Goff Phil: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill — Referral to Government Administration Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 08 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12550. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Part 2 of this bill the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill deals with the role and the powers of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The Attorney-General rightfully pointed out that this is about oversight for the powers of our secret intelligence agencies. He then proceeded to give assurances that this oversight was adequate which I think most New Zealanders and certainly members on this side of the Chamber found absolutely underwhelming.The bill moves cautiously and marginally in the right direction but the changes are cautious; they are marginal. When you scratch below the surface you see that they do not give you any assurance at all that there will be oversight. The problem is this. When we decide that we want intelligence agencies they are given enormous powers that no other body in New Zealand possesses. They can do things that for anybody else would be breaking the law. They can intrude into privacy. They can exercise those powers without any public accountability—without any knowledge by this Parliament or by the wider public through the media.When you give powers to an organisation and you do not create accountability then you create the basis for the abuse of powers. We are not simply being conspiratorial around this. We have seen examples in New Zealand and outside New Zealand where this happens. The enormous breach of powers by the National Security Agency in the United States was revealed only because a whistleblower Edward Snowden actually made it public. Otherwise Americans would not know that literally hundreds of thousands of them—none of them or very few of them with connections with any terrorist-type organisation—are under surveillance.We saw that breach of power by the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom and we have seen the breach of power here. This is what this billis about. It was initiated by the breach of power by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) illegally spying on Kim Dotcom. That is what it is about. We are seeing the abuses of power even in the corridors of this building where people are having their swipe cards their phone records and their emails improperly spied upon and passed across to people who should not have them.Let us not pretend that the issue of accountability and the need for safeguards is not a real issue. It certainly is. I support the appointment of a deputy inspector-general but an inspector-general and a deputy inspector-general will hardly be adequate to do the work that needs to be done with the expanded powers of the GCSB. I understand from informal discussions that there will be an office of assistance provided to them but where is the guarantee of that? Where we have got Officers of Parliament we have a degree of independence that the inspector-general does not have. But even where we have got Officers of Parliament like the Ombudsmen we see them starved of resources so that they have a huge backlog of work and they cannot do the job this Parliament set for them. It is a deliberate action by the Government to starve them of resources because the Government likes to exercise power and not be curbed in the exercising of that power. That is the nature of this Government in particular. So we need to be sure that there is adequate resourcing for the inspector-general and we have seen and heard no assurances of that.The functions of the inspector-general are expanded and again I approve of that. They can inquire on their own motion—the Attorney-General made a big point of that did he not—without the concurrence of the Minister. But when you look at the bill that was introduced to the House what did it say? It said that he or she could start inquiries with the concurrence of the Minister. So the natural instinct of Mr Key and the National Government was to have an Inspector-General who was so hobbled that they could not do anything and it was only through submissions to the select committee and pressure from the Opposition that Government members were so embarrassed that they removed that. So I welcome the fact Attorney-General that you removed that but do not come into this Chamber pretending that you think it is good that he can be independent when the legislation that you brought in said that he could not be independent. You have had to do a U-turn and we welcome that U-turn as we so often welcome the U-turns that happen only when they are forced on the Government.It is good that the inspector-general can advise on the impact of the activities on individuals. It is good that the inspector-general can report on the propriety of the activities of the agencies. But again can the inspector-general do this? Does he have the independence to do it? And is the nature of the inspector-general going to be such that that person has the strength of character that he or she will do that? That comes to the point about appointments. Actually however it is dressed up “appointed by the Governor-General”—we all know what that means: the Prime Minister tells the Governor-General to do it—means the Prime Minister makes the recommendation. He may consult with the Intelligence and Security Committee but we know that this Prime Minister hardly has that committee meeting. It meets a couple of times a year. I was on it for 3 years. He treated it with absolute contempt. So let us not be mistaken—this Prime Minister will appoint on his own viewpoint the inspector-general.We have seen an abuse of those appointments by the Prime Minister before have we not? That is another scandal that hit. The very chief executive officer of the GCSB was a mate of the Prime Minister. Did he own up to that right up front? Not on your life. He had to have it dragged out of him and then he said: “I haven’t seen him for years.” Then we found out that he had been having dinner with him quite regularly. So how can the public have confidence in the integrity of the Prime Minister when he abuses that appointment process for the very head of the GCSB that this legislation regulates? Inthe process that he followed there were no interviews. He nominated him. He pointed him out. The poor State Services Commissioner was totally overridden and was finally forced to come out and say that he did not approve of the abusive process of the Prime Minister.So Attorney-General you are telling us to have confidence in an inspector-general who will be appointed almost solely by the Prime Minister when we have seen this Prime Minister John Key abuse that process already. That is why I say Attorney-General that your assurances will not carry much weight with the people of New Zealand and certainly no weight with the people on this side of the Chamber.Then we have an advisory panel. That is exactly the same thing. It has two people. One of them is a lawyer. Well we should be reassured by that. Is not the Minister of Justice a lawyer? Does she not always follow due process? Bain case—yeah! I fear that this advisory panel is nothing more than a toothless tiger. In fact it is toothless; it is not even a tiger.There is nothing in this legislation that suggests that that advisory panel can be effective and again it is appointed by the Prime Minister who we have just heard has time and again abused the process of appointment. He has abused the process of appointment so much that he appointed the chairman of his own electorate committee to a position governing broadcasting where one of the conditions of appointment should be independence and impartiality. He appointed a dyed-in-the-wool National Party person—the chairman of his own electorate committee—to a position where he is meant to be independent in terms of how broadcasting operates.That is another example of this Prime Minister undermining and detracting from the power of the fourth estate and the Attorney-General wants us to accept his assurances. I am sorry Mr Finlayson those assurances are not backed up by track records. They are not backed up by legislation that will give this Committee confidence. You see the only curb on the power of the security agencies is effectively the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister on one hand seems so uninterested in his job that he does not even know when his own GCSB had broken the law. He said that for 7 months he did not know that the GCSB had broken the law. Can you believe that? He did not know when Bill English moved a ministerial certificate denying access to the courts of knowledge that the GCSB was even involved. That was the Prime Minister’s own deputy and actually the Acting Prime Minister.So we have a Prime Minister who first of all either does not know or does not tell the truth about not knowing. But regardless of who the Prime Minister is you cannot simply have one person required to hold the safeguards against abusive power by the security agencies. And it is dumb to have the Prime Minister do that because it is his Government that is abusing the powers so what sort of safeguard will he be? In the United States the President has two independent committees. One is the House of Representatives and the other is the Senate chaired often by members of the other party. There is no adequate oversight here. There are no safeguards that will satisfy New Zealanders.