Graham KennedyDr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): We have come a long way in the saga of the Intelligence and Security Bill that is before us in this final reading. The Committee of the whole House did a fine job last week in scrutinising the draft legislation with its quite complex redraft of sections and its compelling political judgments that surrounded some of the issues involved. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee had also done a good job in debating and discussing the draft in its different stages. The officials all corners—the Government departments the drafting office the agencies themselves—excelled themselves in servicing the committee and the Parliament as a whole.It may sound from this panegyric as if the Green Party were about to embrace the legislation with a blessing and vote it all the way through—Hon Christopher Finlayson: It's not too late.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: —but of course as has been pointed out from the beginning and explained all the way through this is not the case—despite the last minute plea from the Attorney-General which we do appreciate and are tempted by but no.We opposed the bill from the beginning and we continue to oppose it today. We shall be voting against it but that will not be from a dissatisfaction with the parliamentary procedure observed or the democratic process that the bill has taken all the way through to this third reading. If one were disposed to agree with the philosophical basis of the bill one could only admire the finished product and support it. Our opposition rests on a disagreement over the basis on which the bill rests as we have pointed out. A disagreement that the world of the 21st century admittedly a tough and dangerous place will be made less so by making our national intelligence agencies more effective and efficient on the basis of the prevailing world view as articulated by Government leaders.We do not accept that a discernible but modest increase in the threat assessment level of one of the nine harms to national security identified in the draft warrants the sledgehammer that is encased in the velvet glove that is this bill. We do not accept that a more efficient and effective version of Five Eyes is desirable when the leading agency is tormented by the banality the oddity and the crudity of the present US administration. We do not accept that the so-called random profiling of New Zealand citizens of Middle Eastern origin has tilted so markedly against Syrians Tunisians and Egyptians with New Zealand citizenship since the legislation arising from the Countering Foreign Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill came into force in this country as we warned would happen back in December 2015. This is not the time to be tightening the cultural screws against one's own citizens. It is the time for a more expansive more understanding more compassionate and more universal world outlook. We do not detect that in the bill.So those are our criticisms but to return to the positive we appreciate the manner in which this debate has been held around the bill and the diligent competent and respectful way in which the Attorney-General has ushered the bill through its various stages. In particular we appreciate the increasing recognition articulated by the Minister and equally importantly by senior Labour colleagues of the merit of expanding the Intelligence and Security Committee to reflect the proportional representation of modern New Zealand parliaments. The amendment to the bill to reflect this just last week in the final stages of the Committee was we believe one of the better examples of democracy in action.So it is with the same measure of respect to all our colleagues in this House that we cast our vote alone against this bill. We thank the Attorney-General the Government and all other parties for their input into the democratic process. May our children live in a safer and more enlightened world than we do.