Hipkins Chris: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 08 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12534. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I am happy to have the first of what I hope will be many calls on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I want to go immediately to one of the detailedclauses in this legislation. For members who are following along new section 8CA(3)(c) in clause 6 is the clause that I intend to talk about. That clause states that “The Director must take all reasonable steps to ensure that—(c) the Bureau does not take any action for the purpose of furthering or harming the interests of any political party in New Zealand.”I think that actually is a very important clause. It is a clause that I support. But I want to consider how much faith New Zealanders can have in that clause actually being followed given that the director that that clause refers to is a childhood friend of John Key was appointed without proper process—hand-picked by John Key to do the job without the proper process that would normally go around that—and reports directly to that same person John Key. How can New Zealanders have confidence that he will discharge his responsibilities in a politically impartial and neutral manner?Let us make no bones about it. These Government members are very very happy to exercise the power of the State when it comes to protecting their own personal privacy and their own information but they are not so concerned when it comes to the privacy and the personal information of every other New Zealander.So let us consider how this bill came about in the first place. In the matter of the Kim Dotcom fiasco one of John Banks’ biggest campaign contributors was being illegally spied on by the Government Communications Security Bureau and when that became apparent we all know what happened—absolute chaos reigned. This legislation is now being brought into the House because the Government acted illegally with regard to something that has become a very very political matter.Then let us consider that the very same Mr Banks sat down for a cup of tea with John Key—which we all now know about; the whole country knows about—and John Key did not hesitate to use every avenue available to him to ensure that the contents of that conversation did not get out. When it became apparent that that conversation had been recorded he did not hesitate to send the police in to raid the offices of the media—to raid the offices of the media. So we know that any pious statements we hear from the Government now about protecting the fourth estate are pretty hollow because when the media held information that might have been damaging to John Key he did not hesitate to have their offices raided in an attempt to try to get that information back. And if the allegations that we heard yesterday are correct he also had the police accessing the phone records or attempting to access the phone records of someone else a private citizen—Grant Robertson: A modest citizen.CHRIS HIPKINS: —a very modest private citizen—who may have had information relevant to that particular investigation.I think that means that New Zealanders cannot have any confidence that this clause that I am debating now which requires the bureau to act in a way that is effectively politically neutral and not to act to the benefit or the detriment of any political party in New Zealand will necessarily be adhered to. If we move to that same section 8CA and look at subsection (1)—the very first clause in that particular section—it states: “In performing its functions under this Act the Bureau acts—(a) in accordance with New Zealand law and all human rights standards recognised by New Zealand law except to the extent that they are in relation to national security modified by an enactment:”.I thought that that was very interesting because we have got some very good laws around human rights in New Zealand—the Human Rights Act the Privacy Act and so on—and I wanted to get a good analysis of how this proposed law change might impact on those. We rely as members of Parliament on a thing called the regulatory impact statement to give us that information. The regulatory impact statement will almost always contain an analysis of the implications on the Human Rights Act for exampleof a proposed law change. So I read the regulatory impact analysis that was placed on the Table earlier today and it does not do that. It does not go through and give us details about how this legislation will impact on the New Zealand Human Rights Act.So I think that is really important because if we come back to this clause it says that “In performing its functions under this Act the Bureau [must act] … in accordance with New Zealand law and all human rights standards recognised by New Zealand law”. I think it is very reasonable to ask to what extent are those very laws and standards infringed upon—