Surveillance bill letter on public record

The Labour Party has today released the letter it wrote to the Government last year confirming its support to pass the Search and Surveillance Bill.

The letter, dated 9 November 2010, was written by David Parker, sent to Simon Power, and copied to Chris Finlayson and Judith Collins. It was tabled in the House by Charles Chauvel on 16 November 2010.

"The letter said that Labour would support passage of the legislation provided that it included three simple amendments:

1. There should be appropriate protection for the news media
2. Search powers for the Serious Fraud office should be brought in to line with those that apply to the police
3. Only serious offences involving drugs, violence or extortion (those punishable by more than 10 years imprisonment) should be subject to orders under the act.

"The correspondence is being released in the context of the debate on radio this morning around National's plans to introduce special legislation under urgency resulting from the recent Supreme Court decision concerning surveillance. One of the recipients of the letter - Chris Finlayson - said he could not recall having seen it," Charles Chauvel said.

"It would have been a major step toward putting in place the sort of surveillance framework called for by the Supreme Court if National had taken up Labour's offer and progressed the Search and Surveillance Bill.

"Clearly the issue needs to be fixed but Labour believes that a select committee process is essential to give it the scrutiny it needs.

"Responsibility for the fact that National is now scrambling to come up with urgent legislation in the last two weeks of Parliament to put in place an interim surveillance regime falls entirely on their shoulders. This increases the onus on them to build a compelling case for the interim fix they propose," Charles Chauvel said.

A copy of the letter and the relevant transcript from question time is here: Questions_and_letter (pdf)

Authorised by Charles Chauvel, MP, Parliament Buildings, Wellington

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