Goff Phil: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I agree with one thing at least that Jami-Lee Ross the member who has just resumed his seat said. This Parliament needs to take security agencies seriously. If only the Government would do so. We have seen a debacle a farce surrounding the Kim Dotcom affair. The Prime Minister cannot even remember whether he was briefed on Kim Dotcom. He did not know Kim Dotcom. He did not know about the guy—the biggest guy in his electorate who had the largest mansion in his electorate and he had never heard of him. He had never been briefed by the Government Communications Security Bureau. But he had been.There was the appointment process of the director. The Prime Minister thought he could ring up a mate and say “How would you like this job? There won’t be any competition. You’ll be the only interviewee.” and get away with it. He thought he could get away with not telling this House the full truth. The Prime Minister never admitted that he had breakfast with him on a number of occasions never admitted that he was a good mate of his and went about it in a way that the State Services Commissioner himself said was flawed. He usedYes Minister language but what he was really saying was that the Prime Minister broke the protocols—did it wrong. If anybody has undermined the confidence of New Zealanders in our security agencies it is John Key who is meant to be the Minister responsible for the security agencies and is meant to exercise the oversight but time and again has failed to do so.I am one in this House who believes that the security agencies do need reform. They need reform in regard to their powers so that they are 21st century powers and they are appropriate to the work they need to do. But just as important they need reform around the oversight of how these agencies which act in secret—act outside the public oversight—can be checked and how it can be made sure that they are acting under the law and that they are acting properly. To do that you need proper legislation.We also need legislation moved through this House in a way that would restore public confidence in the security agencies. TV3 ran a poll the other day. What did it show? A massive 40 percent of New Zealanders have no confidence in do not trust the Government Communications Security Bureau. You cannot operate in a democracy with security agencies that so lack the confidence of the public whose needs they are meant to be serving. That is an indictment on the bureau. It is an indictment on how the Government has handled this matter.If we do not get this legislation the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill right and if we do not do it in the right way—build consensus because you need consensus across the House on how these agencies should be run—we will end up with the bureau damaged in the same way that the SIS was way back in the 1960s. You will remember the case where the SIS agent left his briefcase on the street in Wellington. It may have had secret documents in it but more attention was given to the copy ofPenthouse and the cold pie that he had in it. That made the SIS a laughing stock. We cannot afford for our security agencies to be a laughing stock. Unless we do this well the Government Communications Security Bureau will be just as the SIS was a laughing stock that lacks public confidence.What I am saying to you is that if you are going to do this well you do not do it in an ad hoc way; you do it comprehensively. We know that this House is expecting another piece of legislation which the Government has tucked away in the wings on the SIS—so a separate piece of legislation on the SIS—and this legislation rushed into the House under urgency today on the Government Communications Security Bureau. Who is going to have confidence in the outcome of legislation that is done in an ad hoc way? Who is going to have confidence in legislation unless there is a full and public inquiry into how our agencies are operating what powers they need and what safeguards there need to be?Better than most people in this House I have an understanding of how our security agencies work. As a foreign affairs and trade Minister and as a defence Minister I worked with those agencies for 9 years. But I think the time has come to fully comprehensively and coherently reform those agencies. I do not think they do the job that we need them to do I do not think they do it thoroughly and competently enough and I do not think that the powers of oversight over how they carry out their functions are done properly.The reason we have got this legislation is not that there are terrorist groups lurking in the wings. You can never rule out that you do not have nutcases like the Boston bombers who can operate in a country but that is not I think something that is actually such a risk to New Zealand that we need to rush legislation through in an ad hoc way. I think there are more important questions to ask about cyber-security about commercial interests and State interests outside of New Zealand that would like to break into our IT networks and use that information. Maybe the Government should be asking itself some questions about why unlike Australia and the United States it has accepted Huawei into New Zealand when that in itself is regarded by two of the countries we work closely with as being a security risk. The Government will not talk about that but that might be what it actually needs to be focusing on.You know we have this legislation to distract the public from the embarrassment that John Key feels about the debacle of the Kim Dotcom affair. The police went into that mansion with a combination of Rambo and the Keystone cops—total overkill unnecessary. That was bad enough. What was worse according to Justice Winkelmann is that they went in without a valid warrant to search the place or to break into the place and that makes us as New Zealanders and as taxpayers liable possibly to tens of millions of dollars in damages if that is the way it goes. So we certainly need an inquiry into the Kim Dotcom case.We need to know why—when they acted illegally when the advice of Crown Law was inadequate when the Ministry of Justice did not get it right when the police did not get it right and when the Government Communications Security Bureau did not get it right—Bill English suppressed information that revealed those facts. Why did he cover it up? Is it credible that John Key who is the Minister in charge of the security agencies and the Prime Minister was never told about Bill English’s once-in-a-lifetime warrant to suppress public information about the Government’s illegal doings? He did not brief John Key.Hon Trevor Mallard: Who believes that?Hon PHIL GOFF: Who believes that? I mean either you have got a totally incompetent and disloyal deputy or you have got a Prime Minister who is not telling the full truth. I will leave it to the public to make up their minds on that. We need a proper job to determine the powers and the oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau. This bill does not do it and this process is such that there will be no restoration of public confidence in those agencies.I want to look very quickly now in my last minute and a half at the oversight proposals in this bill. Rebecca Kitteridge who is a very competent woman I think got the direction right but she did not go far enough and this bill does not go far enough. You need an Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security who is not in a retirement position. You need an active inspector-general—more than that you need a proactive inspector-general—and you need that person to be backed by staffing and resources so that they can ensure compliance. We need to have a strong inspector-general and that person if they are not to be a retired judge needs to have the confidence of both sides of this House. So in this bill there should be legislative provision that the appointment needs the concurrence of the Opposition just as you do for the Governor-General because that is how important the position is.You also need changes to be made to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I served on that committee for 3 years. It is a farce. It does not do the job because John Key does not let it do the job. It hardly ever meets it does not get briefed properly and it does not give anywhere near adequate reports to this House. It is an absolute conflict of interest that the Minister in charge of the Security Intelligence Service should be the chair of the committee having oversight into the Intelligence and Security Committee.He is the person who should be held to account. This bill says: “Oh put the Deputy Prime Minister in or the Attorney-General.” That is not good enough. Maybe we should look at the Regulations Review Committee and like that committee have an Opposition member chairing the committee.