Sunday 28 July, 2013
 
Prime Minister not ruling out further changes to GCSB Bill
 
Prime Minister John Key, speaking to ONE News deputy political editor Jessica Mutch in South Korea, says he’s is prepared to compromise with NZ First leader Winston Peters to get further support for his GCSB Bill in Parliament.
 
“I wouldn’t rule that out. What I’ve said is that there’ll be the SOP process, so a Supplementary Order Paper. So when the bill comes back to Parliament, it’ll have its second reading. Then what happens from there is the committee stage. At the committee stage, we already know a list of things that Peter Dunne will introduce. Now, in a theoretical world, if NZ First or any other political party - let’s take NZ First - came along and said, ‘We will support the legislation if you make these changes,’ and they were acceptable to the government, there is always that window of opportunity to make that change,” Mr Key says.
 
Mr Key told the Q+A programme that his office had approached Mr Peters on numerous occasions, “offering to sit down with me, the officials, in writing. We’ve put all of those sorts of requests there,” but when asked if the lack of response meant it was unlikely the two could work something out, Key says: “never say never”.
 
The GCSB is likely to pass through Parliament with the help of ACT’s John Banks and United Future’s Peter Dunne, who has pledged his support after introducing some changes to the bill.
 
Jessica Mutch asked the Prime Minister whether a deal had been done with Mr Dunne in order to gain his support. Mr Key says Mr Dunne had not asked for other things outside of the changes to the GCSB legislation.
 
But when pressed on whether Mr Key would have a ‘cup of tea’ with Mr Dunne in his Ohariu electorate - a reference to the PM’s symbolic sit down with ACT leader John Banks in a café in Auckland before the last election as a signal the PM wanted voters to choose Mr Banks in the Epsom electorate in order to send ACT back to parliament - the PM says: “Well, I won’t rule that out”.
 
Meanwhile, the PM says the question of who actually owns the metadata that each person generates including when they email, text, or use a search engine, is more about “who can access data and under what conditions. I’m not quite sure it’s really an ownership issue. It’s who can actually see the information”.
 
When pressed over who has the rights over it, Mr Key says: “Well, I think in certain circumstances, the government, if it’s collecting that data for the purpose of trying to understand whether something untoward is taking place. For the most part, the individual obviously owns it, because you understand through your own phone bills or your own emails who you communicate with, what, where, and how and why. But obviously there are circumstances, and this is where the touchstone is or where the dilemma is, what is the demarcation line between the right of the government or its agencies to look at information vis-a-vis the privacy of an individual. And my view is that we’ve got the balance about right, because the alternative here would be either we don’t collect this data at all.
 
Mr Key added that if he has to pass the GCSB legislation with only one vote to push it over the line, he would do that rather than not pass it at all. He says that those protesting yesterday against the Bill were either: “a) politically aligned or b) with the greatest of respect, misinformed.”
 
 
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:30pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz  
 
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Q+A
 
JESSICA MUTCH INTERVIEWS JOHN KEY
 
 
SUSAN WOOD
Prime Minister John Key is in South Korea marking the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War in which 6000 Kiwis fought. It’s the historic tie, he says that has helped revive stalled free-trade agreement talks with Korea. Meetings are now planned for October. Deputy political editor Jessica Mutch spoke to the Prime Minister last night. She began by asking him about his talks with Korea’s first female leader, President Park, and the influence her emotional ties with NZ will have on a deal.
 
JOHN KEY - Prime Minister of NZ
It’s an emotional connection with NZ for her, and I think we’ll get over the line. That’s my bet.
 
JESSICA MUTCH
We’ve been here before, though, and we’ve stalled. What happens if we can’t get it across the line this time?
 
JOHN              It’s really negative for us, because this is our fifth largest market. So it’s a big source of tourists to NZ, students that come down here, companies sell a lot of product in here. So, someone like Methanex, for instance, is selling about a quarter of a billion dollars worth of product. Zespri’s large, our meat exporters are large. And the big issue here would be our companies are clinging on at the moment. As every day goes by, they are at a bigger and bigger disadvantage to US and European companies.
 
JESSICA        So this is pretty urgent.
 
JOHN              Absolutely, and that was really the point that we made with the president. I mean, we were really polite about it but actually quite direct. In the end, our companies could give up faith and hope in this market if they don’t get an FTA.
 
JESSICA        They are wealthy consumers, but it’s the farmers that have an issue with this. What will NZ have to give up to get this FTA?
 
JOHN              Well, I think what we’ll have to do is do a bit of technology transfer. So, what you’re dealing with is an emotional issue rather than an economic issue. So for Korea, I think 3 per cent of their income comes from agriculture. So, years and years ago when they were poor, yes, they farmed the land and that was what they did. But, fundamentally, this is not a country that’s absolutely massively large. That sector’s been virtually completely replaced by the electronic sector and the like. You’ve got a very old community that are farming, old farmers. You’ve got inefficiency, small farms, and they need to consolidate. They need to have more technology. So the way to sell this is to get them to understand that it’s complimentary. We’re not here to put them out of business. And the second thing is to absolutely make sure that there’s something in it for them, and that’s really that technology, you know, information transfer.
 
JESSICA        I want to move on to domestic issues and the GCSB. Are you prepared to compromise with Winston Peters to get him on board?
 
JOHN              I wouldn’t rule that out. What I’ve said is that there’ll be the SOP process, so a Supplementary Order Paper. So when the bill comes back to Parliament, it’ll have its second reading. Then what happens from there is the committee stage. At the committee stage, we already know a list of things that Peter Dunne will introduce. Now, in a theoretical world, if NZ First or any other political party - let’s take NZ First - came along and said, ‘We will support the legislation if you make these changes,’ and they were acceptable to the government, there is always that window of opportunity to make that change.
 
JESSICA        So you’re waiting for him to come to you?
 
JOHN              Yeah, look, that’s one way of describing it. There’s been some very limited dialogue. We try and have tried actively to engage. It’s been a trying process, if I can put it in those terms, in so much that we’ve made a lot of offers. I mean, I know he was on the show, I think, last week saying that wasn’t the case, but that’s actually not true. We’ve gone to his office on numerous occasions, offering to sit down with me, the officials, in writing. We’ve put all of those sorts of requests there.
 
JESSICA        So it’s pretty unlikely you’ll be able to work something out, really?
 
JOHN              Um, never say never.
 
JESSICA        Rodney Harrison QC says the GCSB deal that you did with Dunne has substantive flaws. ‘It was rushed, ill-conceived and downright dangerous legislation.’ Do you think that concern is growing around this GCSB legislation?
 
JOHN              Not overly. Look, there will always be people that are concerned, and at some point, TV ONE will run a poll. I’m sure it’ll ask questions like that, and I can’t tell you what those results are like.
 
JESSICA        Didn’t we see a bit of a poll over the last few days, though, when we had thousands of people coming out to protest this bill?
 
JOHN              Yeah, at the risk of encouraging them to have more protests, I would have actually said that those numbers were quite light. I mean, it wasn’t anything like we saw for mining or anything else. And secondly, a lot of people that would go along would be either a) politically aligned or b) with the greatest of respect, misinformed. And that’s really the position if you go back to-
 
JESSICA        So you’re saying all those protestors are misinformed or politically aligned?
 
JOHN              Well, a lot of them are politically aligned, and some of them will definitely be misinformed, and that’s because they are believing what Rodney Harrison and other people are saying. So if you just take a step back, think about what we had. We had legislation on the books passed by the Labour Government in 2003 that had a lot broader provisions in it and very poor oversight.
 
JESSICA        I want to talk about your specifics, though. What will Peter Dunne get in return for supporting this legislation? Has he asked for anything, and will you support him in Ohariu?
 
JOHN              Well, he hasn’t asked for other things outside of changes to the GCSB legislation.
 
JESSICA        So he’s doing this purely out of the goodness of his heart?
 
JOHN              No. I mean, he gets a lot out of this. I mean, he’s going to put up a Supplementary Order Paper that dramatically changes this legislation.
 
JESSICA        Does he get anything outside of this legislation? Any promises? Or is it just goodwill between the two of you?
 
JOHN              Well, it’s goodwill, and you’ve got to remember we’ve had now in government a four-and-a-half year, nearly five-year working relationship and two years prior to that, and, at the end of the day, we actually have a good working relationship with Peter Dunne, and, bluntly, we trust him, and we can work with him. So, yes-
 
JESSICA        So will you have a cup of tea with him in Ohariu?
 
JOHN              Well, I won’t rule that out.
 
JESSICA        But nothing formal. So that wasn’t part of this deal?
 
JOHN              It’s not part of the deal at the moment, no, but we have a working relationship and continuing to have that working relationship, I think it’s a positive thing.
 
JESSICA        Doesn’t this all come down to who owns this metadata? The person, the company or the government?
 
JOHN              Um, no, I don’t think that’s really right. I mean, I think it’s about who can access data and under what conditions.
 
JESSICA        So who owns it?
 
JOHN              Well, I’m not quite sure it’s really an ownership issue. It’s who can actually see the information.
 
JESSICA        Who should have the rights over it, then? The person, the business or the government?
 
JOHN              Well, I think in certain circumstances, the government, if it’s collecting that data for the purpose of trying to understand whether something untoward is taking place. For the most part, the individual obviously owns it, because you understand through your own phone bills or your own emails who you communicate with, what, where, and how and why. But obviously there are circumstances, and this is where the touchstone is or where the dilemma is, what is the demarcation line between the right of the government or its agencies to look at information vis-a-vis the privacy of an individual. And my view is that we’ve got the balance about right, because the alternative here would be either we don’t collect this data at all. I don’t think that would be acceptable to most people. Or b) we ask the individual agencies to go and collect this. So, SIS collects the metadata, for instance, or other data, as opposed to GCSB as an agent for SIS. And I for the life of me cannot see why that would be a good thing. It would be a lot more expensive. It would be held in a lot more organisations. It’s not the way it’s really done around the rest of the world.
 
JESSICA        What are the threats? What do we need to be worried about?
 
JOHN              Well, there are a number of potential threats. So, for a start-off, if we were going to host an international event, it’s just not credible for us to host something like the Rugby World Cup and not to have good information about what’s happening. That’s the first thing. Secondly, we’re not an environment which is without some risk. So I don’t want to overstate that, but there are people in NZ for whom they are New Zealanders that are overseas in environments that are potentially dangerous, and we would need to track them, or they have accessed websites or individuals in the world which would be of great concern and potential threat to NZ.
 
JESSICA        Are you satisfied that you’re only going to pass this GCSB legislation with one vote?
 
JOHN              Well, that’s the reality of Parliament - that sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. My options are either pass it potentially by one, or not pass it at all. If we don’t pass it at all, then I think that actually weakens the environment that New Zealanders actually operate it from a safety and security perspective.

ENDS

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