Mallard Trevor: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12374. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I am going to ask the Minister in the chair at the current time the Attorney-General—and I will just note that it is apparent that urgent public business has kept the Prime Minister from doing his duties with this bill the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill in the Chamber—to indulge his fetish with regard to jurisprudential matters. I am going to give him a technicality on which he can get off. I want to refer him to clause 5(3) which inserts in section 4 of the principal Act a paragraph that refers to incidentally obtained intelligence. It states that incidentally obtained intelligence means intelligence “(a) that is obtained in the course of gathering intelligence about the capabilities intentions or activities of foreign organisations or foreign persons; but (b) that is not intelligence of the kind referred to in paragraph (a)”. So how can we have intelligence that is obtained under a certain method—about capabilities intentions or activities of foreign organisations or foreign persons—but is not that? I am sure the Attorney-General will have a simple legal explanation for it butit seems to me that if something is not something then it cannot be something. That is what this clause says.Kris Faafoi: Known unknowns.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: What?Kris Faafoi: Known unknowns.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well known unknowns says the member. It is the unknownknowns I think in this particular case. I accept that although I have been around this place for some time I am not a lawyer and there might be a good explanation for intelligence which is not around all the time in this bill. But I think in the Government Communications Security Bureau connotation it is intelligence “(a) that is obtained in the course of gathering intelligence about the capabilities intentions or activities of foreign organisations or foreign persons; but … is not intelligence of the kind referred to in paragraph (a)”. How can something be (a) but not (a)? You know I did not do law but I did philosophy and I did logic and a bit of maths back in the day and (a) but not (a) is not a possibility. It is something that is absolutely illogical and it seems to me that the—Clare Curran: Metaphysics.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I do not want to get metaphysical with the member. I think what we need to look at really carefully is whether in the rush to get this legislation through there is a paragraph here that has not properly been considered.I know that it is an old saying but I am here from the Opposition and as much as I like not helping I think it is important that even in this appalling form we have a bill that is at least logically consistent and coherent. I see from the way that officials are now looking carefully at it—the pencils are out and the officials are writing—that we have the possibility of getting an amendment to that particular clause. And I want to remind members of the Committee that if we pass this clause if we go past Part 1 tonight then in order to recommit Part 1 we will have to have a debate on the floor of the Chamber in order to suspend the Standing Orders to go back to the bit that we passed. So what I am asking for—