Hon Murray McCully
Minister of Foreign Affairs
28 February 2013 Media Statement

McCully to host Cook Islands PM

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully will host Cook Islands Prime Minster Henry Puna and two of his ministerial colleagues today for the second New Zealand-Cook Islands Joint Ministerial Forum.

“New Zealand has a strong and long-standing relationship with the Cook Islands based on shared heritage and close constitutional ties – Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens,” Mr McCully says.

“Our governments have agreed that the priorities for the New Zealand Aid Programme in the Cook Islands will be tourism and sectors that contribute to sustaining the tourism industry such as education, water and sanitation.”

“The development effort will also focus on renewable energy, which will be a hot topic ahead of next month’s Pacific Energy Summit in Auckland,” Mr McCully says.

Mr Puna will be accompanied by Finance Minister Mark Brown and Tourism, Education and Fisheries Minister Teina Bishop.

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Arguably Reassuring: Inspector-General Finds GCSB "Arguably" Legal

Of the 88 individuals:

• 15 cases involving 22 individuals did not have any information intercepted by GCSB.

• another four cases involving five individuals were the subjects of a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service warrant and the GCSB assisted in the execution of the warrants. The Inspector-General is of the view that there were arguably no breaches and the law is unclear.

• the Bureau only provided technical assistance which did not involve interception of communications, involving three of the individuals, so no breach occurred.

• the remaining cases involved the collection of metadata, and the Inspector-General formed the view that there had arguably been no breach, noting once again that the law is unclear.
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