Cunliffe David: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — In Committee 
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Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 This is a fascinating debate at a number of levels. I will take a very brief call. The right of politics often makes the fundamental philosophical error that the absence of regulation is the same thing as human freedom. If ever that mistake was proven it is in the context of this bill. The absence of restriction on private investigators means that the freedom of every New Zealander is curtailed not enhanced and that is proven partly by the relentless march of technology. 
Let me give a couple of easy examples. Firstly directional microphones can pick up a conversation at hundreds of yards of distance. Keystroke mapping can copy the entry of typing into a computer remotely or via a camera at great distance. Even a humble Google search web search or Facebook search will because people have larger digital footprints produce a wealth of information about ordinary individuals. It is not necessarily wrong if they have chosen to put it in the public domain but it cannot be contested that technology means that there is more information about people able to be searched than ever before and that is before the private spooks come in. We have wire taps bugging directional mikes malware and spyware on computers not to mention code crackers. One can buy for 100 bucks at Dick Smith Electronics code cracking technology that the National Security Agency did not have a decade ago. What is a 1000 digit combo lock now when for 100 bucks one could crack anything? The point is that without some regulatory framework around private spies the freedoms of every New Zealand citizen are under unprecedented threat. 
I want to give a couple of little personal examples. They are historic; they are already in the public domain. My electorate office was burgled. Quite precise incisions were made in the windows. Nothing was stolen except the hard drive on the computer—the back-up hard drive. That was a couple of years ago. I am absolutely confident and I did a routine search just to prove it that my office is run squeaky clean. I have no concern about anything that might have been on that computer. I make the point that if somebody has done a precise no fingerprints surgical entry into a parliamentary electorate office through a window then there are people in our country who would stop at nothing to do wiretaps computer hacks or a whole bunch of other techno-savvy invasions on the very freedoms that Mr Bridges says he holds dear. 
If it is absolutely accepted and bipartisan that the Crown’s own secret service agents must have a judge’s warrant to tap a phone why do we not require a similar standard of probity from a private spy? Corporates that have large budgets can procure those services often from ex-Crown personnel like police or members of the security services on the free market using their deep pockets and that is a threat to the liberties that generations of New Zealanders fought and died to protect. 
I am not blaming the Government for not having fixed this before. This is an issue that has grown over time and the threat to private liberty is directly proportional to the reach of technology—that is as we become more sophisticated in our computing and our potential to invade privacy then equally the need for the protection of fundamental human rights and dignities around privacy rose with it. It is high time that this House addressed itself to these growing issues in a more comprehensive way than is included in this bill. However I will commend the Government—I think this is bipartisan because it transcends the change of Government—for the work of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner under Marie Shroff. For two terms— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I’m sorry but I see that Mr Quinn is going to seek the call. I just can’t stand it. I’m going to leave the Chamber. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I fully understand that but I will round off so that my colleague does not miss too much. 
Paul Quinn 
: He’s always run from competition. Look at him run! 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Although I can draw attention to my leaving the Chamber no other member can especially one whom I have offered $500 to run— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Thank you that will do. It is one all. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: We look forward to the contest in Hutt South that we have been denied in this Chamber. I wish my colleague all the very best although I am sure that he does not need it against that member. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Ask Trevor to give the diary back. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Mr Henare should hang on. I am going to say something nice about his Government. He will not hear it too often so if he would just button up he might get this one. 
I think that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner is doing a good job on these issues. It has a large proportion of its staff looking at digital privacy issues and that is where the action is all around the world. Our privacy is under threat as never before because of the reach of digital technology and who is leading that invasion? It is the private spies often private corporate spies who engage in industrial espionage and in the invasion of private rights that is pushing the boundary of— 
Simon Bridges 
: They can do that anyway. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Oh they can do it anyway! The member being a well-read member will know that a bloke called Voltaire once wrote a book called  
Candide 
 in which he asserted that we must because of the greatness and goodness of God live in the best of all possible worlds—that is the way things are has to be the way things will always be. That went out with the ark. 
We need to protect New Zealanders’ privacy. We need to protect them from sophisticated private individuals not covered by the restraints that apply to the State who have access to advanced technology and can access information about other individuals in unprecedented ways. It is a great shame that this bill falls far short of what is required to achieve that standard—far short indeed. I call upon the Government to listen to its own Privacy Commissioner and to take this threat seriously because it is going to grow. 
In conclusion I want to end as I began by emphasising again that the right wing of New Zealand politics as in the right wing globally needs to understand that the absence of regulation is not the same thing as promoting freedom. We live in a free society when we are protected from those who would take away our freedom and it is a shame that this bill does not go far enough in that regard.