Ryall Tony: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) —  
Ryall Tony: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) —  
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Hon TONY RYALL (NZ National—Bay of Plenty) 
: That was the Hon David Cunliffe which indeed proves New Zealand is a land of opportunity and if one grasps enough one may one day get what one desires. 
Rodney Hide 
: Has he grasped enough? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I suspect so. I draw the House’s attention to how long it has taken for this bill to resurface in the House. 
Rodney Hide 
: al-Qaeda has sought leave and gone. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Well they have. Unfortunately al-Qaeda has not gone and that is one of the reasons I listened intently to David Cunliffe’s speech; I think he was right. There are people in this House who think it is fashionable to be against anything that stands up for our way of life. But I think it is important that we do focus on that. 
This bill was originally referred to the House in October 1999. Submissions closed in March 2000 and the Law and Order Committee reported back to the House months and months later. In fact the committee heard submissions in 2001 and this bill has only recently come out of the select committee process. I thought that for legislation whose intent was one of urgency particularly in respect of a number of crimes related to computer equipment the Government would have given it a greater priority. But I would like to explain to the House why it has taken so long. 
The Minister who was entrusted with this bill was the Hon Paul Swain the then Associate Minister of Justice and Minister of Commerce. I have recited to the House previously from reports in the media that the reason the Hon Paul Swain lost his commerce portfolio was his inability to get anything through the parliamentary process. I think we need look no further than the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) to find a bill that when in Opposition he said was urgently needed and in the Parliament said it was urgently needed yet here we are over 3 years—in fact almost 4 years—since the bill was introduced and we are finally coming to the committee report back. We are not even doing the clause by clause debate let alone the third reading. I suspect that we may have the third reading of this bill next year because the progress of this bill has been appallingly slow. 
In fact it is so difficult to get the Government to take this anti-hacking computer security legislation seriously. Dr Cullen’s spokesman said that this law was on the radar screen and a priority. Who is he kidding? It has taken 4 years for the bill to get to this stage and Dr Cullen says it is a priority. Well goodness knows what it would be like if a bill was not a priority. Furthermore the Minister of Justice Mr Goff refused to put a time frame on the progress of this bill. So the point that the National Party in Opposition wants to make is that there are some very key new offences in relation to controlling computer crimes which this Government has dragged the chain on. 
 Subsequently a Supplementary Order Paper was tabled that provided for extended powers to the authorities to attach interception devices to communications networks. Part of this is dovetailed with the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill which has come subsequently. At that time the National Party expressed some concerns about provisions that would allow the intelligence agencies to have a permanent listening device attached to communications networks. It was always our view that interceptions should continue to be warrant based that that warrant should be discrete and it would then require action by the telecommunications company. 
There was considerable concern at the time the Supplementary Order Paper came in that what was being proposed was a permanent attachment to the telephone exchanges with a continuous feed to the intelligence agencies and only when the intelligence agencies had a warrant would they actually turn that feed on and allow them to monitor what was going on. The National Party expressed considerable concern about that. We will take the Committee stage very slowly and very carefully to assure ourselves that the privacy of individuals will be maintained and that we remove any suspicion that the intelligence agencies can listen without an authority as appropriate. We want to do that because we take it upon ourselves as a responsibility to ensure that the legislation that provides for a curtailment of our privacy and rights is appropriate to the circumstances. 
The bill also has significant new insertions in respect of crimes against rights of property. We will want to move amendments to those in the Committee stage. We believe that there should be significant changes to the Crimes Act. The provisions the Government has implemented with the sentencing and parole suite of bills is inadequate. We will view this as an opportunity to provide some of the more certain and definitive sentencing that New Zealanders voted for in the 1999 Withers referendum. 
Increasingly the courts are frustrated by the lack of specific offences in respect of a number of computer crimes. The courts are finding themselves in the difficult position of having to construe existing law in order to provide penalty and sanction against those who hack into computers illegally obtain information and create denial of service attacks. We need to make sure that this bill is passed rapidly so that those new offences are in place and the courts can act upon them. 
This is a Government that goes on and on about how it wants New Zealand to be part of the knowledge economy that it wants to have lots of broadband for Internet delivery yet when it comes to supporting the infrastructure to ensure that we have security and that the rights of the owners of computer infrastructure are protected this Government is sadly wanting. I think it is consistent with the Government’s whole approach to the Internet and to telecommunications. This is a Government that goes on and on about why we need broadband past every home in New Zealand but it cannot explain why the broadband uptake in New Zealand is so poor. 
I draw the Government’s attention to some research that was released last week by the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation at the Victoria University of Wellington. It has hit it on the head. It said that this Government has got the wrong strategy because it keeps talking about providing great Internet access for all New Zealanders but it ignores the fact that the reason people would want to go on to these new expensive broadband platforms is that their application justifies it—that is it is worthwhile and they have something that can use all that capacity. Most New Zealanders use the Internet only for the occasional surf and for email. That does not require the expense of linking into broadband 24 hours a day. 
 So what that indicates is that the Government has the wrong idea on all this stuff. I think it has the wrong idea on its priorities for these new offences. It has taken the Government 4 years to do anything. We could have another year before those offences are put in place. I say to this Government that it should walk the walk. As a correspondent in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 wrote just some weeks ago the Government talked the talk but it did not walk the walk particularly when it came to the laws proposed in this bill. So my urgent call to the Government is that it should give this bill the priority it is due walk the walk and give the New Zealand computer community the safeguards it needs.