Minister moves on mail controversy

Press, 21 October 1983, Page 3

Minister moves on mail controversy

Wellington reporter Action has been taken by the Minister of Customs, Mr Allen, after the controversy about his department’s handling of mail addressed to the peace campaigner, Mr Owen Wilkes.

He has told the Comptroller of Customs, Mr P. J. McKone, to “formalise” the department’s relationship with the Security Intelligence Service. Mr Allen has also expressed reservations about the way Greymouth Customs officers referred some mail addressed to Mr Wilkes to the S.I.S. “I do not think the manner in which this practice was executed was proper,” he said in a letter to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Palmer.

Correspondence on the matter between Mr Allen and Mr Palmer was released by Mr Palmer yesterday. Mr Palmer had written to

Mr Allen questioning the practice of customs officers referring private citizens’ mail to the S.I.S. He has written again to Mr Allen because he was dissatisfied with Mr Allen’s reply. “It is now entirely unclear what authority was relied upon by the department to divert Mr Wilkes’s mail to the 5.1.5.,” Mr Palmer said. He had asked whether it was true that authority for this was taken from a 1921 Order-in-Council prohibiting the importation of “seditious” documents.

This has been given as the authority and the justification by Mr McKone. However, Mr Alien’s reply said that authority was taken from section four (c) of the S.I.S. Act, under which the referral of documents “of a security nature” is considered a matter of proper assistance not requiring other authority. A precedent for the referral of Mr Wilkes’s mail existed, he said.

The officer who had referred Mr Wilkes’s mail had on a previous occasion opened a package containing I.R.A. literature. The police were consulted and, on their advice, the matter was referred to the S.I.S.

“Although that consignment was not for Mr Wilkes, it set the precedent under which the officer referred to the S.I.S. those Wilkes packages containing documents which appeared to deal with national and international defence mat-

ters,” Mr Allen said. Mr Palmer has asked Mr Allen for clarification of the grounds for diverting Mr Wilkes’s mail, given the conflict between Mr McKone’s statements and Mr Alien’s reply. Mr Palmer said that further concern arose if the mail was diverted under the S.I.S. Act.

“If a citizen’s mail may be diverted to the S.I.S. where an official of your department regards it as of a ’security nature,’ to what purpose is Parliament’s determination that there shall be an interception procedure requiring a warrant?” he has asked Mr Allen. The Minister had said that Mr McKone was developing instructions to clarify the responsibilities and relationships with the S.I.S. winch needed to be observed by customs officers.

He said that several recent events had reinforced the need for liaison between customs and the S.I.S.

Of particular concern was the recent interception of material dealing with the construction of terrorist devices.

“If any item related to sabotage or subversion was detected, the customs officer would have a responsibility to advise the 5.1.5.,” he said.

Mr Palmer said Mr Allen was placing in the hands of his officials a function — to look for and divert “security material” — which did not appear in the list of powers in the Customs Act.