Power Simon: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
Power Simon: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4381] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 We now arrive at Part 2 of this bill and in particular the clauses that relate to the organisation objectives and functions of the bureau. They are the clauses that provide for the statutory establishment of the bureau as a department of State. In Rod Donald’s contribution during Part 1 he outlined his concerns over the definition of “economic well-being” and its inclusion as one of the bureau’s objectives in terms of gathering information. I was interested to note that clause 7(2) of this reasonably well-drafted legislation sets out that the objective of economic well-being is relevant only to the extent that that is affected by the actions or intentions of foreign organisations or foreign persons. In fact this bill does not allow for wide-ranging powers to swarm and swoop over a whole lot of economic activity or company business as it were. 
This is probably one of the better pieces of drafting we have seen from this Government—we could have done with some of it in the occupational safety and health legislation. If we check carefully as we walk through the amendment that has been made by the Intelligence and Security Committee to clause 7 we see that the reference to foreign intelligence in clause 7(1)(a) reads: “The objective of the Bureau is to contribute to the national security of New Zealand by providing—(a) foreign intelligence that the Government of New Zealand requires to protect and advance ... (ii) the international relations of the Government”. I was not on that statutory committee but there was obviously a bit of concern about how that objective would play out and the committee saw fit to insert a new paragraph (ab) which states that the bureau will provide “foreign intelligence to meet international obligations and commitments of the Government of New Zealand;” as opposed to simply providing foreign intelligence for the purposes of the international relations of the Government. So the statutory committee has seen fit to narrow that part of the objective to simply meet international obligations. 
I wonder whether the Minister is able to take a call on that matter. I appreciate that she probably was not on the committee but I am interested to know whether the international obligations refer just to those obligations that we see in an environment such as the United Nations or whether they extend to the bilateral relationships one would expect a Government to carry out on a day-to-day basis. For the sake of clarity I wonder whether somebody from the Government preferably the Minister would be able to give us a bit of guidance on that. We are asking a reasonably important question here—does the Government see the provision of foreign intelligence as being limited only to the purposes of international obligations relating to such bodies as the UN or does it have a more bilateral context in mind in the sense of relationships that we have in an everyday environment with other countries around the world? I would be quite interested in any response that the Government is able to give me on that point. 
Clause 8 “Functions of Bureau” set outs how that foreign intelligence is to be gathered. That is really the guts of the bill and I suspect we will be hearing from the Greens about it. It is quite a narrow clause because it talks about the intercepting of communications under the authority of this Act or by cooperating with public authorities or by collecting information in any other lawful manner and then limits that function to deciphering decoding and translating communications. In that sense it is an uncontrolled or untapped authority. It is quite a specific and narrow authority. Interestingly at clause 8(1)(d) the bureau has a function “to provide reports on foreign intelligence to the Minister and any person or office holder”—and here is the amendment made by the statutory committee—“whether in New Zealand or abroad authorised by the Minister:”. One would imagine that there is some significance attached to that new amendment and perhaps if a member who was on the committee is present he or she could help us to understand what if any significance that addition has and how the committee sees that function of the bureau operating on a day-to-day basis.