Dalziel Lianne: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
Dalziel Lianne: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
[Volume:673;Page:19749] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the debate on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill and the accompanying Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3). Obviously I am not on the Intelligence and Security Committee and have not taken a particular role in the passage of this legislation through the House but I have always taken a significant interest in matters of human rights and matters relating to security intelligence as well. Having been New Zealand’s Minister of Immigration for a period of time I have had occasion to work with the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. 
I wanted particularly to acknowledge Keith Locke’s contribution to the debate. I do not always agree with all aspects of his contributions in these matters but I just want to put on the record that I believe he has been a sincere and consistent voice for civil liberties and human rights in this House and I think it is a voice that will be missed. I really wanted to place that on the record. I listened to his contribution very carefully and I felt that this place will be poorer for that voice not being here in the future. 
I will say why I believe that the bill should proceed even though there was some consideration given to the broader security review that will now take place to which Keith Locke referred. I have spent some time considering the regulatory impact statement as I am wont to do on legislation as some members of the House will know. What I appreciated about this regulatory impact statement is that it actually meets the standards of good regulatory practice because it establishes all the different options. There are really only three options that the committee could consider in this particular instance. The first is the status quo which it rejected for reasons that I think will be obvious but I will come back to those. The second was to defer the legislation and that picks up the point Keith Locke made which was about the fundamental review of New Zealand security legislation in the next 2 to 3 years and whether it would be better to tie up this legislation within that context rather than just updating the legislation seemingly on an ad hoc basis. Thirdly there was the option to have an immediate amendment to the legislation by way of an amendment bill such as we are now dealing with in this third reading today to address high-priority amendments. The amendments identified in the regulatory impact statement are those amendments that we are considering in the House today: “providing an express framework for the use of electronic tracking and location devices clarifying the approach to qualified exemptions for computer offences expressly providing for the specification of facilities addressing protections from liability for those persons acting under warrants amending the requirement to specify those persons assisting under warrant and fixing gaps in the delegation powers of the Director of Security”. 
I wanted to mention what the particular amendments were in relation to because of the reason the Government has decided not to prefer the status quo and why the regulatory impact statement which was prepared by the Security Intelligence Service did not. The reason it did not prefer the status quo was that the forthcoming Rugby World Cup is being held in New Zealand 10 years after the September 11 event. We cannot ignore that event in New Zealand. We might feel that we are at the other end of the world but we are inviting the world to participate in a very major event in this country. I believe we have to be cautious we have to be careful and that requires us to update our security intelligence legislation in the manner proposed. 
My colleague David Shearer just as he was concluding his comments made the point that the Intelligence and Security Committee made some amendments to the bill as it was going through the committee. Picking up where David Shearer left off the submission of the Human Rights Commission was quite a powerful submission heard by the committee. That submission asked that the principle section include reference to human rights democratic oversight impartiality and professionalism in terms of the role of the Security Intelligence Service. They are very very important changes. My colleague was saying that it is felt sometimes that the Human Rights Commission does not have sufficient teeth but I think this was a really good example of where the Human Rights Commission made a valuable contribution to the process which has led to improvement of the legislation as a result. 
The other speakers on the bill have talked too about the nature of the independent review of the regulatory impact analysis prepared by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. That was reviewed by Dr Warren Young from the Law Commission. In his comments he stated that “While there are some impacts on privacy this is clearly justified by the associated benefits. In particular updating the warrant framework is a recognition of technological changes in the storage of and communication of information and is essential in order to enable the NZSIS to continue to effectively undertake its statutory functions.” That was certainly reassurance on our side for the continuation of this legislation. 
The other point I wanted to bring to the attention of the House was that in the regulatory impact statement a significant aspect of the analysis talked about benefits in terms of the balancing that has to be undertaken between rights—privacy rights and human rights—and our security as a nation. There was a quote from Geoffrey Palmer which I thought was well worth placing on the record. It begins with reference to national security privacy and other fundamental civil liberties being complementary rather than conflicting values. This is the quote from Sir Geoffrey Palmer: “To a very significant extent ‘national security’ means just this—freedom from interference; freedom from terrorist attack freedom from deliberately incited racial violence freedom from espionage which itself threatens basic freedom such as privacy freedom from the kind of genuinely subversive activity which is aimed—not just in theory but in fact—at destabilising or overthrowing the very democratic system upon which the exercise of civil liberties depends.” I thought that was a wonderful summary of the interests that we debate as competing when they may in fact be more complementary rather than conflicting in nature. I thought that was certainly a very important point to make. 
The Law Commission also when it was looking at search and surveillance powers recently had this to say: “while there is a balance to be struck there is a good deal of complementarity between the two sets of values particularly in a strong democratic state such as New Zealand. Search powers that encroach too far on human rights values are unlikely to gain legislative or community support. Similarly investigative powers that are too tightly controlled and that prevent law enforcement officers from doing their job effectively will bring human rights norms into disrepute.” Again I think that the complementarity principle is one that is well worth taking into account as we consider this legislation. 
I am certainly happy to stand here in this House and support the passage of this legislation. I look forward to the modernising of our New Zealand Security Intelligence Service framework. I think it is important that that proceed and that it gains that broad public support that we need for protecting all of those values that we hold dear to our hearts.