English Bill: Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment BillInspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment BillHon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister):Well I think I heard in that speech a reference to a piece of legislation that “strikes at the heart of democracy”. You would think that if this Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation that we are debating for the—who knows—fifth or sixth time in this Parliament struck at the heart of democracy the Leader of the Opposition could have told us how but he did not. In fact he pointed out that he needed a third reading speech from the Prime Minister to understand the legislation and show what was in it. That is negligent of his duty as the Leader of the Opposition because uniquely among the issues a Government deals with security issues are the ones in which the Leader of the Opposition participates. He participates. He is briefed not on every issue but on anything that matters actually. He ought to know what is in this legislation before he gets to the Prime Minister’s third reading speech at 4 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon after 12 months of debate about this legislation.That is what we have heard from the Opposition members. What we have heard is a whole lot of leftover half-warmed rhetoric about democratic rights and none of the attention to the detail the law and the balance that this issue deserves. They simply have not contributed—Hon Hekia Parata: At all.Hon BILL ENGLISH: —at all—to settling the issues that they say are so important. That makes some of us question their intent on this piece of legislation.What this debate which has been so shallow has done is it has told us more about the state of the Labour Party and the Green Party than it has about security law. Security law of course is a bit complicated. That is why we are here—because the Labour Government got it wrong 10 years ago. It got it wrong.Grant Robertson: Who voted for it Bill?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We voted for it.Grant Robertson: You voted for it.Hon BILL ENGLISH: We voted for it—yes we did. And I think that is exactly the point. We voted for it because that regime was better than the one that was there before.There was a late change made to it that did not suit us politically but we supported it because we believed that better security and intelligence law was important for New Zealand. What did this Labour Opposition do? Those members sat around in their student politics common room discussions and said: “Why don’t we try to score some political points?” and now they have learnt a harsh lesson.The Greens are much better at scoring political points. The Greens believe that there are no threats to New Zealand’s national security. They believe that terrorism is a figment of the capitalist imagination. They are consistent—they are consistent. They score their political points. All the political benefit of opposing this legislation has gone to the Greens.The Labour Party has deserted for the first time in a generation its longstanding role as trusted stewards of security and intelligence issues in the New Zealand Parliament. As the days go by we have become more appreciative of the balancing and sensible impact that people like Dr Michael Cullen had on that Labour Party and to her credit on this issue the Rt Hon Helen Clark who in her whole career—and I have seen it unfold for 25 years—was always strong and clear on these security issues.The Labour Party has shown that it is unsuitable to be a trusted Government on this issue not because it raises some issues but because it shows a complete inability to deal with and resolve those issues. That was what was required here. We could have had an in-depth informed debate about the details of this legislation that would improve it. We got that from Peter Dunne the man who has been on the sharp end of privacy issues. We got it from Peter Dunne. He made suggestions that illustrated that he understood the rules understood the threats and understood the seriousness of the issues and the Government adopted a number of those suggestions because they were sensible.This piece of legislation was described in detail by the Prime Minister in a way that our political opponents have made sure the public did not understand. It is more cohesive legislation. There is much more transparency.Andrew Little: What about the Law Society and the Human Rights Commission and the Privacy Commissioner—they didn’t understand it either?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the Human Rights Commission did not read it either. The Human Rights Commission did not read the legislation. More cohesive legislation more transparency and more accountability—it is pretty simple. No activity can be conducted under this legislation without a warrant—no activity without a warrant. Secondly there can be no warrant without scrutiny of that warrant. You cannot just issue it; it has got to be scrutinised. Thirdly there can be no scrutiny of that issued warrant without independence—that is independence from the people who signed the warrant. That is the core of this legislation and nothing we have heard from the Labour Party today makes one single suggestion about any change to that legislation that improves the balance.Labour has taken the position of someone who has no idea what they are doing. “We’ll have a review. We’ll have a review. We’ll talk to everybody.”—that is the Labour Party which has been intimately involved with New Zealand security and intelligence issues since the day it became a political party. In recent years it has been fully briefed in Government and in Opposition as it did to us. When it comes to rewriting the law with a whole lot of public interest in it Labour has got nothing to say—nothing. That is because it chose the shallow easy short-term political point-scoring on which the Greens have not justoutpointed those members but knocked them out. The Greens have not justoutpointed them; they have knocked them out. I have to say that that has been a disappointment—a real disappointment.It is possible that because the Labour Party has given up that role as a responsible leading political party this legislation—it is possible—could have been better. It couldhave been better but those members could not be bothered because they had listened to Grant Robertson who said to his leader who has decent and sound instincts on this stuff: “No take the short cut. Get the political points scored.” Well Russel Norman dealt to that strategy.We probably will not have to do security and intelligence legislation for a while because this legislation is much better than the last legislation and the last legislation—the legislation passed by Helen Clark—was better than what existed before it. Before that the GCSB had no legal framework whatsoever and she rightly thought that that was a bit much and that there needed to be some framework. We have now intensified that framework in terms of accountability cohesion and transparency. That is why the National Government stands behind this legislation.We are taking the responsible act of a Government that has been entrusted with the security of New Zealanders. We have improved the legislation. More people can see what is happening and that is good. It is legislation that will stand the test of time. Do you know what I think? I think that if the Labour Party ever got to be in Government and did a review this is what would come out at the end of it. I just wish that Labour members could have taken the bother to think it through this time and contribute to the debate but they did not.