of the Prime Minister. The really important point with legislation is that it is well drafted that it is well understood and that people can easily go from part to part of it. It is really important that as legislation is drafted and as it is divided properly the particular sections have in them exactly what is meant to be there. To do that what is required is for a proper motion for the division.Grant Robertson: There isn’t one on the Table.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I just want to question the order of the debate that we are now having in that it is my understanding that in order for a Supplementary Order Paper to be debated there is a requirement for it to be on the Table of the House. It is my understanding that there is not one of these currently on the Table of the House.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member is correct. As we speak copies are being prepared. It is a debatable motion and I ask for a bit of forbearance while that actually happens.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am seeking a bit of advice on the matter. It is customary to have papers on the Table. It does not prevent the debate from occurring. The member may continue.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the issue now I think the last time that I can remember an issue being debated in Parliament without it being on the Table of the House was in the time of Muldoon. A tradition of the New Zealand Parliament is that if you are debating something you have the courtesy to tell the House what you are debating. Here we have the principal law officer of Parliament sitting in for the Prime Minister who does not have the fortitude to come to the House because the Government does not get itself properly prepared and have the requisite motions sitting here. It is a hopeless disorganised useless Parliament. And what is so silly is that anyone would think that a damn QC would be bright enough to get out a pen to write something down to send it out and get the 10 copies and put it on the Table of the House. But—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come to suspend the House in Committee for the dinner break. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House in Committee on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is resumed. The Committee is considering the motion of the Minister responsible for the GCSB to divide the bill set out on Supplementary Order Paper 307. For some members who may not have been part of this debate before let me just say this is the narrowest of all debates. It is whether the bill should be divided or not and the debate should relate and pertain to those matters. The Hon Trevor Mallard has the call. He has about 2½ minutes remaining.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you—I am on my first call Mr Chairman. I do want to compliment the Minister currently in the chair the Attorney-General for at last getting the Supplementary Order Paper that we are debating on to the Table. I see that the Attorney-General the one with the various jurisprudential fetishes is waving his finger around. Of course he knows what that means. He gets off on technicalities. In this particular case what we have is a motion to divide the bill and a Supplementary Order Paper to do that but unfortunately the ill-prepared ill-disciplined and generally useless Attorney-General who is sitting in for the Prime Minister on this particular occasion did not have the foresight to make sure that this was on the Table of the House at the appropriate time. It is a pretty basic job for the Minister who for the time being is in charge of the legislation in the House to ensure that this particular Supplementary Order Paper that we are debating is available. It was not available.The Minister got up and moved a vague motion—and in fact it is interesting now that you Mr Chairman have stated a motion that the Minister did not state when he actually moved it. So we are in an interesting position now but I accept that maybe you have in your very generous way done the work for the Attorney-General in getting himback into line when he was so far out as a result of his lack of preparation. I think that generally on this side of the House we will almost certainly vote for this Supplementary Order Paper when and if—tomorrow or the next day whenever—we get to the decision on it. But we do so only to have a very disorderly bill a little less disorderly than it would otherwise be and to make it slightly easier when—well I suppose it is mainly done online now—the poor people have to go around sticking the amendments into the various hard copies of the legislation and to make their job somewhat easier than it would otherwise be.I think it is fair to say that getting this bill divided in the way that is proposed will be useful. I think everyone should be aware of the fact that this will be legislation that is looked at much more—I was going to say much more than a fisheries amendment Act but of course with snapper that is probably not quite the case. These Acts will be looked at much more often than will be the case for the general run-of-the-mill legislation that this House considers from time to time.The proposition is from the Prime Minister and I will be interested to see whether the Prime Minister decides to take the chair for this particular debate. It would be precedent setting. He does not appear to want to take the chair for any part of the Committee stage of this bill. Of course being across the detail of legislation is something that he does not want to do. But Supplementary Order Paper 307 is in the name of the Prime Minister and what he is proposing to do is to drop out a number of words and to put in some new headings. What the headings effectively do is divide the bill into three. That is exactly what we are debating and whether in fact the title—I mean one of the questions I have is whether even at this late stage it is amendable. Well I am not sure.If one looks at the name of the legislation there is the title of the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act 2013. Like a number of people over the dinner break I have had a look at this area. I can see thatMcGeeis open not far to your left Mr Chairman. To be fair to Mr McGee he should be right in front of you. To suggest that Mr McGee is to your left or to your right would be something. Although I think the last time we had this approach it was from—just a slight diversion—the Rt Hon Sir Muldoon before he was knighted. He declined to appoint Mr McGee—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Come back to the debate.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —to the Clerk-Assistant position because he did not like Mr McGee’s rulings. But that is not to suggest that Mr McGee should be placed to your left; he should be front—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The debate—Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is right. The point that I am getting to is that not only shouldMcGeebe considered on this question but I am looking for and cannot see that you have referencedErskine May . If we are actually going to look carefully at the appropriateness of this particular Supplementary Order Paper—and what I have said is that the Opposition is ready to be convinced. If the Attorney-General or the Prime Minister if he decides to take the chair comes to the Chamber and makes an argument I am certainly prepared to vote for this Supplementary Order Paper.Darien Fenton: Eh?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: For the Supplementary Order Paper only—to divide it. I am prepared to be convinced. [Interruption ] No it is not a conscience vote but the question is whether this will make a disorderly bill slightly more orderly than it would be.Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s a harm reduction.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well you know I am not sure. The depth of the debate around it and the points that should be raised and should be looked at—later onin my next call and future calls we can go more deeply intoErskine May  although I think it is fair to say that the position in the British Parliament and the relation between the House and the Committee is somewhat different. Although the Attorney-General may think he is a lord I note some of the detailed discussions that are had in the British Parliament. Is the Attorney-General mute in the British Parliament? It would be a great thing. I know that the whips are mute. The whips are mute in the British Parliament.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):I moveThat the question be now put .GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):It is a pleasure to take a call on this Supplementary Order Paper 307 which divides the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill into three bills. For me this Supplementary Order Paper sums up what might be called an existential crisis for this bill—that is the extent to which this bill is able to change the nature of our security intelligence agencies. The fact that in doing so it has to divide itself into three at the end point to me describes the existential crisis that this bill and the Government has when it comes to its security and intelligence agencies. One of the reasons why I am not of the same view as my colleague Mr Mallard about being able to vote for this Supplementary Order Paper is that for me this sums up what is wrong with the whole process—and that is that because the Government has failed to look at New Zealand’s wider intelligence network in putting together this legislation the division into three bills just makes it all the more obvious how stupid that is for New Zealand.We should perhaps not be creating three bills out of this but be creating one single piece of legislation that covers all of our intelligence agencies. That would be the outcome of the kind of review that the Labour Party has been proposing for many months. We simply cannot consider three individual pieces of legislation titled the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act 2013 the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Act 2013 and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act 2013. To have three bills divided in that way—Hon Trevor Mallard: One bill divided.GRANT ROBERTSON: —one bill divided into three parts thank you—exemplifies the problem that we are not looking at the whole of New Zealand’s security intelligence agencies. We should have been debating through the Committee of the whole House the role of the SIS within intelligence agencies. There is no SIS bill among the three—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Come back to the debate.GRANT ROBERTSON: No I am very much on the debate in that I am searching among the three divided bills here for some reference to the Security Intelligence Service which is referenced within what will now be the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act the first of the three divided bills. The first of the three divided bills has to talk about the SIS because it is one of the organisations—Hon Trevor Mallard: Why only divide into three?GRANT ROBERTSON: That is where I am getting to. It is one of the organisations that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is now committed to assisting within this divided bill. That is the problem.Dividing up the GCSB bill into three new separate bills as this Supplementary Order Paper does highlights the problem that many New Zealanders are raising which is that they want to have trust and confidence in our security intelligence agencies but that trust and confidence has been undermined through the actions of the Minister responsible for the GCSB John Key over the Kim Dotcom affair and over Ian Fletcher. When it comes to creating some new piece of legislation here was an opportunity for the Government to bring together all of the intelligence agencies under one piece oflegislation that New Zealanders could play a part in shaping. If there was a review they would have been able to play a part in shaping that legislation in asking what is the New Zealand way when it comes to security intelligence. What is the kind of legislation that would sum up the values of New Zealanders about privacy about security and about accountability of Government?What I fear is that in these three divided bills we highlight the ad hoc divided and in some ways incompetent approach that the current Government has towards security intelligence. In particular I want to highlight the two bills that do not actually have the same title as the one that we have been debating all the way through over the last couple of weeks. They are what will now be the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Act and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act. They highlight the fact that both of the organisations covered by these two divided bills the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the committee actually have oversight over a wider set—[Bell rung ] He has given the call to me. They actually have a wider ambit than just the GCSB. So the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security under the new approach that is being proposed in what was previously the single bill now has a wider ambit.The Intelligence and Security Committee which is the subject of the third of the divided bills now not only looks at the SIS which it always has done but has an expanded role in providing opportunities for the public to hear and see the reports of the SIS and the GCSB. So in many ways that committee is an even further example of the divided and ad hoc nature of the way in which this Government looks after intelligence and security. The proposed Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Act as divided really does highlight for me why we should not be looking at three divided bills. We should have been looking at a single piece of legislation that actually enabled Parliament to be able to say that we now understand how our security agencies sit together.In addition to the SIS—if we want to take the approach laid out in this Supplementary Order Paper there actually should be six or seven bills. There should be a bill to cover the SIS there should be a bill to cover the GCSB there should be the Intelligence and Security Committee bill and the inspector-general bill but there should also be a bill covering the police and the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand because under new section 8C inserted by clause 6 of the bill that we have been debating they are regarded as security and intelligence agencies. There should be another bill covering the Defence Force and defence intelligence which are also named in the legislation. So if we were to take this approach in this Supplementary Order Paper to its logical extension there should be six or seven bills and that frankly would be—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I have been listening very carefully and I believe that the member is trying to develop the argument that the bill should have been expanded to cover other issues. The question is whether or not this bill should be divided.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. With respect and taking some care because of the discussions earlier in the day I think you have it wrong. What the member on his feet was saying was that these issues are already in this legislation not that there should be more legislation to cover them. These are already in the legislation and if it was properly organised then it would be divided into more than three bills.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well then I misinterpreted the member. I shall watch him very closely.GRANT ROBERTSON: And I would expect nothing less. Mr Mallard’s interpretation is correct. The point I am trying to highlight is that there are a number of agencies within the security and intelligence structure in New Zealand that are mentioned in the legislation—Hon Trevor Mallard: Whose roles have been changed.GRANT ROBERTSON: —yes—whose roles have been changed or in fact have never actually been even covered in legislation before in many cases. So what this Supplementary Order Paper does is say: “Well there are three subjects here and we’re going to divide them up into three.” There are actually more than three subjects. There are six or seven subjects. That is one point I am trying to make.The second point that I am trying to make is that what is needed here is one piece of legislation that can give New Zealanders confidence about the arrangements for security and intelligence in New Zealand. All that dividing this bill into three does—as this Supplementary Order Paper does—is highlight to New Zealanders the incoherent ad hoc divided nature of the way the Government is approaching security and intelligence measures.I would favour a Supplementary Order Paper that actually looked at a quite different approach—one that actually came off the back of a review of all of that architecture of security and intelligence that gave New Zealanders the chance to have their say about what that would look like and that was done on the basis of a review that had at its core the values New Zealanders hold dear which are privacy security transparency and accountability.Hon Trevor Mallard: They’d all be in one bill.GRANT ROBERTSON: Exactly. They would be part of one single bill. So I cannot share Mr Mallard’s enthusiasm that he had for the potential division of this bill. I think I will have convinced Mr Mallard now that it is not possible. The Government side of this debate has not taken a single substantive call today. I predict it will not on this Supplementary Order Paper which is its own. I strongly believe that this Supplementary Order Paper should not pass because all it does is highlight the mistakes that the Government has made and the cover-ups that it has attempted through this GCSB process. I do not believe that this Supplementary Order Paper deserves the support of the Committee.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):I moveThat the question be now put .IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):We are debating Supplementary Order Paper 307. Interestingly the debate on the question of whether or not we should adopt the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 307 began before this Supplementary Order Paper was tabled so we started the debate before we even really knew what the question was. I think people who are watching the passage of this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill who are fearful for what this legislation does to the principles underpinning our democracy in New Zealand will question how it could possibly be that this Government would propose that we should debate something in Parliament when we have not even had the question put down on the Table before us. That is a fundamentally anti-democratic act the kind that people have come to expect from this Government.But I want people who are listening to this to understand that in all of these things it is always a question of whether it is a cock-up or a conspiracy. I think there is no doubt that this is a cock-up. The Government had only a week of adjournment to prepare this Supplementary Order Paper so it is understandable that it was not able to get it on the Table in time for the debate this evening. It is a 1½ page Supplementary Order Paper. Iam sure it took a considerable amount of work to add the words to the template which there will be for these types of Supplementary Order Papers because they occur so often. A whole week of adjournment on top of all the other time that we have been debating this legislation probably was too short a time for this dysfunctional and disorganised Government to prepare the words for this Supplementary Order Paper in time for us to begin debating them.As to the substance of the Supplementary Order Paper we have heard two different views from this side of the Chamber. One was from Trevor Mallard which was that this is a form—Hon Trevor Mallard: Open liberal and prepared to be convinced.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes I have always thought that Trevor Mallard is open liberal and prepared to be convinced. He takes the harm reduction approach and says that this is a Supplementary Order Paper that will make a bad bill slightly better because it will be slightly less incoherent than it currently is. On the other hand I heard a convincing argument I have to say from Grant Robertson that what we should do is vote against this bill. Trevor Mallard has also been convinced that we should vote against this bill.What we really ought to be doing the ideal is that we should not be debating the separation of this bill into three bills. We should actually be debating one of two singular pieces of legislation. The first that we could be debating is a piece of legislation that initiates an inquiry into our surveillance agencies. The Inquiries Bill I understand is now a matter of urgency for the Government even though it has been languishing on the Order Paper—Hon Trevor Mallard: Since 2008.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —since 2008. But post the Fonterra scandal it is now a matter of urgency for the Government. If the Inquiries Bill had been passed we would not need a separate piece of legislation to establish an inquiry into our surveillance agencies but it has not been so we are debating this. That would be the first piece of legislation we could—[Interruption ] There could be a royal commission. It is a matter of debate.Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s all nonsense.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Trevor Mallard says it is nonsense. I am sure he will get up and offer a different point of view.The other way we could go is to have a single piece of legislation that would be the result of that inquiry and that would be legislation that establishes our surveillance agencies and sets the parameters for our surveillance agencies in the 21st century. Let us face it: 1976 which was the last time our surveillance agencies were comprehensively reviewed from a first-principles basis was an awfully long time ago. It was an awfully long time ago. I was minus 2 when that was carried out.Hon Trevor Mallard: I was resident upstairs during the debate.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well you can tell us some more about that as well Mr Mallard. But anyway it was a long time ago and it is fair to say that the environment in which information can be gathered has changed a bit since 1976. So we should be debating a single piece of legislation that establishes the parameters for our surveillance agencies in the 21st century.The alternative way to go would be to split this piece of legislation—ad hoc inconsistent and ill-fit for purpose as it is—into the six or seven pieces of legislation that would accurately reflect the number of different agencies and the number of different Acts that it is amending. As it is what we have again—ALFRED NGARO (National):I moveThat the question be now put .STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):I rise to speak to the motion to divide the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge Bob Leonard of the Anti-Bases Campaign as well when I talk of this division. Bob passed away exactly a week ago. He was a founder of the Anti-Bases Campaign and fought vigorously against the Waihopai spy base—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! This has got nothing to do with Supplementary Order Paper 307. The member should be debating whether or not the bill is to be divided.STEFFAN BROWNING: In terms of the division I think that with respect we should be able to talk of someone who has been closely involved with this whole issue of the Government Communications Security Bureau and this division is just another aspect of it. I think it is very disrespectful to someone who passed away just a week ago—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! This speech is terminated.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National):I moveThat the question be now put .A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Committee divide the bill into the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill and the Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 307.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes60New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I moveThat the report be adopted.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the report be adopted.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Report adopted.Inquiries BillSecond ReadingHon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries)on behalf of theMinister of Internal Affairs: I moveThat the Inquiries Bill be now read a second time . This bill had its first reading and was reported back from the Government Administration Committee in 2009. The bill was put on hold in 2010 while the Royal Commission—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is it not the normal practice for a member moving a bill on behalf of another member to make it clear that it is on behalf of the Minister in charge of the bill? This is not a bill in this Minister’s name.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to admit that I was in the process of changing over and I was not paying my normal diligent attention. Does the member want to just correct that? I invite the member to clarify the issue.Hon NATHAN GUY: Certainly. On behalf of the Hon Minister Chris Tremain the bill has had its first reading and was reported back—Hon Trevor Mallard: No. I move.Hon NATHAN GUY: I move that the Inquiries Bill be now read a second time. I have already done that. The bill has had its first reading and was reported back from the Government Administration Committee in 2009. The bill was put on hold in 2010 while the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy was under way. During that time the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes was also established. It was important that both those inquiries could do their work without Parliament discussing their powers—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I do not want to interrupt the member but I am now entirely confused. I have a copy of the bill which is in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Chris Tremain told me yesterday that it was in his name.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill is tabled. It is on the Table.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The copy of the bill that was supplied to the Opposition was in the name of Chris Tremain.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Let us just progress. OK? The Hon Nathan Guy.Hon Trevor Mallard: He has to start again.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No he does not have to start again.Hon NATHAN GUY: We have now had the opportunity to review the bill in light of lessons learnt during the royal commissions. The Government has developed Supplementary Order Paper 330 to incorporate several changes identified during this process which I will address in more detail soon.The Inquiries Bill was developed following a comprehensive review of the law by the New Zealand Law Commission. I would like to thank the Law Commission for that work. The bill will reform and modernise the law relating to public inquiries. It does this by repealing provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908 that relate to the appointment of commissions of inquiry and royal commissions of inquiry. Two new types of inquiry—public and Government—will replace the current commissions of inquiry and non-statutory ministerial inquiries. The bill also continues to recognise and provide for royal commissions established under the letters patent. Government inquiries that report directly to a Minister are likely to deal with more immediate issues than public inquiries. They should be able to investigate an issue and come back to the Minister with a quick authoritative answer. Public inquiries which include royal commissions are appropriate for more complex matters of public importance. The billsets out updated powers protections and immunities that will be available to all inquiries established under the new legislation. Those are aimed at giving inquiries the tools they need to carry out an inquiry effectively and efficiently while ensuring that those participating in an inquiry are adequately protected.It is important that this bill progresses quickly because a Government inquiry into the Fonterra whey protein concentrate contamination incident will be better placed to investigate that incident with the powers provided for in the bill. I do appreciate the parties that have indicated their support for this.The bill was referred to the Government Administration Committee in July 2009. The committee received only one submission from the public law committee of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Law Society. However I note that the Law Commission undertook an extensive consultation process in its review of public inquiries and the wide range of views it heard were no doubt reflected in the development of the bill.The committee recommended a number of minor amendments to the bill. The committee supports these amendments which will improve the bill and will allow inquiries to operate in a more fair and effective manner. I thank the committee members for that work. As introduced the bill provided that a member of an inquiry may be removed from office if found guilty of misconduct. This implies that an inquiry member must have been found guilty of misconduct through a formal process which could take longer than the length of time the inquiry has been appointed for. The committee recommended that the bill be amended to provide that a member may be removed due to his or her misconduct rather than be found guilty of misconduct. The committee also recommended amendments that will offer greater protection to those participating in inquiries. The provisions around name suppression immunities and privileges for those participating in inquiries will now apply to all participants rather than only witnesses.The bill provides that an inquiry may make an award of costs against participants who unduly lengthen or obstruct the inquiry or who add undue cost to the inquiry. The committee recommended that such orders be appealed in the High Court on a question of fact or law with no right of appeal in order to prevent additional costs and delays. The select committee also made sensible changes to the way in which the Official Information Act 1982 and the Public Records Act 2005 will apply to documents received by an inquiry.As mentioned earlier I intend to move a Supplementary Order Paper to make a small number of changes to the bill. These changes reflect lessons learnt from the last two royal commissions of inquiry. The amendments I am seeking will provide greater flexibility around the process of establishing inquiries and will clarify that a Government inquiry can have more than one appointing Minister. The amendments will clarify the process for appointing counsel to assist an inquiry. They will also clarify the discretion that an inquiry has to manage its processes in complying with the principles of natural justice. The amendments will ensure that inquiries are able to obtain information that contains expert opinion as well as matters of fact. They will also enable an inquiry to recompense participants for their reasonable expenses without having to issue a formal summons on those persons. These amendments come directly from recent practical experience of administering inquiries.I would like to thank those people involved in the two recent royal commissions who assisted the Department of Internal Affairs in developing the ideas for improving the bill. The bill will remove many of the problems associated with the current commissions of inquiry by providing an updated modern regime for public and Government inquiries in the future. I commend the bill to the House.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I am confused. We were told yesterday that the Inquiries Bill would be in the name of Chris Tremain. He put out a press release about it. He was kind enough over the weekend to have consultations with me as the Labour internal affairs spokesperson seeing as it was in the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs. Mr Deputy Speaker I apologise that I did indicate to you that the bill was in the name of Mr Tremain. I accept that the second reading copy of the bill is in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy but sitting on the Table of the House is a copy of the Supplementary Order Paper 330 and what we are going to be considering tomorrow and it is in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain—it is in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain. So the question I ask is: does it depend on which day of the week it is or is this a pathetic approach to give a Minister who is being regarded as being generally useless in the primary industries area and in the area of fisheries something that makes him look good?Well if that is the case it has failed because that member just looks more like the idiot that he actually is. He is the village—[Interruption ] Well maybe we are a House of Representatives and Nathan Guy is a representative of the village idiots. The approach that he is taking to this legislation to this inquiry and to his portfolio generally is at a level of competence that is just not acceptable for a Minister of the Crown in the realm of New Zealand. It is not acceptable in New Zealand and the embarrassment the Labour Opposition has is that because this legislation is actually quite good—Chris Auchinvole: Oh! Hooray! Thank you so much.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it was developed by the Hon Sir Geoffrey Winston Russell Palmer. He I am told by the Prime Minister is a useless lawyer who does not know what he is talking about. Yet the Government picks up his piece of legislation—the thing he drafted the bill on which he gave a report to Annette King a bill that the Hon Rick Barker introduced to the Parliament—and wants to go forward with it. So is he a good lawyer or not? Does he know what he is talking about? Well the Prime Minister says no and Chris Tremain or Nathan Guy—whichever it is today or tomorrow—says that in fact he is.There is no doubt in my experience as the Minister of State Services and the Minister for Economic Development that there is a gap in our inquiries procedures and the gap is in particular around inquiries that are not into something related to the State sector or the Public Service. If it involves the State sector or the Public Service I think that our current inquiry system is appropriate. If one looks at the State sector legislation and the powers between the Prime Minister and the State Services Commissioner working together I do not have much doubt that they can set up an inquiry in the appropriate form and with the appropriate powers without too many problems at all. But when the issue is one such as Pike River or maybe the calculations around the fisheries; maybe possibly around Skycity and some of the bodgie dealings there; and certainly theRena we see in those areas the inability of the private sector to deal with the damage it caused. Clearly theRena was an environmental disaster but it was not something on the scale of Pike River. But the principles are the same: there was not a midpoint type of inquiry that sat between a ministerial inquiry which does not have the power to send for people to require evidence etc. and a royal commission which I think most of us would say in relation to theRena was probably unnecessary and too formal and probably too slow as well. I think there is a type of inquiry that is somewhere in between and would be appropriate for something like that.In my experience in Government we had a number of issues that we looked at and we probably erred on the side of going upstairs and getting judges involved and having commissions for things that might not otherwise have required commissions as a resultof that gap in our legislation. I am not quite sure now whether I should be addressing Chris Tremain or Nathan Guy because of the process that has been outlined. I just want to also say I was advised—I do not normally disclose the advice that happens between the Leader of the House and me—to communicate with Chris Tremain on this legislation as he was the Minister in charge of the bill and in fact I spent a number of occasions both on the phone and by text communicating with Chris Tremain and the Leader of the House was the person who indicated to me that he was the right person to communicate with.Grant Robertson: That’s where you went wrong.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I think to be fair to Mr Brownlee Mr Tremain thought he was in charge of the legislation after Cabinet yesterday. After Cabinet yesterday he put out a press release as the Minister in charge of the legislation. But I suppose it is one of those things—the only constant thing is change and what we are seeing is a bit of change in this area. But I say to the Minister in charge of the bill—and I will work on the assumption seeing Nathan Guy is in the House today that Mr Guy will be able to communicate this point—that what I indicated was that we did want to have a bit more discussion around the natural justice provisions. I think we are just about convinced that the amendments that were proposed to us by Chris Tremain—and can I just by way of interjection across the House ask Nathan Guy whether he stands by the amendments that were given to the House in the name of Mr Tremain. Does he propose to go forward with the—Hon Nathan Guy: The Supplementary Order Papers?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Supplementary Order Papers.Hon Nathan Guy: Yes.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: He is. OK. I think we are just about there. The main question we had in that particular area was to do with the natural justice provisions. We made the concerns known to Chris Tremain and he came back to us and I think we are just about convinced. In some of these things there is a balance around the speed of the inquiry and the importance of getting it right.But there is one area and I want to make it clear to Nathan Guy that Supplementary Order Paper 332 is on the Table and is in my name. There is a discussion there on the question of whether or not clause 15 relates to a situation where there is an exclusion of the public or to a situation where things are being held in secret. I can accept that in a lot of cases—the Nicholas case would be a very good example—it is appropriate to have some issues dealt with in a private session with evidence suppressed and with confidentiality guaranteed. But the view of the Labour Party is that on balance there should be a presumption of openness and transparency around the inquiry. We are pretty sure from the discussions that have been had previously that the Government is on that page as well. What we are not convinced of is that clause 15 as it is currently drafted makes it clear that that is the balance.I want to leave it with the Minister and say that we are looking forward to being supportive. This is legislation that we do want to get right so it lasts beyond Governments and so that we can use it later next year if we have to and for the inquiries that come up. But I ask him to look at that. It might not be perfectly drafted and I take responsibility for that but if the principle can be adopted by the Government and there can be better drafting in order to do it it will help the smoother passage of the legislation.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National):It is a pleasure to rise to speak in favour of the Inquiries Bill. I thank the Minister who introduced it—Hon Trevor Mallard: Who?CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —both of them—and also Mr Mallard for the comments. I think he made two positive comments and that was really good. One was that he expects Labour to support this bill and I would hope that each party in the House will take the opportunity to support this bill. It is intended to modernise the law relating to public inquiries and it largely replaces the outdated Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908 which sets out the legal framework in which commissions of inquiry and royal commissions of inquiry currently operate. In 2006 the Law Commission reviewed the law relating to public inquiries with a focus on commissions of inquiry and royal commissions as well as non-statutory ministerial inquiries. The reportA New Inquiries Act  recommended a new law.As the 1908 Act is over a hundred years old—Kris Faafoi: Not unlike the member.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —some of it is antiquated and some provisions outdated. In fact it was even before I was born. The amendments made over time have generally been in response to the circumstances of a particular inquiry and this means that they may resolve a very specific part of the existing Act without taking its wider context into account. Other problems identified touched on in passing by the Hon Mr Mallard were the cost and duration of commissions of inquiry and royal commissions normally assigned to the legalistic processes these commissions often adopt and a lack of flexible statutory inquiries for Ministers. These can result in higher costs increased delays and inquiries appointed outside the statutory framework lacking the powers and protections of those appointed within the statutory framework. There was a gap. The new bill as well as Supplementary Order Paper 330 will resolve these issues and will create a new more functional network.I would just like to briefly describe that because we missed that from the other side of the House but I am sure subsequent speakers will concentrate on that aspect of the bill. This bill will provide for two types of inquiry and the retaining of royal commissions. There will be public inquiries. These would be appointed by the Governor-General on major issues of concern to the public and the Government and would be a substitute for commissions of inquiry. The reports would be tabled in Parliament. There will be Government inquiries. These will be appointed by and reported directly to Ministers. They would deal with smaller and more immediate issues where a quick and authoritative answer is required.The Law Commission recommended that the ability to appoint royal commissions should be removed. I am at a bit of a loss as to why it should do that but the previous Government decided to retain them as the public views them as a very important function when matters of significant public interest are involved. All the provisions of a public inquiry will apply to royal commissions. I think that public inquiries do fill that gap that was alluded to previously. Having sat through day after day after day of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy I was very conscious of the appropriateness of it. The public places great faith in the fact that the inquiry is beyond Government beyond administration and is being viewed in the way of a royal commission. So I fully concur with the bill that there is a definite place for that level of inquiry.The changes that are proposed change credibility and sensibly address problems within our inquiries framework and these improvements are needed immediately. It will give the whey protein inquiry more flexibility to provide answers needed to the questions that have been raised about this incident both domestically and internationally. New Zealand has a sterling reputation as a credible and trusted supplier of safe suitable food to both domestic and international markets. We do need a system that will protect our reputation from criticism. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I was about to do something else but I will take a call. Before I commence on the substantive part of the Inquiries Bill I just wanted to clarify where we had got to on exactly who it is who is in charge of this bill. Quite frankly I do not think anyone is in charge of the bill at the moment but according to what we are hearing from the other side of the House about who is in charge of the bill it seems as though we have to transport ourselves back in time which is something that we have to do a great deal of in this bill to when Nathan Guy was in his glorious tenure as the Minister of Internal Affairs. In actual fact he was in charge of this bill when he was the Minister of Internal Affairs. He is no longer the Minister of Internal Affairs and is now in charge of primary industries as I think we are all aware—well at least he is loosely in charge of primary industries. That is why he came to be delivering the speech because the bill was in his name.That is the explanation that we have been given and presumably when we get to the Committee stage of the bill Chris Tremain will morph into place and will lead us through Supplementary Order Paper 330. Having said all of that that is the explanation that we have been given. It is somewhat undermined by the Order Paper for today which actually lists Chris Tremain as the Minister in charge of the bill for its second reading. So it would be fair to say that the handling of the bill at this point by the Government leaves a little to be desired but that is reflective of the entire approach that the National Government has had to this bill.I want people to go back to 20 November 2009 which was quite some time ago. It was so long ago that Aaron Gilmore was here. He was a valued member of the National Party caucus at that point.Hon Trevor Mallard: Paul Quinn.GRANT ROBERTSON: Paul Quinn was here as well. All the stars were in play. Chris Auchinvole was not even grey at that stage actually. He did not have a grey hair on his head in 2009. If we want some cultural reference points South Africa were the world rugby champions at that point in 2009. Kim Dotcom had not even arrived so the Prime Minister had not worked out that he had to forget who he was yet—he had not even arrived. Ian Fletcher was just an old school friend of John Key in 2009. He was not running a major security agency.Chris Auchinvole: Mr Speaker is this about the bill?GRANT ROBERTSON: Very much about the bill Mr Auchinvole because in 2009 on 20 November when Chris Auchinvole still had his dark locks of hair that was when this bill was reported back to the House.Hon Trevor Mallard: But Maggie’s was the same colour.GRANT ROBERTSON: Maggie Barry was not with us then—Maggie Barry was not with us in 2009. It is that long ago. That was when the Government reported back this bill. It came from a select committee that I was a member of the Government Administration Committee. Mr Bakshi was on the committee.Hon Trevor Mallard: Still is.GRANT ROBERTSON: He is still on that committee.Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s a constant force.GRANT ROBERTSON: He is a constant force. Nikki Kaye—she was on the committee. She is a Minister now. John Hayes was on the committee as well which made it very entertaining. That was 2009 when the bill came back and it is remarkable to those on this side of the House that the Government having sat around with the Inquiries Bill there suddenly bursts into life in the wake of the Fonterra crisis. It is hopeless management of this legislation—legislation that I think has widespread support across the House.It is obviously true that the 1908 Commissions of Inquiry Act is well out of date. It does not cover for the way in which people would expect and want inquiries to be done. On this side of the House we obviously accept and support the premise behind the bill. As my colleague Mr Mallard noted it emerged from the Law Commission in May 2008. Geoffrey Palmer at that point was in charge of the Law Commission and its report went through and quite clearly articulated the need for something between royal commissions on the one hand and commissions of inquiry with very little powers on the other. What has been established by the Law Commission then taken through the process of policy development and legislation is a range of options now that mean that we can have the right inquiry for the right situation. It is quite clear that as enabled under this legislation the ability for instance for witnesses to be called on oath is a very important example of a kind of a power that people would want in an inquiry.Annette King who was then the Minister responsible for the Law Commission got this in May 2008—[Interruption ] No she was the Minister responsible for the Law Commission I understand in 2008. She identified this issue and moved swiftly I might say so that by September 2008 Rick Barker who was the Minister of Internal Affairs was able to come to the House and run down to the Office of the Clerk and put the bill on the Table and there it was in September 2008. Unfortunately there was an event in November 2008 that we do not dwell on which meant that it moved into the hands of the Government which initially moved quite quickly to get it off to the select committee but unfortunately it has languished significantly since that time.Mr Mallard has already alluded to Supplementary Order Paper 332 which is on the Table which we will debate when we come to the Committee stage. I think it is important to address the issue that lies behind that Supplementary Order Paper and that is the question of the level of transparency around these inquiries. We are giving increased powers for inquiries to be called and according to the bill in front of us those inquiries are subject to the Official Information Act. That is exactly as it should be.But there will be occasions where the nature of the inquiry means that either evidence or even in some cases potentially findings of an inquiry need to be kept confidential. Trevor Mallard mentioned briefly the Louise Nicholas - inspired inquiry into police misconduct. That would quite clearly be an inquiry where aspects of the evidence would be kept secret. That is an important thing to do. So the provisions that are contained in clause 15 of the bill are merited but what concerns us on this side of the House is that we do not believe that the presumption that lies behind clause 15 is as good as it could be.We think that there should be a presumption of openness. We think it should be the default position that an inquiry the evidence that comes to it and the findings from it should be open to the public. That is the spirit in which we would expect these inquiries to be undertaken. So Trevor Mallard is proposing a Supplementary Order Paper that puts in place language that says the default presumption is one of openness. Yes there may well be occasions when we need to make things secret but in the order of events as we would normally have them it would be open. We think that is an important change. It means that being subject to the Official Information Act remains the default position but there will be occasions using the powers under clause 15 for there to be matters kept secret. We hope that the Government—whoever it is who is in charge of the Inquiries Bill tomorrow—will come to the House and treat that Supplementary Order Paper with the seriousness that we put it forward.We do welcome this legislation coming back to the House. There have been a large number of matters on which there could or should have been inquiries since 2009. I have a member’s bill in the ballot to have a proper inquiry into theRena disaster. Ibelieve that that is long justified. John Hayes cannot remember theRena disaster it would seem. But that was a significant event. It was the greatest environmental catastrophe that we have had in New Zealand waters and it should have been inquired into by now. The inquiries that are capable of being formed under this bill would have been useful in that instance.There are a lot of other things that have happened under this Government’s watch that could have seen an inquiry. If we actually go back to 2009 there could have been an inquiry into Richard Worth. I do not know whether anyone remembers Richard Worth but he was here when this bill was going through. There could have been an inquiry into what happened with him. We should have had an inquiry into the collapse of Solid Energy and the role of the Government and the Minister of State Owned Enterprises in the collapse of Solid Energy the appalling and incompetent management of our State-owned enterprises—Hon Trevor Mallard: But we probably don’t need this bill to do that.GRANT ROBERTSON: It could have been done but this bill would give a range of options for how that inquiry could take place. A range of things such as Defence Force cuts—all sorts of matters on which inquiries could be undertaken. In fact the Government actually needs all of the options that it has got here because there are so many matters that have occurred under its watch that deserve inquiry.The Labour Party will be supporting this on its second reading. We believe that the Supplementary Order Paper that Minister Tremain has put forward should be deserving of support. We do want to talk through the natural justice provisions that Mr Mallard put forward. But we would also ask all parties in the House to support Mr Mallard’s Supplementary Order Paper to ensure that there is a presumption of openness in these inquiries because I believe that is what New Zealanders would expect of inquiries undertaken by the Government.HOLLY WALKER (Green):Well it is interesting to have inherited this Inquiries Bill as another member who was not present in 2009. It has indeed been languishing for a very long period of time and as we have heard was first drafted under the previous Labour Government after a comprehensive review by the Law Commission. It is a shame that it is being considered in the way that it is having been suddenly resurrected from languishing at the depths of the bottom of the Order Paper because it is a piece of legislation that deserves quite careful and considered consideration by the House in our opinion. It should not be rushed into law after languishing for years just because it has suddenly become politically expedient for the Government to do so. Actually we in the Green Party consider that there are some serious risks in passing this legislation which I will outline shortly.We know of course that the resurrection of this bill has been prompted by the recent botulism crisis at Fonterra which put our biggest export markets and indeed our whole international image and reputation at risk. The Government wants to be able to conduct an inquiry into what happened at Fonterra under more modern and better rules to apply to that inquiry than the ones that currently exist which are over 100 years old. That is fair enough although it could have actually done it a long time ago and avoided this unseemly haste which just makes it look like again New Zealand cannot get its act together in this area. The Green Party supported this legislation at its first reading because we also recognise the need to modernise and update the legislation governing the way inquiries are conducted because that legislation is over 100 years old—indeed even older than Chris Auchinvole. However we have reached the conclusion that we need to abstain today in the second reading. Our support if it is given at any future stages is by no means guaranteed because we have some serious concerns about thepowers that are contained in this bill to compel witnesses to disclose information and I want to talk about that a little bit.As we have heard the bill provides for two kinds of inquiries to be established both public inquires which include royal commissions and also Government inquiries which are driven by Ministers. Either can be established for the purposes of inquiring into any matter of public importance. The bill then sets out the terms under which such inquiries will be able to be conducted and to operate—things such as how members can be appointed to the inquiry what the reporting requirements of the inquiry are and the ability of that inquiry to call witnesses to hold hearings and crucially to compel the disclosure of evidence. The concerns of the Green Party focus on the powers granted to all inquiries by this bill but in particular what these will mean in practice when employed in Government inquiries which are to be driven by Ministers.In general the bill promotes a high level of public transparency and disclosure which we support. It appears to operate under an assumption that information will be made public unless there is a good reason not to. We do appreciate that the Labour Party intends to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper to clarify this. But we have serious concerns about the powers granted to all types of inquiries Government and public to compel witnesses to hand over evidence documents and other materials. I refer here to clause 21 “Powers to obtain information” which says: “An inquiry may as it thinks appropriate for the purposes of the inquiry—(a) require any person to—(i) produce any documents or things in that person’s possession or control or copies of those documents or things:” and it goes on to talk about how copies can be made and how a person must provide information to the inquiry and verify that by statutory declaration.We can also look at clause 23 which says: “An inquiry—(a) may on its own initiative or on the application of another person order any person to disclose to any person participating in the inquiry any specified document information or thing that the person has produced before the inquiry;”. So that is quite a serious level of compulsion that inquiries will have once this legislation is in place.It comes along with quite serious offences and penalties. If we look at clauses 30 and 31: “Every person commits an offence who intentionally—(a) fails to attend the inquiry … (c) fails to produce any document or thing required by order of the inquiry: (d) destroys evidence …”. And a person who does any of those things and who commits an offence against that section may be liable to a fine of up to $10000 and could have contempt against the inquiry proceedings initiated against them in the High Court.Let us just think about this in relation to a high-profile recent inquiry which is the Henry inquiry into the leak of the Kitteridge report into the Government Communications Security Bureau. Presumably under this new legislation this would be a Government inquiry and it would have all the powers set out under clause 21 to compel persons to appear before the inquiry and to provide evidence to that inquiry. Members will recall that the Henry inquiry did not have the authority to compel anyone to do anything but because the Prime Minister had indicated to his Ministers that he expected them to comply the inquiry was able to obtain Ministers’ phone and email records. However it should not have obtained the email and phone records of a member of Parliament although it did. Nor should it have obtained the phone or swipe card records of a journalist although it did. Those matters have now been referred to the Privileges Committee. Although this Inquiries Bill does provide some protections for privileged information including parliamentary privilege it is not at all clear that parliamentary privilege would be sufficient to prevent under this legislation—if the Henry inquiry had been conducted under this legislation—the inquiry from compelling an MP to disclose his or her emails or indeed from compelling a journalist to disclose his or her sources.This afternoon the Green Party has sought clarification from Minister Tremain’s office and we have not received a response. Possibly that is because that was the wrong Minister. I do not know. But we do need to hear from whichever Minister is in charge of the bill about this very important issue before we can support this bill in any future stages.Although we are very much in favour of openness and transparency I need to be very clear that we acknowledge the rights of MPs to operate independently from the Government and for their communications with their constituents to be protected and we acknowledge the very important right of journalists to protect their sources. We have serious concerns that the bill may actually inadvertently undermine these rights. It seems as though under this legislation if the equivalent of the Henry inquiry was held it could have compelled Peter Dunne to release his emails it could have compelled Parliamentary Service to release phone and email records and swipe card information and it could have compelled Andrea Vance to reveal her source. If she refused which I am sure she would have done because she is a very principled journalist she could have been pinged with a fine of up to $10000 and have had contempt proceedings initiated against her in the High Court and that is very concerning. So we need some response from the Government about this. Is this intended? If not we need to see some changes to the legislation to clarify that. There also seems to be nothing in the legislation that would protect MPs from having to disclose details of communications with their constituents if they were compelled to do so by an inquiry and that begins to impinge very closely on our ability as members of Parliament to carry out our role.It seems like these issues just simply were not anticipated by the Law Commission by the previous Government by Parliament when this was first debated or by the Government Administration Committee. I suppose that that is not surprising because it did not have the topical example in front of it that we have in front of us but given that topical example and given the current political context and the fact that Ministers will be the drivers of Government inquiries under this legislation we are very concerned about these provisions and we will need some compelling assurances from the Minister and probably changes in the Committee stage by Supplementary Order Papers in order to be able to support this bill any further. I urge my colleagues from across the House to actually take a close look at the issues that I have raised this evening and seriously consider whether the bill needs amendment in these areas and clarification on these important issues before we can proceed.In principle modernising the laws governing public inquiries is a necessary and positive step and a strong emphasis on openness and transparency in those inquiries is encouraged. That is why we supported the bill at its first reading and why we would like to support it through its remaining stages. But there are very fundamental constitutional and democratic principles at stake on the matter of what the bill can compel witnesses to disclose to inquiries which I think need very careful consideration by this House and by this House in Committee when it gets to that stage before it proceeds any further.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National):It is my privilege to stand and speak on the second reading of the Inquiries Bill. To start my contribution I would like to acknowledge the then chairperson of the Government Administration Committee the Hon David Parker. I had the privilege of working with him. This legislation is part of a reform process that this National Government has undertaken towards improving law and legislation where necessary. Inquiries are an essential part of our democratic society. New Zealand has a history of public inquiries especially on matters that are of significance. Public inquiries are currently conducted under the 1908 Commissions of Inquiry Act. As you will agree to conduct a public inquiry in 2013 based on legislation of 1908 may not be pragmatic.Towards improving this legislation the Law Commission started a review in 2006 and submitted a report with its recommendations in 2008. The Law Commission review focused on commissions of inquiry as well as royal commissions and non-statutory ministerial inquiries. During the review the commission identified a number of issues with the existing framework. The commission also found that currently the cost and the duration of an inquiry and royal commission are high. There is a considerable amount of delay in completing the inquiries. However for me apart from the cost and the time the other important issue that needed to be addressed in the reform was the lack of flexibility in a statutory inquiry for the Ministers. Inquiries appointed outside the statutory framework lack the power of protection of those appointed within the statutory framework. The amendment legislation will provide for this provision.Furthermore the legislation also provides provision for inquiries to be postponed or suspended when an investigation into a situation is being undertaken. The inquiry may also be suspended or postponed if at any later stage it is discovered that the inquiry may be prejudiced towards an interested party. The improvement made in the legislation will provide improved powers for the commissions towards obtaining evidence and information for the purpose of the inquiry. It will allow a maximum fine of $10000 if a document order or information requested is not provided or provided incorrectly.Furthermore the bill also allows for public and Government inquiries. Government inquiries allow for witnesses to be offered immunity or be compelled into giving the evidence. This bill will provide far greater flexibility in terms of seeking answers to the questions that have been asked domestically or internationally about the incident. Due to all the above reasons I support the Inquiries Bill and commend it to the House.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First will be supporting this Inquiries Bill. It establishes three types of inquiry—first of all royal commissions which actually become included in the term “public inquiry” which are also provided for and thirdly Government inquiries. Public inquiries are established by an Order in Council whereas the Government inquiries of course are established by notice in theGazette .Concerning the establishment of those inquiries under clause 7 the Government’s amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 330 provide for a more flexible establishment provision to allow for planning time for the establishment of an inquiry. That is a very sensible provision. Ministers can set any matters in the terms of reference which may or may not include a reporting date. We think that is very sensible as well. We note as the Government has pointed out the terms of reference for the recent Ministerial Inquiry into the Novopay Project for example which simply set out an indicative time frame rather than a specific reporting date.Concerning reporting clause 12(2) says: “The final report of an inquiry must set out”—as you would expect—“(a) the findings of the inquiry; and (b) any recommendations of the inquiry.” But I wonder why it does not—and I think it should—also provide for in a new paragraph (c) which is what I would like to see there the addition of the reasons for the findings and the recommendations. Perhaps that is implicit but I think it should be specific and it might be something I would raise later at the Committee stage.Concerning clause 13 I note that clause 13(1) provides for an inquiry having the power to request the appointment of counsel to assist it in its proceedings but in doing so it must have regard to the purposes of the bill and is required to consider effectiveness efficiency and fairness and also issues such as the subject matter of the inquiry and the most appropriate procedures. This will allow for legal assistance to inquiries but it must be justified and not automatic. I think that is a very good balance to include. I also note from the Government’s advice that it intends that the Crown LawOffice will develop administrative guidelines on the role and the appointment of counsel. I think that would be a very wise thing to do having regard to the fact that I think that some inquiries simply appoint counsel to assist them when it is not really required. So I think that is quite a good provision.Concerning clause 14 “Regulation of inquiry procedure” the inquiry can as you would expect conduct its proceedings as it considers appropriate but I am glad to see that it is required to comply with the principles of natural justice especially if an inquiry proposes to make a finding that is adverse to any person. If it does do that it must make that person aware of that and able to have an opportunity to respond to the matters that the inquiry intends to raise about that person. It is good to see these natural justice protections for individuals being incorporated in the bill.Clause 15 “Power to impose restrictions on access to inquiry” is an important provision. An inquiry may forbid publication of any evidence or submissions any report or account of the evidence the name or other particulars concerning witnesses and so on. It may restrict public access to any part or aspect of the inquiry. All of that is fine. But before making an order it must consider the risk of prejudice to public confidence because if it is too secretive that will be affected. On the other hand it must consider the need for the inquiry to ascertain the facts properly and the extent to which public proceedings may prejudice the security defence or economic interests of New Zealand. I think that the bill in this respect sets a proper balance between public and private interests as far as information is concerned.Turning to clause 19 and legal assistance for participants it states: “An inquiry may at any time make a recommendation to”—effectively I think the legal aid agency—“that funding be granted for the purpose of providing legal assistance to 1 or more specified persons who wish or who are required to appear before the inquiry; or who have an interest in the inquiry.” There is a need for a specific authority for legal aid in this way and it is a provision that New Zealand First is particularly pleased to see incorporated in the bill.Finally concerning clause 30 dealing with offences every person commits an offence who does any one of a number of things and clause 30(1)(b) includes refusing to be sworn or to affirm and give evidence. But that is balanced by a provision in clause 30(2)(c) which states that a person does not commit an offence if “compliance would be likely to prejudice the maintenance of the law … including the right to a fair trial.” That is an appropriate balance between those two things. I worry a little bit about the term “would be likely to prejudice” because that is a fairly uncertain term. Ultimately of course that could be decided if necessary by the High Court.On balance New Zealand First will support the bill. We consider it a good revision of the law on Government and public inquiries and it is one that has been a long time coming. We look forward to further debate on and consideration of the bill at its further stages.JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa):It is a pleasure to stand in the House on an occasion like this when Denis O’Rourke our colleague across the Chamber has been speaking and to find myself in a situation where the House and particularly New Zealand First is supportive of this Inquiries Bill. They should be supportive of this legislation because the Act that we are changing has been in place since 1908 and yes it is even older than Chris Auchinvole—at least 100 years. Denis O’Rourke made the comment that the bill was a long time coming to the House but that was because it was put on hold from 2010 to enable a review following the Pike River and the Canterbury earthquake royal commissions. That review has now been completed and a Supplementary Order Paper developed to incorporate lessons learnt from these inquiries.This is a very good bill. Supplementary Order Paper 330 was developed prior to the whey protein concentrate contamination incident and makes a number of sensible changes that will lead to clearer and more workable legislation. The bill as originally drafted would require a notice to be sent to every person whom the inquiry made an adverse finding against and it would need to give each person reasonable time to respond. In the case of the two recent royal commissions this would have imposed a huge burden on the commissions to contact hundreds of people. Most of these people had already been made aware of the findings and had an opportunity to respond but the bill would have required formal notice anyway. So the changes make this process a bit less prescriptive and I think that is very sensible.As I conclude my comments I think it is also important to reflect just on why inquiries are important. They are important to investigate mistakes or accidents and to ensure that they do not happen again they are needed to bring accountability and transparency to Government and they are there to better inform Ministers and the public on important issues. The Inquiries Bill is important to the proposed inquiry into the whey protein contamination which was announced in fact yesterday I think. The Government inquiry is about strengthening an already strong system to ensure that New Zealand’s food products retain their status as amongst the world’s safest and most desired. The details of this ministerial inquiry including the appointment processes are in principle because it is proposed that the inquiry will be carried out using powers in the Inquiries Bill. As such the Minister for Food Safety has written to the chair of the Primary Productions Committee to ask that consideration of the Food Bill be put on hold pending this part of the inquiry into regulatory and best-practice requirements. This is a very good bill and I support it in its present form. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to take a call in this second reading on the Inquiries Bill. I sat on the Government Administration Committee and I think at an earlier time I may have been part of the Government that adopted the recommendation of the Law Commission to update the legislation relating to inquiries so as to make improvements to inquiries that are conducted in New Zealand. As I recall there was at one stage a discussion as to whether because of the wording of this bill we actually needed to have any commissions of inquiry called “royal” commissions of inquiry but it was decided that that term would continue into the future because people had an understanding as to how serious those inquiries are and it was appropriate for continuity to enable that term to go forward.The Labour Party supports this legislation. I want to deal with what I thought was a very erudite contribution from Holly Walker. Thank you for that. I had cause to read the bill after that contribution was made in particular in relation to the immunities and privileges of participants in the inquiries that are set up under the Inquiries Bill if it comes into force. Before I do so I should note that an inquiry is as it sounds. It is not determining civil or criminal liability. Indeed clause 11 of the bill says: “an inquiry has no power to determine a civil criminal or disciplinary liability of any person.” It is not attaching civil or criminal liability to any person but as subsection 2 of clause 11 says: “[this] does not prevent an inquiry in exercising its powers and performing its duties under this Act from making—(a) findings of fault; or (b) recommendations that further steps be taken to determine liability.” So for example the inquiry could say that it recommends that there be some civil or criminal action against someone who it thought was at fault but it could not make a finding of criminal fault itself. Of course it is intended that these inquiries adhere to the principles of natural justice and that is made clear by clause 17 of the bill which says: “an inquiry must not in its report make any finding that is adverse to any person (whether a natural person or a body corporate) unless the inquiry has taken all reasonable steps to give that person reasonable notice ofthe intention to make the finding” to disclose the contents of the report and to give them a “reasonable opportunity to respond to the proposed finding”.Coming then to the issue as to other immunities and privileges of participants clause 28 of the bill—“Other immunities and privileges of participants” is the title of that clause—says: “Witnesses and other persons participating in an inquiry (other than counsel) have the same immunities and privileges as if they were appearing in civil proceedings and the provisions of Subpart 8 of Part 2 of the Evidence Act 2006 apply to the inquiry” as if it were a civil proceeding and as if every reference in the Evidence Act to judges were a reference to the inquiry. To make sense of that one then has to go to the Evidence Act 2006 which sets out the various claims to privilege that can be made in Subpart 8 of Part 2. I had that open but—if you just give me a second—it has just closed.I looked up the relevant part of the Evidence Act which is Subpart 8 of Part 2 where it lists various privileges. The privileges listed include communications with legal advisers; professional legal services—this is not a complete list—privilege for settlement negotiations or mediation; privilege for communications with ministers of religion; and privilege in criminal proceedings for information obtained by medical practitioners and clinical psychologists which I think might be limited to criminal proceedings rather than civil proceedings so I am not clear on my quick reading of this whether that extends through this provision to the inquiries that would be conducted under the Inquiries Bill. There is the privilege against self-incrimination; the discretion as to incrimination under foreign law—and I am not even sure that I properly understand that; I will have to read that in more detail—claiming privilege against self-incrimination in court proceedings; and then an informer has a privilege in respect of information that would disclose or is likely to disclose the informer’s identity. Then there are privileges there in respect of disclosure requirements in civil proceedings.Having listed the various privileges that are set out or some of them in Subpart 8 of Part 2 of the Evidence Act which through clause 28 of this bill also apply to inquiries the question that I am left with—and I thank Holly Walker for her contribution because I am not sure whether I have quite got my head around this properly yet—is about the reference to appearing in civil proceedings and the limitation of these immunities and privileges of participants. I will read it out again: “Witnesses and other persons participating in an inquiry (other than counsel) have the same immunities and privileges as if they were appearing in civil proceedings and the provisions of subpart 8 of Part 2 of the Evidence Act 2006 apply …”. I am not sure on my reading of this now—and it is some years since the bill was before the select committee so forgive me for my loss of memory; I might have known at the time but I certainly do not know now—whether that reference to civil proceedings limits the types of privileges that are listed in Subpart 8 of Part 2 of the Evidence Act to a subset of the privileges that I have just referred to.If it does not and if all of the privileges that are set out in Subpart 8 of Part 2 of the Evidence Act 2006 flow through to the Inquiries Bill then I would have thought that this law is good law because it would be saying that the various privileges that are covered in evidence before the courts are all covered for an inquiry under the Evidence Act 2006 and I would feel comfortable that we have got it right. But I am not 100 percent sure of that because I am not sure whether because of this reference to civil proceedings we are limiting the types of privileges in inquiries to a narrower set of the privileges that I have already referred to. So that is a question that I would like the Government to address in the Committee stage. We should be able to find out whether the privileges that are referred to in clause 28 are sufficiently broad. If they are then the Labour Party will continue with its support of this bill. I thank the member Holly Walker for that contribution because I thought that it was an appropriate one.Having said that I say that this bill does have the background of a Law Commission report behind it and I would expect that it had thoroughly considered those issues at the time. We can all make mistakes however and some of the events that we have had inquiries about recently sometimes make us more aware of issues than was the case prior to those events occurring. So I am pleased to speak in support of this second reading.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):Thank you for the chance to talk—what will ultimately be—briefly on this Inquiries Bill. In fact the previous speaker the Hon David Parker picked up on some of the themes that I wanted to address which were mainly in response to what I think was actually a really considered thought around what powers an inquiry has. I think for me the key has ultimately been twofold—firstly that the powers given particularly from clause 20 onwards do sit within that wider framework of caveats and secondly particularly within clause 28 that the immunities and privileges afforded in the courts particularly in the civil context will apply to inquiries as well. In other words the Inquiries Bill is not a carte blanche or a blank cheque for an inquiry without limit.I will not go much further than that because I think that actually it was a very considered suggestion from the member from the Green Party Holly Walker and then a considered counter-position if you wish from the Hon David Parker. I am pleased to support this bill. I am pleased to see the general consideration and support across the House as has been noted several times. The Commissions of Inquiry Act was put together in 1908. It is well time we updated it and allowed royal commissions Government inquiries and public inquiries to operate as we see fit. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand that the next call is a split call. The Hon Damien O’Connor.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):I too rise as a Labour member to support the Inquiries Bill. I must acknowledge our former colleague—“Bring Back Rick”. The Hon Rick Barker was indeed the Minister to introduce this legislation. As a former great leader of the Labour Party has often said it is no good being too right too early. That was indeed the case with the Hon Rick Barker. As Minister of Internal Affairs he had identified via an inquiry initiated by the Hon Annette King that we did need to update the laws and the legislation around inquiries. It is somewhat sad that the incidents referred to in Supplementary Order Paper 330 here put on the Table by the Minister of Internal Affairs are ones relating to deregulation across this country. Pike River Coal the inquiry into building failure and now of course the dairy industry—all those three incidents were effectively caused by deregulation ineffective regulation and oversight in key areas of our economy. We hope that this new legislation will provide the ability to have inquiries that do look into the causes the reasons that we indeed changed the legislation what the basis was for it in the first place and why we did not see the need to update it prior to incidents occurring. The latest one of course is with the dairy industry.I do have some concerns though and the explanatory note to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 330 says that in improving the legislation tabled by the Hon Rick Barker we have now got changes that allow the ability to set the parameters of an inquiry tightly. That may be useful but it may also limit the ability of the inquiry to identify the real causes. This is after all—or the one we are talking about in reference to the dairy industry is—a ministerial inquiry. Although people have welcomed that it is not an independent inquiry. Indeed we have to acknowledge that. The explanatory note goes on to say here that in new clause 7(3) “The Minister may consult the chairperson of the inquiry before notifying the terms of reference.” I guess it is seen as allowing some flexibility and scope. On the other side of the equation it could be saying that theMinisters want the chairperson to know very clearly what they want to find out. If indeed there is adverse ministerial intervention in what we are passing here then I do not think we would have the kind of support that Labour is offering to the bill at this point. So we offer our support in good faith that Ministers will not limit the scope of an inquiry. Although it cannot of course be total and wide ranging the scope must cover the possibilities.In particular the concern I have here regarding the dairy industry and I have asked the Minister publicly about it is whether they would consider widening the scope to assess whether restrictions to resourcing in the Ministry for Primary Industries contributed in any way to the inability of staff to actually carry out their jobs. I suspect that the Ministers in having a conversation with the chair may not want that kind of outcome. So we will be looking at this inquiry. We will support the passage of this legislation but on the basis of good faith that the inquiries will be truly open and transparent. One suggestion made to me at one point was that maybe we should have some Chinese representatives on the inquiry into the dairy industry. I think that is going one step too far but I know that those customers over there will be looking at the outcome of the inquiry to see whether it has been open it has been transparent it identifies the problems and indeed it comes up with some recommendations to improve the industry and prevent the situation happening again.So Labour in supporting the legislation and the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has put up will be stating that it will watch this first inquiry with great interest and that it wants to make sure that there is no adverse ministerial intervention in the outcome of it.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):I want to take just a short call to support the contribution that was made by my colleague Holly Walker highlighting the fact that with this Inquiries Bill that we are dealing with today the circumstances have changed since it was last debated in the House. We cannot address the issues in it and make this law I do not think unless we also address the issues that have been raised in the intervening time. I would like to thank David Parker for his assessment as the chair I think of the Government Administration Committee at the time and for describing how the Evidence Act has an influence over this legislation. But we in the Greens are not convinced that there are sufficient exclusions as he laid them out tonight that provide the kinds of protections that we think are still very important and which are even more important as a result of recent issues arising out of the Henry inquiry.Part of the issue with the Henry inquiry of course is the behaviour of Ministers in relation to it. There has been a loss of trust by the public and I think by parliamentarians around the behaviour particularly that of the Prime Minister in relation to the information that he has provided in terms of the Henry inquiry and responsibility he has taken—or indeed actually not taken—for some of the actions of the inquiry. If you remember there was that initial statement from the Prime Minister that Peter Dunne had given consent to his emails for example being taken by or provided to the inquiry. It turns out that in fact there was no consent given. There was the issue around the extent to which the Prime Minister’s office had been involved in seeking the details of Andrea Vance’s information emails and movements around the parliamentary precincts. That was not disclosed by the Prime Minister until much later when it was revealed in fact that his office was involved in that. These kinds of behaviours by Ministers who are responsible for these kinds of inquiries reduce the trust that the community has that these inquiries are not politically driven and will not be interfered with by Ministers. Given the wide-ranging powers that this Inquiries Bill—should it pass—provides for an inquiry I think there are real concerns about genuine checks and balances.We are of the view that the Official Information Act should apply to the Parliamentary Service; that people should be able to get information about what the Parliamentary Service is doing. That does in fact apply to MPs’ offices but one of the areas we are absolutely certain ought to be protected is that of communications between MPs and their constituents because it is crucial for constituents to have free access to their MPs to talk about the issues that are important to them. This bill does nothing to allay our concern about that. In fact as it is currently written it would apply to MPs and to all communications that all MPs make at any time in their role as a member of Parliament. Neither does this bill provide any protection as far as we can see even with the description of the implication of the Evidence Act to protect a journalist’s sources. These are issues that need to be dealt with.The problem is of course that this Government wants to rush this legislation through. I understand that the Government intends to have the third reading this week so therefore there will not be sufficient scrutiny of this bill to make sure that the powers are not too wide. There will not be sufficient consideration of the impacts of the Henry inquiry debacle on inquiries and the powers provided to Ministers and to these inquiries. There will not be the opportunity for the media to make comment as to whether or not they think this bill extends powers too far particularly for them and protecting their sources. Neither is there the opportunity for the public to re-engage in this debate about what kinds of powers a politically driven ministerially driven inquiry should be able to have in obtaining information about them.At the time when we are seeing the Government Communications Security Bureau debacle again occur when people are particularly concerned about keeping private information private and their right to do so this bill raises real issues. If this Government wants to push it through then I think there are very serious concerns about supporting this bill over the next period of time unless these issues can be seriously dealt with. We see no evidence from the Government that it intends to deal with these issues seriously. That is very unfortunate. We are abstaining on this legislation until we feel confident that these issues have been seriously dealt with by the Government. Thank you.Dr JIAN YANG (National):I rise to take a short call on the second reading of the Inquiries Bill. Previous speakers have elaborated on the purpose of the bill. This bill has become even more important due to the whey protein concentrate or “WPC” contamination incident. The incident risks damaging New Zealand’s reputation as a world leader in food safety. In the past few days a number of infant formula exporters from the Chinese community in New Zealand have come to see me. They all want a speedy inquiry into this incident. Make no mistake we are proud of our safety record and we are confident that we are leading the world in this area. The joint ministerial inquiry into whey protein concentrate contamination which was just announced will strengthen an already strong system. So the Inquiries Bill is an important bill. It will ensure that inquiries investigate mistakes or accidents and ensure they do not happen again. It will bring accountability and transparency to our Government and it will better inform Ministers and the public on important issues that are facing New Zealand. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Inquiries Bill be now read a second time.Ayes105New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes1Independent: Horan.Abstentions14Green Party 13; Mana 1.Bill read a second time.Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment BillSecond ReadingHon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice)on behalf of theMinister of Finance: I moveThat the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill be now read a second time . I want to begin by thanking the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their prompt handling of this Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. The committee received four submissions and heard from two submitters.The amendment bill contains a small number of amendments to the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 and one consequential amendment to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989. It aims to reduce or eliminate unnecessary compliance costs and address technical issues identified during provisional licensing to ensure a smooth transition to full licensing of insurers. As previously noted the Reserve Bank has reviewed the operation of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act during the transitional period towards full licensing which expires on 7 September 2013. Although the Act has proved to be generally effective and robust it is not unexpected that some provisions were identified as appropriate for reform. In particular two provisions in the Act could expose insurers or the Reserve Bank to operational complications at the end of the transitional period.The amendment bill as introduced proposed to extend the term of the provisional licences of insurers that enter into an insolvency procedure before 7 September 2013. At this date insurers that are subject to an insolvency procedure will not qualify for a full licence. The committee recommends that clause 16 be amended to allow for a provisional licence to remain in force where any of the following circumstances apply to an insurer: it is in an insolvency proceeding its application for a full licence has been refused or it is subject to a direction from the Reserve Bank to cease entering new contracts of insurance. Under these circumstances the provisional licence may remain in force until the Reserve Bank is satisfied that it should be cancelled.The second proposal relates to interim financial reporting requirements. The bill recommends that overseas insurers on application to and approval by the Reserve Bank be permitted to provide half-yearly financial reporting based on the home country regulatory reporting requirements. In addition the committee recommends a change to the provision of interim financial information requirements to extend the period by which interim financial information must be reported to the Reserve Bank from 3 months to 4 months. This will align with the time frame for annual reporting recommended by the Commerce Committee in the Financial Reporting Bill. I commend this bill to the House.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):We have got a bit of competition for this call. I was very happy to stand aside. The Labour Party is supporting the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. It is as the previous speaker Minister Collins described and is the sort of housekeeping legislation that normally finds support across the House. There are a couple of things that I will traverse.The first is that there are a couple of minor changes that were made by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The first as the Minister has outlined is just to extend from 3 to 4 months the period in which interim financial information must be prepared and given to the Reserve Bank. This is now aligning with the Financial Reporting Bill which has been to the Commerce Committee. The second relates to provisional licences. It became apparent that if an institution could not get a final licence because for example it had become insolvent the Reserve Bank would have lost its oversight function because the provisional licence could not stay in force. That obviously is not very sensible and so the committee recommends that provisional licences can stay on foot to give the Reserve Bank some continuing powers in respect of those entities until such time as either they cancel their licences or if their problems can be fixed they can move to a full licence.There is one other issue that is not directly affected by this bill but I think it is good to put it on record. There is a debate going on in New Zealand at the moment as to whether the strength of insurance companies and their financial worth should be sufficient to meet a one-in-500-year event or a one-in-1000-year event. It is my understanding that the reasoning that lies behind the move towards requiring them to be strong enough to withstand the consequences of a one-in-1000-year event rather than a one-in-500-year event is that the Alpine Fault which goes once every 800 years roughly and the big quake that could hit New Zealand or Wellington in that rare event ought to be able to be catered for by the insurance community without the insurance community going broke and effectively leaving it to others perhaps either putting the onus on to private individuals who would be left uninsured or leaving it to the Government to pick up the bill.This is a very difficult decision because there are trade-offs to be made as to whether the additional level of security that would be obtained is firstly necessary and secondly affordable because if there are greater capital requirements required of insurance companies then that cost will be passed on to consumers through the insurance bills that they pay. So the first problem could be that if insurance costs go up as a consequence of this higher degree of confidence that we would have that they could meet these very expensive but rarer events it might be that it leads to lower levels of insurance because people cannot afford their insurance bills. That is one issue. The second issue—and this was raised with me recently by a senior member of the insurance industry—is that if the capital requirements become too high it may be that some of the multinationals that are present in New Zealand cannot get the support from their parent companies to provide the additional level of capital that is required by the New Zealand regulator because they will not be able to get a decent rate of return on it from the insurance market in New Zealand. As a consequence some of those insurers may withdraw from the New Zealand market reduce their presence or become more selective about the sort of cover that they are willing to offer because their parent owning bodies overseas are not willing to extend the additional capital to the New Zealand subsidiary to meet those requirements. The third potential problem with it is that if the capital barriers to entry for new entrants go even higher we are likely to become even more dependent in New Zealand in an important aspect of our financial services sector namely our insurance companies on overseas-owned companies and they will face less competition from New Zealand - owned entities.I think these are three very important concerns. Although I understand the concerns of the Reserve Bank about improving from a prudential point of view the likelihood that insurance companies can meet large events we have to be very careful that we properly take into account the three factors that I have mentioned. The first issue is the cost of insurance. The second issue is the possibility that some of the multinational insurers will not get the capital backing required from their parent companies to meet those commitments and therefore might withdraw from the market which would reduce competition and again could drive up costs and also increase risks because we would become more reliant as a country on a smaller number of insurance companies. The third issue is whether we are going to see ever-greater capital flows or returns of profits from the New Zealand insurance market to overseas companies because it is less likely that we will have New Zealand participants in the insurance market. That issue has been raised with me by more than one representative of the insurance industry and I believed their comments to me to be unedited and not self-interested. They were actually not talking in pursuit of their own interests. They were talking about what they thought was in New Zealand’s interest and I believed them to be straight in that regard. That is an issue that we have got to grapple with. It is a complex one and I hope that we get that one right in New Zealand.Although this area of Reserve Bank policy in this bill finds the support of the Labour Party it is fair to say that we have considerable concern about the effectiveness of overall Reserve Bank arrangements in New Zealand. We are not convinced that monetary policy is right yet. It was interesting that when 3 years ago we pulled out of the cross-party accord on monetary policy we were accused of heresy and a couple of the things that we called for to be changed have quietly been changed since—namely the adoption of albeit in a somewhat clumsy way the macro-prudential tools. There is also a discussion paper that is now out from Treasury or some work that has been done by Treasury looking at the decision-making process in the Reserve Bank and whether it should be the governor or the board that takes decisions relating to monetary policy which is another change that we called for. It is strange how these things were heresy a couple of years ago but when there has been true leadership shown by the Labour Party even occasionally the National Party follows suit.What it has not addressed in respect of monetary policy is of course the fundamental problem under the Act which is that primacy has to be given by the Reserve Bank to inflation-targeting ahead of other important aspects of economic management that are impacted by monetary policy including the exchange rate. As a consequence we have fewer jobs in New Zealand and we have a larger current account deficit which is probably New Zealand’s largest economic vulnerability. It is a much larger cause of problems than the insurance matters to which we are referring here. That is not to diminish the importance of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill which the Labour Party supports.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National):It is my pleasure to speak on the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. I think it is good to see widespread agreement across the House in support of this bill although we have not yet heard from the Greens or New Zealand First. This is an area of insurance that is of great concern to many households in the country at the moment. It is second only I suppose to local body rates which are always going up rapidly. Insurance costs have been rising considerably in the last few years as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes. When those earthquakes struck all New Zealanders did have to ultimately face a higher price for their insurance as the industry recalibrated its assessment of risk in New Zealand as we have been forcibly reminded that we live in these shaky isles.The bill is very important for building a more competitive and productive economy which is indeed very much one of the key goals of this Government that we make sure we have a well-functioning and efficient insurance sector. That was indeed the purpose of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act which was passed in 2010 and one consequential amendment of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act in 1989. All in all the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act has proven to be very effective and robust but it is not unexpected that there would be one or two provisions that would be in line for some reform 2 or 3 years out and that indeed is the purpose of this bill which is really to tweak a few matters that require some attention further down the line.The Act establishes a licensing and prudential regulation regime for all insurers and all insurers are to be licensed and supervised by the Reserve Bank and must comply with prudential requirements. Some of these reforms in the amendment bill ensure that the provisions in the current Act do not expose insurers or the Reserve Bank to operational complications at the end of the transition period. One reform relates to the interim financial reporting that is prepared in accordance with New Zealand generally accepted accounting practice requirements. The proposed amendments allow the Reserve Bank to specify another basis for reporting by overseas insurers so they are not having to be running two different sets of accounts in a very complicated manner in order to deal with their regulatory requirements here.I would just like to thank all members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee who worked very hard on this bill. The committee received four submissions. The number was not great but the overall interest in the bill was substantial. We heard from two submitters directly recommending a change to the provision of interim financial information requirements. The committee recommends extending the period by which interim financial information must be reported to the Reserve Bank from 3 to 4 months. I remember that one of the submitters suggested 5 months but I think they all agreed that going to 4 months made sense as it would align with the time frame for annual reporting recommended by the Commerce Committee in the Financial Reporting Bill.The other reform relates to the extension of the term for provisional licences or insurers that enter into insolvency procedures before 7 September 2013.All in all I thank the members of the committee and the officials who worked very hard on this bill. I have no doubt that when passed it will add some greater assurance to the sector in the hope that over the next few years in what is proving to be a difficult sector in the New Zealand economy as we come to terms with the complications and the consequences of the Canterbury earthquakes this legislation will serve us well. Thank you.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):I have to start by saying that this legislation the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill has introduced a rare outbreak of consensus in the House at least thus far. Even after that scintillating address from Mr Goldsmith I do not think we will see many people marching in the street over this legislation despite—Paul Goldsmith: It had gravitas.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well Mr Goldsmith is telling us that he spoke with gravitas. I will let the viewers at home make their own assessment. But as I say there will not be people marching in the street I do not think even after that scintillating address with gravitas in the way that there are people upset by say the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation which we have seen before this House today. I understand that 66000 people signed an online petition on that and that was nearly twice as many as debated snapper.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Dr DAVID CLARK: This piece of legislation attracted just four submissions—just four submissions—which is a long way I think members of this House will agree from the amount of interest in those other areas which I shall not go any further into at this point.Mr Goldsmith himself is to be congratulated on steering this legislation through. I did not have the privilege of sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee as it dealt with this legislation but I have worked with many of the members on it before. I know that they do work well and constructively together and they have brought this bill back to the House very quickly. If this side of the House was to be critical at all of the way in which this bill has progressed it would be—Paul Goldsmith: There’s no need to.Dr DAVID CLARK: —of the stopping and starting nature of its progress. Mr Goldsmith says that there is no need for that but I think the viewers at home should understand that this bill does come into effect to take over from the transitional period which the previous Act covered which expires in September this year. So suddenly there is an urgency to get this bill through the House.It is housekeeping legislation as Mr Parker has drawn attention to but it is housekeeping legislation that is now being rushed through due to the perhaps incompetence of the Government’s management of the House. We certainly have seen a lot of urgency and extended House time in the House this year and also in terms of the legislation itself there are a lot of “Henry VIII” clauses in legislation certainly in the Inland Revenue Department stuff that has been dealt with through that same committee dealing with matters related in terms of revenue and so forth. We have seen clauses in legislation that have been intended to cover up for stuff-ups that might subsequently happen. Certainly the student loans area has seen lots of legislation that has not been able to be implemented and has subsequently caused the Government embarrassment. So it has become fond of these “Henry VIII” clauses. I am pleased to say that there is none in this particular piece of legislation and that is because it is a very simple piece of legislation which has widespread agreement and it is simply tidying up a couple of simple matters.The area that the Reserve Bank is getting the powers in is to do with monetary policy. We do know that there are a number of things that are not in this legislation that might in fact be more useful and more usefully debated perhaps if the Government was able to get legislation through the House in a useful time frame and in an orderly manner and not stopping and starting. We would in fact be debating in more depth the use of macro-prudential tools such as those announced today by the Government—those loan-to-value ratios that will shut more first-home buyers out of the market. These are important issues. The things that the Reserve Bank deals with that are dealt with here in this legislation do affect a lot of people either directly or indirectly. This bill contains amendments that are largely technical issues including requiring the Reserve Bank to keep a register of licensed insurers. It is very difficult to object to such a measure I have to say. This bill also contains amendments that empower the Reserve Bank to give notice to an insurer that allows the insurer to prepare interim financial information in accordance with requirements other than the New Zealand generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) which Mr Goldsmith referred to. It also extends the term of provisional licences of insurers that enter into an insolvency procedure before 7 September 2013.No one would argue that any of these things should not be in the legislation. We really would only be more concerned with what is not in the legislation in terms of the Reserve Bank’s powers. If the Reserve Bank was given more powers to be more flexible in the area of monetary policy we might have a more up-to-date and 21stcentury policy that kept pace with the rest of the world. Mr Parker raised the matter of the promissory of inflation targeting—I note that Mr Goldsmith had nothing to say in response to that—and the lack of economic growth and the lack of employment opportunities that this 1980s legislation has introduced and failed to correct over time. Governments of all stripes have failed to address this issue fully in my view. But it falls again to the Labour Party to raise these issues and to ask why it is not in this piece of legislation why we are not addressing these big issues in this House and why we are stopping and starting to take pieces of housekeeping legislation like this through. We might otherwise be debating bigger issues the kinds of issues around economic growth and employment that see in my area down in Dunedin the loss of 85 jobs at Invermay—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption ] Order! This is a second reading speech and a second reading is what has come back from the select committee. So I ask the member to confine his comments just to that.Dr DAVID CLARK: Sorry Mr Assistant Speaker. I understand that the select committee did have a discussion about monetary policy and its wider implications which I am alluding to. I apologise if I am spreading that debate too widely but these are important matters.The Labour Party will support this legislation. We recognise that it is a sensible bill. That is why we supported it going to the select committee. That is why our members heard those submissions. That is why our members describe the bill as housekeeping. That is why our members questioned why there might not be a little bit more in this bill that actually would support our exporters so that we could have an export-led recovery in the fashion that the Government talks about but has failed to deliver upon.We have also discussed the insurance industry here and a shift from a one-in-500-year cover to a one-in-1000-year cover and there can be no disagreement with the importance of ensuring that New Zealand has adequate insurance cover and has an industry-friendly policy so that insurers are not faced with undue red tape when delivering their policy to New Zealand. No doubt that has been taken into account in the exemptions around GAAP that have been proposed which I am sure will be discussed further by Mr Bennett when it comes time for his contribution which many in this House will listen to with great interest as with so many of his contributions on insurance matters in the Finance and Expenditure Committee.Well it comes to the end of this contribution and I do wish to again stress that the Labour Party will be supporting this bill despite the reservations that I and other members have raised with the House in terms of the completeness of the legislation and in terms of its failure to address those broader issues of economic growth and employment that are affected by monetary policy that is put through this House. This is housekeeping legislation. It is not a hands-on approach. It is not hands on in the way that some of the other areas are being dealt with. When we think of the Tīwai smelter or the GCSB there is a much more active role being taken by the Government. But it is legislation that needs to go through this House. It is legislation that we welcome. It makes those changes that will make it easier for insurers to be here and to make sure that New Zealanders are supported through good times and bad. We think particularly of those who have been affected by the recent earthquakes in Wellington and the fears they may be carrying which may in some small way be alleviated by having insurers available and able to share some of the risk that goes with living in these shaky isles. Thank you.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):The objective of this bill before us the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill is to amend the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 which established a licensing and prudential supervision regime for insurers operating in New Zealand. The amendments are claimedto have the aim of improving the Act’s effectiveness and ensuring a smooth transition to full licensing of insurers by first amending the provisions that are unnecessary; second amending provisions that impose unwarranted compliance costs; and third addressing so-called technical issues. The amendments are described as generally minor and technical in nature and indeed they have been described by colleagues especially from Labour several times in the House tonight as housekeeping. So that is the objective.What is in the content of the bill? There are nine technical changes to the prudential requirements pertaining to the insurance industry. Let us look at a few of them. Firstly the amendments will include things like allowing the Reserve Bank to exempt a licensed insurer from the requirement to have a current financial strength rating if the insurer has stopped writing new contracts. Secondly it would allow overseas insurers to use the accounting rules that apply in their home country for interim financial reporting rather than adhering to New Zealand’s own accounting practices. Thirdly it would require the Reserve Bank to keep a public register of all licensed insurers while dropping the requirement for it to be made available on the bank’s website. Fourthly it would make any offences under the principal Act category 3 offences as defined by the Crimes Act thereby creating a statute of limitations of 5 years.The bill was referred after the first reading to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on I think 8 May. Enough time—5 weeks or so—was allowed until the closing of submissions on 14 June. As David Clark has pointed out only four submissions were actually made and in fact only two were heard by the committee. So this housekeeping is scarcely an earth-shattering event. The recommendations that came back from the select committee were minor as the committee itself described them. There were some changes to clause 11 extending the deadline for interim financial information from 3 months to 4 months. There were changes to clause 16 pertaining to provisional licences and to section 246 in clause 16 on that subject as well. These are minor changes to a technical bill.In its essence the bill is seeking to relax the regulatory framework and this is the wrong time to be doing this—in a post - global financial crisis environment. The housekeeping that we are talking about is the wrong kind of housekeeping. It is tidying up some simple matters but heading in the wrong direction. On that basis the Green Party opposed this bill in the first reading. The minor amendments recommended by the select committee change nothing. The Green Party will continue to oppose the bill.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):I rise to speak to the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. We are of course talking about the amendments that came back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee. As one of my colleagues across the House said a little earlier it has been a rare outbreak of consensus in the House and certainly it was so in the select committee. As others have tracked through we had four submissions and we heard two of them. The Reserve Bank which is really quite crucially involved with this piece of technical detailed amendment to legislation was very much in favour of the main thrust of it. I think that the majority agreement was not hard to reach. I struggle to find anything in the bill that actually caused much in the way of dissent not that I am looking very hard of course. It is not in my nature to do so. The amendments proposed in this bill are very minor and technical and have done the job very well.I guess from the point of view of the public when you look at insurers needing to be licensed and supervised by the Reserve Bank and then needing to comply with prudential requirements—and taking up the point that Dr Kennedy Graham the speaker who just resumed his seat made there is public disquiet around the regulations and the governing of what people do particularly I guess with the global financial crisis and some of the other challenges that we have withstood as a nation—it is I think a verygood piece of legislation for these times and it does need to be done. So the Reserve Bank’s role will be as both the regulator and the supervisor.Some of the reforms that I think are really too technical and of not much interest in general to the House I will not spend any time on. But when I look at the overall thrust of what this piece of legislation is seeking to do it is entirely consistent with what we seek to do as a Government which is to cut red tape and to reduce unnecessary compliance costs. We try to do that wherever we find it. We hunt it down we seek it out and we deal with it as we can. So I think that with this bill which will allow the Reserve Bank to exempt an insurer that is for example running off its liabilities from the requirement to have a current financial strength rating—all of these sorts of things—the public can rest easy that they are being well looked after their needs are being served the precautions that need to be taken are being taken and we are cutting down the unnecessary red tape. I think really there is not too much more to be said. I commend the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill to the House.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We believe it is vitally important that the fundamental situation in New Zealand is that we have a sound well-functioning insurance sector. It has been clearly proven over recent years during our major natural disasters that unless we do New Zealand is at great risk. It is most important—and I think all parties in this House would agree—that we have a robust insurance sector with substance and that of course includes our own Earthquake Commission.The insurance sector underpins the basics of our modern economy. If we do not have a sound insurance sector our whole economy could well suffer. The public must have confidence that this sector is sound and appropriate prudential supervision of the sector is an important regulatory function that this Parliament must ensure is done to the very highest level. The Christchurch earthquakes demonstrated the critical role of insurance and they highlighted some concerns as were illustrated in the situation with AMI. It would be so easy for situations like that to occur if there was no oversight by this Parliament and by the Government to ensure that the right safeguards are put in place in terms of the insurance sector. But the major disasters have also revealed some aspects of the insurance sector that may not be working optimally for New Zealand. With so much of the insurance sector dominated by overseas companies it is essential that the regulatory framework is comprehensive is up to date and works well. New Zealand First appreciates the significance of the insurance sector that it operates well in New Zealand and that at this present time we do seem to have it well and truly in hand.That is not to say that things cannot fall through the cracks however. This bill goes a long way to tidying up areas such as that. But New Zealand First does have a few questions such as the financial standards not being required of the insurance provider if it is in a run-off period. If the licensed insurer is described as being in a state of run-off and is not entering into new contracts for insurance the Reserve Bank will be satisfied that it does not therefore have to have a current financial strength rating. We do have some concerns about that. We would welcome the Minister of Finance and the Government explaining this a little further because we believe that the highest financial ratings should be required even at a time when an insurance company is running down in New Zealand. We would not want an insurer to slip out the back door because its financial ratings were not held to the highest level throughout its activities in New Zealand.The Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill is very much an administrative bill. It is a technical bill. It tidies up areas through the Reserve Bank to make sure that our insurance industry in New Zealand has better governance and betteroversight. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill as we believe it takes positive steps for improved controls over the insurance industry and it will enhance the effectiveness of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act. So New Zealand First will be supporting it.JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa):Call it tidying up call it housekeeping or call it what you like this Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill is in place because the National Government is firmly focused on responsibly managing the Government’s finances and building a more competitive and productive economy. This bill is another significant step towards achieving a clear robust regulatory arrangement across our financial sector. Although the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 has proven to be generally effective and robust it is not unexpected that some provisions have been identified as appropriate for reform. The bill does not involve significant changes to existing policy and it is expected to continue to benefit from industry support. This is a really good bill. I commend it to the House. We will be voting for it.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):I know that it is very close to time to be calling it quits tonight but I intend to take only a very short call on this Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill. As a couple of members on our side of the House have said and I think Maggie Barry also said this was one of those instances where in the Finance and Expenditure Committee there was relative—John Hayes: Which you’re not on.KRIS FAAFOI: No I am not on it. But I am able to comment on it because I have read the bill which obviously you had not Mr Hayes. Can I just say that there was a level of consensus in the Finance and Expenditure Committee.I just want to echo the comments that were made by the previous speaker from New Zealand First Mr Andrew Williams. You only had to be here in Wellington on Friday afternoon and to experience the earthquake—I also sympathise with the people of Seddon who have been through some rough times in the last month or so with earthquakes and also acknowledge people in Christchurch—to realise just how important the insurance industry is. Making sure that we do have a sound insurance sector available for Kiwis to make sure that if God does take its path and there is some kind of disaster there will be some kind of compensation in it. I think that after the Christchurch experience the public certainly want to have confidence in the insurance sector and also that with a greater level of oversight the Reserve Bank may be able to keep watch of all those players in the insurance industry and make sure that they are keeping above board and that their businesses are solid.I guess it has been thrashed here throughout this debate that this is a piece of housekeeping legislation. But although it may be minimal and there may be a consensus across the House I think that most New Zealanders will be very pleased that there is a level of consensus around this piece of legislation because they want to have a certain degree of confidence in our insurance sector. I guess this bill and the amendments made to it at the Finance and Expenditure Committee give that level of confidence to Kiwis out there who are very I guess rightly concerned about the stability of the insurance sector. With that I would like to say that Labour will be supporting this bill to the next stage.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.Ayes105New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes14Green Party 13; Mana 1.Bill read a second time.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.