McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. With this being my last speech for the year I'd like to wish the House a very merry Christmas as well as the Chair and the clerks and I also notice that we've got Willow-Jean Prime's little pēpē in the Whare today. I'd just like to wish you a very merry Christmas too dear.I'm standing to speak on the Security Information in Proceedings Legislation Bill. The ACT Party will be supporting this bill. The reason why is because we don't like personal liberties being lost and we think that this bill actually goes a way to addressing that. Currently our national security information is handled in such a way that it's quite ambiguous it's uncertain and of course it has also been inconsistent. New Zealand needs the capability to be able to receive information from overseas jurisdictions and respond to that information appropriately.So this bill seeks to create a clear and consistent approach to the use of security information. The effects of that is that it will actually go about clarifying respective roles and interests of the judiciary the executive as well as those affected individuals and we note that there are several costs and potential unintended consequences but we also recognise that the regulatory impact statement and the departmental disclosure statement presented measures to help mitigate some of those risks. We look forward in the select committee process to be able to go through and see if we can tidy that up. There are some problems that we've found and hence the need for this bill. The current frameworks have been developed in an ad hoc manner and this approach has lacked clarity and a consistent protection for individuals as well as for New Zealand's national security. There is no assurance right now that the national security information can be adequately protected if it is used in court procedures.So the changes that this bill presents are that when we are in a situation where current proceedings may disadvantage non-Crown parties they're unable to challenge the outcomes because they don't have the full information and won't get the full information. So that looks to be changed. And there will be provided for those non-Crown parties a security-cleared specialist advocate that will be paid for by the Government by the Ministry of Justice. So our natural justice concerns can be alleviated there.There's also a number of changes that will occur within our criminal our civil and our administration procedures so that the rights of the individual align within the system. It standardises the provisions allowing for judicial reviews and appeals against any administrative decisions.There's a series of pros and cons with this bill. Some of the pros of course are that our national security interests will be protected while access to information can be acquired by the parties. It may shorten the court time process which of course we really need at the moment because there's such a huge backlog especially in the criminal arena. New Zealand society should become agile to respond to national security threats while assuring our international partners that their intelligence will be protected.Of course some of the cons with this bill are that the cost will be met by existing baselines within the Ministry of Justice baselines that already need a significant amount of money put into them just to achieve their current targets let alone adding new pressures to that system. The strengthening of the protection of the national security information may erode some parts of the principles of open justice and this is where the debate within select committee will be valuable. And of course there will be additional resources that will be needed for example to get those security-cleared specialist advocates involved within the system.So when we look at the pros and the cons of this bill we can expect that there will be cons when we're looking at a national security interest in that context. But they have been identified and they can be mitigated because it is essential that we do standardise the procedures to protect our national security interests and allow those affected to actually know why.ACT looks forward to fleshing out the identified issues through the select committee process and to make sure that this bill is better for our national security interests but also for the people of New Zealand. I wish you all a merry Christmas and ACT supports this bill.