Cunliffe DavidHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I wish to just raise a couple of issues in Part 4 and invite the Minister's comment on them looking first at clauses 55A and 55B. Clause 55A(1) describes the conditions under which a type 1 intelligence warrant may be issued to the director-general of an agency if the authorising Minister and a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants are satisfied that it is necessary to contribute to national security protect national assets etc. The Minister in the chair may wish to comment on the decision made by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—especially as the Minister is the Attorney-General—to switch the ministerial requirement from that of the Attorney-General to that of the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service.It may be that the same physical person might at some point hold both offices but it is a definite shift of emphasis away from the judicial oversight role of the Attorney-General to the more operational oversight role of the Minister. The commentary to the bill makes the point that it is appropriate and useful for the Minister to be intimately acquainted with the workings of the organisations and that the issuing of warrants is a core part of that. But equally the strengthening of judicial oversight with which the Attorney-General might supplement the commissioner would I imagine have been a finely balanced decision for the committee at the time. As the Minister in the chair is the Attorney-General I would invite his reflection on that issue.Secondly as we move into clause 59 where we raise that issue about which Minister is responsible—interestingly in clause 60A(1) on page 59 it says that An intelligence warrant must specify a period not exceeding 12 months during which it is valid." and in clause 60A(2) that "The expiry of an intelligence warrant does not prevent a further application for an intelligence warrant in relation to the same activity." A point there is that there is an extended period of time during which operations may continue pursuant to one activity and that the renewal facility on the same issue means that it could be an even more extended period of time. I think it underlines to Labour members the seriousness of the warrant-issuing powers.That brings us to I think a related issue. It is one that has been well traversed in the headline debates on the bill. As my colleague Grant Robertson said earlier it is one of those things where the rubber meets the road. This bill for the first time codifies the issuing of warrantless surveillance and warrantless intercepts on New Zealand citizens. That is a serious Rubicon to be crossed and it is a serious thing for this House on a bipartisan basis to approve. Members on this side have thought very carefully about whether to support the authorising legislation for that. It behoves me I think to underline that the balance is a fine one and that the protections set out in clauses 69 through 73 and on are extremely important to members of the Labour Opposition—that is that the definition of an "urgent" or a "very urgent" warrant is tight; that the warrant will be revoked if not explicitly upheld within 48 hours in the context of an urgent warrant or 24 hours in the context of a very urgent warrant; that all warrants must be notified and kept on a register; that the inspector-general must be notified immediately that such an urgent warrant is deemed to be issued; and that any material acquired through such a process must be immediately destroyed and/or returned in the event of revocation.An on-balance judgment has been made on a bipartisan basis that in the circumstances which we face this is an appropriate balance. But I would be remiss if I did not underline that for members on this side of the House that is a very fine balance to have reached and that we will be monitoring and will be interested to see how this evolves in the annual reporting of the inspector-general and the agencies. So I would invite the Minister to comment on the nature of those protections and on the switch from the Attorney-General to the departmental Minister."