Caucus united on need for S.I.S. — P.M.

Press, 19 October 1977, Page 6

Caucus united on need for S.I.S. — P.M.

There is no split in the Government caucus over the need for the Security’ Intelligence Service, according to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon).

During the debate in the House last evening, Mr MulIdoon said: “There is no memfber (of the National caucus) ; who does not see the need for the S.LS. and support it in its difficult work.” He was certain that there were Labour members who shared the same view. But the party was in “politically desperate” straits and had seen the bill as an opportunity to gain public support. However, Mr Muldoon said that messages reaching him indicated that the vast majority of New Zealanders, after having had time to think about the bill, “fortunately" now realised the way it was being used. “I and my colieages are happy to put our political futures on the line over the bill,” he said. Mr Muldoon made it clear that the Government would consider other amendments! to the bill which might be| introduced during the com-' mittee stages. Careful consideration of representations from State servants and the news media and publishers had already prompted two amendments, and the Government was still receiving other representations, he said. The Opposition's spokesman on Justice, Dr A. M. Finlay, who chaired the i Labour Party’s special committee which heard submissions on the bill, said Mr Muldoon had underestimated the opposition to the proposed legislation. Mr Muldoon in several observations outside the House had said the only people who opposed the bill were “the Socialist Unity Party — the friends of Moscow.”

But Dr Finlay said there was a wide range and depth of opposition. Among those who had made submissions to the Labour committee were the Public Service Association, the National Union of Railwaymen, the Council for Civil Liberties, the Federation of Labour, the Combined State Service Organisations, priests, bishops, the i Presbyterian Church, and the 'Law Society. ; All had opposed the bill, Dr Finlay said. I There were also several I separate submissions by academics and lawyers of eminence and experience . . . “including the person credited with authorship of the whole scheme, Sir Guy Powles.” Dr Finlay said Sir Guy had denied responsibility for the bill, and in doing so said his proposals would work . . “taken as a package deal.” Dr Finlay said Mr Muldoon had “rubbished Sir Guy’s authority and dismissed him as just another liberal.”

“We (the Opposition) will demonstrate that the Powles report has been twisted and distorted into something quite different,” Dr Finlay said.

“The actual words of the bill are menacing enough, but it is the way they may be applied that fills me with alarm, and their very vagueness encourages individual interpretation.” The Powles report had recommended that more emphasis be put on the S.l.S.’s true role of counter* intelligence, rather than “subversion.” But Dr Finlay said his recommendations had been totally disregarded by the Government. “On the contrary, a new and dangerous dimension of ‘potential subversion’ is drgged in, over which the 1 service may ‘institute surveillance’.”Dr Finlay said. “I don’t know what that i means, but it has a chilling I sound, and is open invitation to probe and pry into the affairs of anyone who raises his voice.” I Dr Finlay said the I safeguards the Government said were in the bill were [swept aside in sub-clauses of [the new 4a.” They enabled| the Minister and the service) to do what they liked, with no-one to say nay to them. “By removing the procedure from judicial scrutiny they throw overboard traditional remedies such as trespass, conversion, injunction, mandamus, and all the other legal processes that the common law has evolved to; protect the citizen from the > exercise of absolute and) dictatorial power,” he said. the Minister of Trade and[ Industry (Mr Adams- ; Schneider) said the Labour] Party’s attitude to the S.I.S. j would ensure Labour’s] defeat at the polls. “We are witnessing the Labour Party’s writing off its chances of winning the next election.’’ he said. “They are self-destructing before our eyes.” The Minister said there were two camns of opposition to the bill — genuine [people who had shown a concern, which the Government had attempted to meet in the Supplemental Order [Paper yesterday; and “those I who are opposed to our form of government. ’’ Mr Adams-Schneider's remarks were greeted with ! hisses and boos from the galleries. He labelled the second group of opponents as “Communists aligned with Peking or Moscow.' 1

“These people are out to destroy our democratic form of government,” he said. They had infiltrated trade unions and protest groups of one form or another. By its actions, the Labour Party was giving encouragement to this group of people, Mr Adams-Schneider said.

Every protester had been articulate in support of the i privacy of the individual, : but had not balanced the i need to preserve the integrity of the State.

“The genuine protesters have failed to realise this is a bill to assist human liberties — to assist people to be free,” he said, to another chorus of hisses and boos from the gallery. Mr Rowling described the legislation as “a rotten bill”

and said that thousands of “decent New Zealanders” were desperately concerned about the provisions it contained. “It seems the National Party has forgotten that this is New Zealand and that this is 1977,” he said. “The Labour Party is concerned with this day, this age, and this people.” The Labour Party had a genuine concern for the defence and security of New Zealand, but had not had to trample on the rights of people, Mr Rowling said. Labour supported the S.LS. but that was-“an entirely different matter from this bill.” Mr Rowling also said that "any claim that the Labour Party is steered by other forces or organisations is a lie, and any person making such a claim is, by definition, a liar.”

He said the Government was using its weight of numbers to push the bill through Parliament regardless of the concern expressed by thousands of New Zealanders. Contrary to the recommendations of Sir Guy Powles’s report, no time limit had been imposed on warrants for the interception of communications, he said.

“Interception warrants are not subject to any time limit and not challengeable in a court of law.

“What is the great subversion threat that justifies the actions the Government is taking?” Mr Rowling said. Sir Guy had said that he

did not believe New Zealand was threatened by subversion “and yet the Government has come down with the legislation we are debating today. “The bill is a mess, and playing round with it will achieve nothing of real moment. It should be dropped right now.” Mr Rowling said. Many of Sir Guy’s recommendations were not contained in the Government’s bill. Sir Guy’s report had been balanced, but some recommendations had been taken out and replaced in the bill, thus destroying that ballance.

Mr Rowling resumed his seat to loud applause from his Labour Party colleagues and big sections of the public gallery. The Minister of Labour

(Mr Gordon) said the people of New Zealand were entitled to know what alterations the Labour Party would make to the bill as it stood at present.

“Is the Leader of the Opposition prepared to say ‘Let's go back to the status quo’?” he said. The S.I.S. bill was designed to protect the rights of New Zealanders, contrary to what had been said by soine groups opposed to the legislation, Mr Gordon said. The "Government would give reasons for what it was doing in the legislation during the clause-by-clause debate on the committee stages of the bill.

Mr D. R.-Lange (Lab., Mangere) said the issue before Parliament was not whether the S.LS. should continue, but whether the S.LS. Amendment Bill should continue.

He said the legislation provided for a politican, acting on the instructions of the Director-General of the S.LS., to be given the power to issue a warrant to intercept communications.

“For such power to be vested in the hands of one person is a development of law we cannot afford to tolerate.”

Interjections from the Opposition at one stage drowned out the speech by the Minister of Energy Resources (Mr Gair) who followed Mr Lange.

Mr Adams-Schneider had

earlier accused Mr Lange of being photographed with the' Socialist Unity Party leader; (Mr Bill Andersen) at a protest meeting against the bill. Mr Lange denied this and shouted out, “That is a lie,” when Mr Gair said that if Mr Lange was not in the same photograph, he was holding the other end of the banner.

Mr Lange was asked to withdraw his comment. Mr Gair said that it was beside the point whether Mr Lange was holding the other end of the banner, because he had identified himself with the group opposing the bill.

Dr Finlay: Don’t you have any tolerance for opposing ideas?

Mr Gair said Labour had failed to explain what its alternative would be — either it would have the S.LS. as it was in 1974, without provisions for protecting the individual, or it would have no security intelligence at all.

The Opposition was seeking to drive a wedge between the Powles report and the bill. But Mr Gair said the differences were comparatively small and could be justified in terms of practical application.

If this law was implemented, life would be safer for two groups of people — the S.LS. and the Prime Minister, said Mr J. L. Hunt (Lab., New Lynn). Mr Muldoon had made it clear that further amendments to the legislation would be made during the bill’s committee stages, he said.

“This is another example of Government by secret caucus.”

New Zealanders had a right to know what changes were to be made before the committee stages on the bill. The Attorney-General, (Mr Wilkinson) said the removal of the provision directing Post Office employees to comply with requirements under telephone-tapping and maii-ijjterception warrants had ‘removed the most important single objection by the Post Office Association. “I have, in fact, discussed closely the question of Post Office involvement with the Director-General (Mr G. M. Peters) and I am confident that the department will be able to provide the required co-operation without precipitating a confrontation, and without the threat of sanctions hanging over anyone for not co-operating,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“I am ready to state publicly my belief that the majority of employees of the Post Office who would object to a direction will cooperate and will respond to a request on a matter of State security,” Mr Wilkinson said.

He said it was envisaged that mail interception and telephone tapping would be used infrequently, although the public could be excused for gaining the impression from some quarters that it would be a weekly occurrence.

Mrs M. D. Batchelor (Lab., Avon) said protesters in the future would be stifled if the present legislation became law. They would not be able to register their opposition to legislation such as the bill before the House without the threat of their actions being monitored by the S.LS.