Robertson Grant: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1090. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support the two motions here. Firstly with reference to the establishment of the Intelligence and Security Committee the process for doing that is laid down in the law and has been undertaken by the various parties. In terms of the Opposition parties the Leader of the Opposition is by statute a member of that committee and there is a process of consultation that needs to take place to appoint the second member. That has been undertaken and Dr Russel Norman is put forward as the other nominee from the Opposition. I want to thank all Opposition parties for their cooperation in going through that consultation process. 
The composition of the committee is perhaps not the major issue of the day in terms of this particular debate on these motions. What I do want to discuss is the role of the committee that is contained within the second of the two motions that are up for debate today. By nature the work that this committee does is going to have an element of secrecy. It is in the name; it is part of what happens when we look at the work of intelligence services. There will be occasions on which the work of that committee does need to be kept confidential and comment about it needs to be kept to a minimum in order to protect the important role that security intelligence agencies play. 
The reality is that in our society we do need intelligence services. I would love to live in a society where we did not need to have the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau. The activities that they undertake present a challenge to those of us who are strong believers in civil liberties but the truth is that in our society from time to time there is a reason for intelligence agencies to undertake the kind of work—the covert work I guess if you want to call it that—that is part of their core business. That is required and from time to time the committee will be required to look at that to respect the way in which information has been delivered to the Government and to the agencies and to talk about it in a confidential manner. 
But there has to be a balance in that—there has to be a balance. When the work of these agencies challenges the civil liberties that we all have it behoves this whole Parliament and the Government in particular to be extremely cautious and careful with how those powers are used. There is little more important in our society than our ability to go about our daily business free of interference the ability to have contact with our friends and with our associates and not feel that in some way or another we are being watched unfairly or without due cause. So any attempt by these agencies to go about their work which as I say is legitimate work needs to be monitored carefully and there needs to be a degree of transparency and accountability about that. 
The example that occurred in the last Parliament when this committee was considering the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill was one that on this side of the House we felt very uncomfortable about—the fact that there was a lack of public submissions. There was a lack of openness and transparency about an important aspect that actually was changing the way in which these agencies were doing their work and that deserved and merited better public participation and some greater levels of transparency. As I say there will be times when that level of transparency will not be possible but a bill that was fundamentally changing the way that that work was done—not a specific subject not a specific investigation but the methods and means of the work—deserves greater transparency. When the challenge to those of us who care passionately about civil liberties is taken by that kind of action we need to see that and of course in the last Parliament we did not see that level of transparency from the Government. 
The Human Rights Commission in its submission on the bill raised these serious concerns and I just want to quote briefly from it. It said that at the point in the process when it wrote the submission “It is unclear whether the Committee intends to hear oral evidence. As the Bill may have significant impact on the lives of New Zealanders and other people within New Zealand the Commission strongly urges that public hearings on the Bill to be held.” That was the Human Rights Commission saying to the Intelligence and Security Committee that it is important that there is a level of transparency around in this case a piece of legislation that went to the committee. Those calls from the Human Rights Commission should be heeded in the future so that there is transparency where that is appropriate and I do believe that in matters like this and in a number of other matters it will be appropriate that there is that level of transparency. 
It was confusing to those of us on this side of the House when we looked at the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee and looked back in previous debate to find that in its very early days Jenny Shipley when she was the Prime Minister made clear in this House that in a similar situation there should be transparency and there should be public submissions. So National when it was last in Government and involved in this committee seemed to believe that there should be a level of transparency in the activities of this committee yet this time around when it came to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill there was not that level of transparency and it is disappointing that that would occur. 
 We do say that in the future we need to see a greater level of transparency. We would like to work within the frame of the committee to achieve that and we would like to see Parliament be able to in the future adopt some measures that will enhance the transparency of this work. This is not to undermine in any way the work of the committee; it is actually to support it. It is to give it some kind of greater accountability that the public will have confidence they will know a little more about the activities without compromising the actual investigations that are undertaken by our intelligence services. 
As we have seen from examples from around the world intelligence services are not perfect. They are not suddenly able to always get it exactly right. They are not going to get the information and read it perfectly every single time. Sometimes they are going to misunderstand information. Sometimes they will be given false information. They are not perfect. They do need a level of scrutiny. This committee provides some of that and it is why we support the motions on the Table. But over the next few years I would like to think that Parliament could return to these issues and actually create a different environment that has a great deal more transparency. 
Now is the time to do that from this Government’s point of view because it runs the risk of having a reputation of not being transparent and not being accountable. If we look at the deal around the legislation with Skycity if we look at what has been going on with Radio Live—the loan to Radio Live; the Prime Minister’s broadcast—if we look at the Crafar farms and the role of Landcorp and if we look at the whole question of New Zealand On Air and the role of the Prime Minister’s electorate chair there is building up a record of lack of transparency here. We have got Nick Smith today in the House—the debate around the question of what he did in his role compromising his role as a Minister. 
That level of transparency is not good enough in this Parliament and when we are dealing with intelligence and security measures if we have got that background of behaviour and activity from the National Party it does not give me confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee that it in the last Parliament did not even allow submissions on a significant bill. 
We want to see a greater level of transparency and accountability. We want to see that right across the work of the Government. In security and intelligence it will always need to be balanced against the best interests of New Zealand but it is vitally important that this committee have the ability to look at that balance and from time to time create the situation where there are public submissions where the public can learn more about the activities of these agencies. We are supporting these motions but we do believe that there is work to be done to create the appropriate transparent environment in which this committee works.