Lees-Galloway Iain: Intelligence and Security Committee — MembershipText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership[Sitting date: 13 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11145. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):New Zealanders who are listening to this debate will find it no surprise whatsoever that the Prime Minister John Key has been less than honest about the reasons why we are debating Government motion No. 1 today relating to the appointment of Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Prime Minister stood up at a press conference and said that this was all about Peter Dunne not being a Minister any more. The fact that Peter Dunne was a Minister and is no longer a Minister has precisely nothing to do with whether or not he should be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are already members of that committee who are not Ministers. Some of the members are Ministers; some of them are not. But that matter is absolutely irrelevant when considering the members who make up the committee.In fact what the Intelligence and Security Committee Act actually says in section 7(1) is: “The Committee shall consist of—(a) the Prime Minister: (b) the Leader of the Opposition: (c) 2 members of the House of Representatives nominated for the purpose by the Prime Minister following consultation with the leader of each party in Government:”. It says “members of the House of Representatives” so it does not have to be a Minister. Actually I think that section might be starting to get to where the problem is here because there has to be consultation with the leader of each party in Government. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is doing what everybody else in the country is doing and is no longer recognising Peter Dunne as the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes. That is what the Standing Orders say. They say that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes.Hon Ruth Dyson: I thought they’d registered now?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No no. Ruth Dyson says she wonders whether United Future is registered now. No that is not the case. As far as the Electoral Commission is concerned there is not currently a party called the United Future party and should a party called the United Future party become registered at some point in the future that would be a new registration. Our Standing Orders—[Interruption ] Yes Peter Dunne has to go out there and find 500 people to sign up to the United Future party and what the Standing Orders of this Parliament say is that if a party is not recognised under the Electoral Act by the Electoral Commission as a political party having 500 members it is not a political party for parliamentary purposes and does not get all the perks that come with that. So given that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party and is essentially here as an independent member of Parliament maybe that is why John Key actually decided that he should no longer be on the committee.I was not quite sure who the other member of the committee nominated by the Prime Minister was so I went away and found out who it was. Can anybody guess who the other member on the committee nominated by the Prime Minister is? It is the Hon John Banks—the Hon John Banks. If this is a matter of trust if this is about whom the Prime Minister can trust to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee I think there are some real question marks over the presence of John Banks on that particular committee. He is the man who we all know was not completely honest—I cannot use another word but he was not completely honest—about the donations he received in his mayoral campaign in his failed bid to become the mayor of the Auckland super-city. The police had a look at that and the police pretty much said that he was not absolutely honest about where those donations came from and now he is actually in court facing a private prosecution about his breaches of the Electoral Act and the fact that he was not honest about where his political donations came from. So I would have thought that if Peter Dunne cannot be trusted to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee maybe we should also be debating the replacement for the Hon John Banks who probably ought not to be on that committee either.For the benefit of the folks who are listening at home they might also be interested to know that the other person on the committee is a person nominated by the Leader of the Opposition and that person is Russel Norman. That is how the committee is made up. So there is no need to consider whether or not a member is a Minister or is in Cabinet but that is what the Prime Minister told New Zealand was the reason and of course we now know that that was John Key as usual being less than honest with the public of New Zealand.So we are debating today whether or not Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be one of the Government’s representatives on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Well looking at Tony Ryall’s history here in Parliament and the way he operates I think he has actually got a few characteristics that make him absolutely appropriate for what is the “spooks committee” of Parliament because he likes to engage in a bit of cloak-and-dagger. He likes to engage in spy operations. As a member of the Opposition and as a Minister he has been known to camp out in the emergency departments of our hospitals around the country—Hon Maryan Street: Under cover.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Under cover in disguise—Hon Maryan Street: Under whose cover?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Maryan Street asks: “Under whose cover?”. That is a good question. But Tony Ryall has this history of going into the emergency departments disguised as somebody else to see for himself what is going on in the emergency departments.Actually this has extended into his behaviour as a Minister which is extraordinary really. He has been said to text or call any official of whatever rank whom he believes to be underperforming. He is an astonishing micromanager of his portfolios. It is said that he has close to 600 phone numbers saved on his phone. He might want to check to make sure that those details are secure—that the privacy of those 600 people that he has on his phone is secure—and that might be an issue that Tony Ryall wants to bring up as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are 600 numbers because those are the numbers of all the different district health board chief executive officers and chairmen and managers and the ministry managers and the ministry officials—the people whom he likes to keep a very very close eye on.Tony Ryall likes to build little fiefdoms and the health portfolio is certainly one of Tony Ryall’s fiefdoms over which he has omniscient control. He is a man who knows every tiny little detail and likes to control every tiny little detail. So I think Tony Ryall does have some characteristics that lend him to being an appropriate member of this committee.It is fair to say that all his cloak-and-dagger operations have not quite gone to plan. He was on Jenny Shipley’s side when she stuck the knife in Jim Bolger’s back. Tony Ryall was quite a senior member of that little cloak-and-dagger operation. He was one of the lieutenants who brought Jim Bolger down. That was a success.However following the downfall of Jenny Shipley he was then an English man. He supported Bill English in his defence against the Brash coup which of course up until the last minute he probably thought he was on the right side of. He was probably doing the numbers along with Nick Smith and thought that English was going to survive that coup but we all know that when the master of the flip-flop John Key saw his own personal ambitions being tailored to by Don Brash he made the last-minute change and got Don Brash the leadership back in about 2004 or 2005 I think it was—about 2004.So Tony Ryall has not always been the greatest operator in the shadows in that kind of cloak-and-dagger world that our spy agencies and this committee operate in but he certainly has experience in that world and that I think lends itself very well to hisbeing on this committee. But we are of course debating the wrong thing here today. What we ought to be debating is a full inquiry into the operations of the Government Communications Security Bureau. The Opposition will not rest until that is what we are actually debating.