King AnnetteHon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I welcome the opportunity to speak on this bill the New Zealand Intelligence and Security Bill. I have to say in my many years here in Parliament this is the first opportunity that I have had to debate such a bill and so I do welcome this opportunity.Like many others here today—in fact most speakers—I would like to acknowledge the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson and the way that he has conducted the whole process of this bill—the input into it and the inquiry. I think it shows an Attorney-General who is willing and open to wanting to work with members of this House. That has not always been the case and so like others I want to put that on the record.Andrew Little when he was speaking said that this bill is a good start and that Labour will be supporting it to the select committee and it is a good start. I will raise some of our concerns later on but I am a strong believer and have been for most of my parliamentary career in allowing the public to have a say on legislation that comes to this Parliament. That is why even at times when there are bills that you think are not the best bills in the world allowing the public to make a submission and have a say on it is I think part of a democratic process which is why I believe that this bill should go to a select committee to enable there to be a public say on it. I am glad that Shane Reti is going to be the chair of this committee because I have a lot of faith in him as a person who will conduct this committee in an open and transparent way; my experience with Dr Reti is in the Health Committee and that is his style.The security of New Zealanders is the responsibility of any Government whether it is food security or biosecurity or national security. A Government or a Parliament that does not do its utmost to protect the security of its citizens is failing them. I have to say having been a Minister of Police I often felt that acutely when issues arose where the police had to intervene. At the same time here in New Zealand we have two main laws that specifically promote and protect human rights: the Human Rights Act of 1993 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It is in that latter Act that the range of civil and political rights are set out which arise from the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It includes freedom of expression freedom of religious belief freedom of movement and the right to be free from discrimination. When we are looking at a bill like this we are looking at how we balance the right for national security with that of human rights and all legislation that comes here is examined to see whether it is consistent with the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. A Government is required to provide justification for limits placed on these rights. I am one of those who always goes and reads the regulatory impact statement that is provided to this House—often with great disappointment when large amounts of it are redacted.That is not the case in this particular one but I do want to just point out—and this is something I hope that we can improve in the future—that this was tabled today. Many of us in the House have not had the opportunity to download references in this regulatory impact statement. So for example there is a regulatory impact statement provided to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. We are then told to go and download it and we are given a website. That is not always possible when it comes to the House at the last moment and you are trying to read it and prepare. We then have one that is advice given to the Attorney-General from the Ministry of Justice. We are also told it is generally expected to be on the Ministry of Justice's website." I have not had the time to go and see whether it is. But these sorts of things ought to be provided and available for members to be able to read very readily with the bill.The last one I want to raise is consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner was consulted but the report from the department does not tell us what he said. So I believe that these things ought to be part of a regulatory impact statement and part of a department disclosure statement which makes it much easier for open debate here in this Parliament.The bill we have today must as I said balance national security and human rights and if you get it wrong New Zealanders will punish politicians. There is no doubt that legislation controlling the work and the scope of the New Zealand security and intelligence agencies needed to be updated. Heavens above! This world is moving so fast. It is moving so fast in terms of terrorism and global threats that we cannot believe that just because of where we live we do not face a threat here in New Zealand. It may be a domestic threat but there could well be a threat here in New Zealand and New Zealanders would expect us to be ready for that. To hear the Minister of Justice's comments on cyber-threats to New Zealand—it is something you would not have dreamt about a decade ago. This is what is happening in our world today. It is totally different from the old days of 007 and picking up your spying from bits of paper. What we see happening today is totally different from that.I welcome the action that was taken by the Government in setting up an independent review of intelligence and security in New Zealand. My colleague David Shearer was very keen on such a review. The Government could have had a review that was not independent but it was an independent one and it was carried out by two highly respected New Zealanders Dame Patsy Reddy and Sir Michael Cullen. I think their review and report were very considered. They were very careful and they were very collegial in ensuring that we knew what was in that report. With my knowledge of Sir Michael Cullen who has a great grasp of legislation and of human rights and who was a parliamentarian in this place for many years I personally had a lot of faith that he would do a very good job. I do not know Dame Patsy as well but from the report it seems they worked incredibly well together.What this bill does do is replace four existing Acts that currently apply to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the NZSIS and their oversight bodies the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Intelligence and Security Committee. It puts them into one piece of legislation. That to me makes common sense because one of the problems you have in trying to find legislation if you have to hunt through a whole lot of other pieces of legalisation is putting it together. This I think is something that Sir Michael would have been very keen to promote because he has understanding of how laws are interpreted and how easy to find they need to be.The second thing that this bill does is it continues existing protections around political neutrality lawful advocacy protest and dissent and it requires the director-general of an intelligence and security agency to regularly consult with the Leader of the Opposition. I have to say that I disagree with my colleague from New Zealand First—there is a Leader of the Opposition in this House and there has been for as long as I can remember. I am pretty certain that if New Zealand First was the biggest party in Opposition today there would be a Leader of the Opposition. So it exists as part of our House today.What I also think is an important part of the requirements of this bill is far more transparency from the GCSB and the SIS on their functions and it is acknowledged for the first time in this legislation. What I have noticed in very recent years is that the openness and the transparency that we have had from those agencies I have not seen before. I think that is very welcomed because they have had a cloak of secrecy over them that made people very suspicious of their activities. I am in a privileged position of being able to meet with the leaders of both the GCSB and the SIS and their openness and transparency I think is very good indeed.The third issue I wanted to mention is the fact that the GCSB and the SIS—[Interruption] I thought I had 5 minutes Mr Assistant Speaker. I have only just got warmed up.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No you've just had 10 minutes.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh well—extension of time! Can I just conclude by saying we do not believe however that the bill gets the balance right and that is why at the select committee we do want to look at the definition of national security. I believe that the Government will be very willing to listen to what we have got to say and make the appropriate amendments. Thank you.Debate interrupted."