Locke Keith: General Debate 
Locke Keith: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:11798] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 It is disturbing to see our Government so scared of offending the Chinese Government even when its officials are hacking into our own Government computers. There does not seem to be any question that this is the case. The head of the Security Intelligence Service Warren Tucker virtually said as much in an interview published in the  
Dominion Post 
 yesterday when he referred to the hacking in the context of comments by Canada’s security service about Chinese spying. Then we have high officials in Britain Germany and the United States all reporting Chinese hacking of Government computers such as that of the US Defense Secretary’s office. 
Today I asked the Prime Minister a series of questions on the hacking issue and did not get anything back that would be very useful to New Zealanders. I asked her whether she believed New Zealanders have a right to know which foreign country is endangering the security of our Government information and that public embarrassment is the best medicine for this—as when she publicly scolded Israel for trying to obtain false New Zealand passports. She dodged that question. Once again the New Zealand Government has shown weakness before the size and economic power of China—the same sort of weakness we saw most recently when Cabinet Ministers were forbidden from officially meeting the Dalai Lama for fear of upsetting the Chinese Government. I simply cannot fathom how displaying such weakness before the Chinese Government helps us to negotiate a good trade agreement. 
As I asked in another of my questions today how does the Prime Minister think New Zealand can continue to effectively negotiate a free-trade deal with China in good faith if the Chinese Government is hacking into our computers and stealing information relevant to our bargaining position? Yes we have to protect Government computers and the Greens congratulate those New Zealand Government officials who have been detecting hacking attempts from the Chinese. As I said in my last question today we can join with the US British and German Governments in protesting this hacking. But such cross-country action is somewhat undermined by the extensive electronic spying on other nations done by the United States—in particular through the National Security Agency backed up by the four other Anglo nations in the Echelon network Britain Australia Canada and New Zealand. 
Every day the satellite communications interception station at Waihopai draws down off two communication satellites over the Pacific equator the details on millions of phone calls faxes and emails which are filtered for key words and addresses mainly for the benefit of the US National Security Agency. It would be much better if we in New Zealand had clean hands as a small independent nation in the world. We would have much more of a moral case against Chinese hacking. It would be good if our Government Communications Security Bureau concentrated on defending our computers rather than using most of its resources spying for the National Security Agency as it does now. 
Chinese hacking is part of a larger attack on privacy and human rights which is mainly directed at its own citizens. Unfortunately our Government says little in public on this. I was privileged yesterday to host a parliamentary forum of experts on these matters—particularly David Kilgour a former Canadian MP and former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) and a prominent Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas. They have produced a pamphlet entitled  
Bloody Harvest: A Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China 
 which scientifically proves the gruesome sale of organs from executed prisoners—and China has the world record for executions something like 10000 a year according to Amnesty International. Proper figures are not made available by the Chinese Government. Huge fortunes are being made by army officers and very sick medical professionals out of this horrific trade in organs. 
New Zealand has a duty to be part of the world response to the large-scale violation of human rights in China—particularly leading up to the Olympic Games in a period when the Chinese Government is particularly susceptible to Government embarrassment. Our Government has to be more outspoken about the executions the organ harvesting the presence of around 250000 people in the Chinese gulag—many of them dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners—and the gross censorship of the news media and the Internet. Standing up for human rights in China is also the most effective way to combat that Government’s hacking of our computers. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.