SIS "evidence" isn't, again

Back in 2016, then-Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne cancelled a New Zealand woman's passport, claiming she was a terrorist. The basis for his decision was a secret briefing by the SIS, which claimed that if she was allowed to travel, the woman would "engage with individuals who encourage acts of terrorism". The Supreme Court has now ruled that that decision was unlawful and invalid:

In its judgment released today, the court found the minister did not have reasonable grounds to believe the woman intended to facilitate an act of terror, and the briefing paper provided to the minister by the SIS was not fair, accurate, or adequate.

The judgement said Dunne's reliance on the woman potentially travelling to Syria to join a terrorist group fell short of the requirement under the law that the person be an actual danger to a country, not just a potential one.

The judges also found the law required there be evidence that the passport holder intended to travel and facilitate in a terrorist act, and Dunne did not have reasonable grounds to believe this - a higher standard than just suspecting it.

So, once again, SIS "evidence" turns out to be a tissue of lies and assertions when subjected to independent judicial scrutiny - just as it was in the Zaoui case. No wonder they kept the entire trial under a cloak of secrecy.

Obviously, this invites serious questions about why the SIS is so bad at its job, and why Ministers persist in relying on their "evidence" when it so obviously and so publicly gets it wrong whenever tested. And it invites serious questions about the quality of the "security assessments" they apply to visa applicants, and whether those assessments are also similarly unfair, inaccurate, and inadequate. A serious government, and a serious opposition, would be asking those questions. But given the way these things normally go, instead we'll see legislation to prevent judicial scrutiny of such decisions, rammed through under all-stages urgency, with the full support of the Labour Party.

"Pure sophistic bollocks"

That's how normally mild-mannered ex-MP Peter Dunne describes the government's excuses on its "binding" cannabis referendum:

The Minister tries to justify his position by saying that no Parliament can bind its successor Parliaments.

This is, to put it politely, pure sophistic bollocks.

Every piece of legislation passed and regulation promulgated by every New Zealand Parliament since our first Parliament met in May 1854 has to some extent or another bound successor Parliaments. Indeed, if those successor Parliaments have not liked laws passed by their predecessors, they have either repealed or amended them.

That is the stuff of politics and political discourse is all about, and governments have always reserved the right to upend the legislation of an earlier government if they have not liked it, and to replace it with something more akin to their own way of thinking. The notion that responsible governments have demurred from doing things on the grounds they might bind their successors is as nonsensical as it is fanciful. Indeed, only a few months ago, before it was snookered by New Zealand First, the present Government was proposing to legislate during this Parliament for a capital gains tax, to be implemented in the next Parliament should the Government be re-elected. There were no scruples about binding future Parliaments then!

As Dunne points out, this will be the first government-initiated referendum in New Zealand history not to have an immediate, binding result. Which turns it into a fluffy PR exercise, a fraud on the New Zealand people. And we should not tolerate it.

Dunne on the OIA

Despite no longer being in Parliament, former MP Peter Dunne is still writing a weekly column. And today, he has a few thoughts on the Official Information Act. Dunne's perspective is useful, because he's been on both sides of the Act, as a requester and as a Minister, so he's seen how it works from both ends. His conclusions are that the government plays games and that this needs to stop, and that the Act needs to be extended to cover Parliament (but not MPs) and the courts. But his way of getting there is just bizarre:

Therefore, it is time for a joint working party, involving the Ombudsman's Office, the news media, and the politicians (not just the government of the day) to be convened to prepare a new OIA that upholds its original principles and the good things about the current legislation, but which also modernises its scope, processes, and, if possible, operating culture in the light of contemporary circumstances. And then we should commit in these rapidly changing times, to carrying out a similar review every five years.

We don't need another review - everything Dunne suggests was recommended by the Law Commission review in 2012. What we've lacked since then is a government willing to implement its substantive recommendations. It remains to be seen whether the current government is interested in real change or not. But one sure sign that its not will be if it sets up another review.

Time for a republic

During his 33 years in Parliament Peter Dunne was a strong supporter of a New Zealand republic. Now, he's used his pseudo-valedictory speech at VUW's post-election conference to renew that call:

Former United Future leader Peter Dunne has challenged the millennial generation in Parliament to "seize the moment" and begin a process to turn New Zealand into a republic.

"I strongly believe that the time has well passed for us to have severed the umbilical cord to grandmother England," he told a conference at Parliament today.

"We should be an independent republic within the Commonwealth, like India or South Africa and the majority of other Commonwealth nations.

"It is not just my Irish heritage or my sense of pride and confidence in our country in what it can do that is why I am so staunchly in the belief that we can do so much better than continue to bend our knee to a hereditary monarch on the other side of the world.

"We have consistently shown over the last 30 years or so that we can produce many quality New Zealanders to serve as our Governor-General.

"There is no reason why we cannot do likewise with a non-executive president in that role and frankly the time for change is well overdue."

He is absolutely right. While Britain colonised us, there is no reason now why we should continue to be ruled by a foreign monarch on the other side of the world. Instead, we should complete the repatriation of our constitution, ditch the monarch, and have our own president. Given how little the monarch actually does, the change will be almost entirely symbolic. But symbols matter, and the symbolism of the monarch - especially a foreign monarchy with a history of genocide and murder - is utterly inconsistent with the values of modern Aotearoa. We should change that symbol, and the sooner we do it, the better.

#include("Bad Dunne pun")

After announcing he was running, and putting up signs all over Ōhāriu, Peter Dunne has changed his mind and announced he is retiring at the election:

Peter Dunne is standing down after 33 years as Ōhāriu's MP, saying voter sentiment in the electorate has shifted and there is a mood for change.

[...]

"I have concluded, based on recent polling, and other soundings I have been taking over the last few weeks, that, the volatility and uncertainty notwithstanding, there is now a mood amongst Ōhāriu voters for a change of MP, which is unlikely to alter," Mr Dunne said in a statement today.

"This shift in voter sentiment is quite at variance with polling and other data I have seen throughout the year, upon which I had based my earlier decision to seek re-election for a 12th term as MP for Ōhāriu."

He was "naturally extremely disappointed" after 33 years of service at the apparent change of feeling but he respected absolutely the electorate's prerogative to feel that way.

"I have therefore decided that it is time for me to stand aside, so the people of Ōhāriu can elect a new electorate MP."

A lot of people hate Peter Dunne for consistently selling out to whoever is in power, and there's some truth in that. Certainly, appearing to stand for nothing other than your own Ministerial salary is not something that attracts support or makes you many friends. Neither did being a roadblock to drug reform when in coalition with Labour. But since then he's changed his mind, and become a consistent advocate for better drug laws. He's also been a quiet protector of the environment, impeding National's efforts to gut the RMA for years (until the Māori Party finally sold us all out earlier this year). And he's been a useful voice for civil liberties and against the expansion of spy powers. So its not like he was a complete scumbag like David Seymour.

With Dunne's departure, United Future is, well, done. I don't think anyone will miss them, or even notice.

Is drug reform coming?

Fifteen years ago, Peter Dunne's role as Associate Minister of Health in the Clark Labour government was to consistently stymie any move towards drug reform and cannabis decriminalisation. How things have changed:

Change to New Zealand's drug laws is "inevitable" - and associate health minister Peter Dunne says he's willing to lead the debate on it.

Dunne envisions an Aotearoa where the drug trade is no longer controlled by gangs, but by the law - with licenced drug sellers able to cultivate and distribute tested and approved class C drugs such as cannabis.

He cautions he is not calling for the legalisation and decriminalisation of cannabis and other class C drugs, but rather a change to the way they're classified.

Dunne believes New Zealand could first move to the Portuguese method of drug control, where anyone caught with less than 10 days worth of drugs in their possession won't be prosecuted, but will instead be fined and sent for treatment.

There's more on Public Address about what this would look like in practice (and the insanity of our current drug laws) here. But given the empirical evidence of the utter futility of the drug war and the success of decriminalisation policies, its fortunate that we have an Associate Minister who is actually open to that evidence, rather than simply ignoring it.

And this poses an obvious question? Where does Greg O'Connor stand on drug reform? Because while the electorate battle in Ohariu is meaningless in terms of the overall election outcome, it may have significant policy implications.

Cowardice from the Greens

On Sunday Labour selected former Police Association president Greg O'Connor as their candidate for Ohariu. Today the Greens have announced that they will not contest the seat to give him a clear run at unseating Peter Dunne:

The Green Party has decided not to run a candidate in Ohariu to give Labour a better chance at unseating United Future leader Peter Dunne.

That is despite the Green Party previously expressing concerns about the Labour candidate Greg O'Connor's position on several issues.

Green co-leader James Shaw said his party's national executive decided against running a candidate in Ohariu "because it increases our chances of changing the Government".

Dunne won the seat by just 710 votes in 2014, while the Green Party candidate Tane Woodley received 2764 votes.

News hub's Patrick Gower is doing his usual frothing about "dirty deals", showing that he doesn't understand MMP. But its not the idea of a deal that offends me but rather this particular one. O'Connor is a jackbooted fascist who is one of the biggest dangers to New Zealand's civil liberties. Obviously, the Greens can't control who Labour selects as candidates. But they can control whether they approve of them. And faced with a candidate like O'Connor, their response should be to say "not on my watch". This is a man who should not be in Parliament, and the Greens should do their bit to keeping him out. Instead, they've rolled over in the name of good relations with Labour under the spurious guise of "changing the government". So instead of having a National constrained by Dunne, they'd rather have a Labour with Greg O'Connor as police Minister and able to arm the police at will.

Yeah, fuck that shit.

If you're a Green voter in Ohariu, it looks very much as if Dunne is the lesser evil. At least he doesn't support the "right" of police to beat or even shoot you with utter impunity. At least he's not a rape apologist (in fact, on civil liberties, including intelligence oversight, Dunne is pretty good. Certainly better than the average National MP). If I still lived in Ohariu, he'd be getting my electorate vote. Because civil liberties are more important than whether Andrew Little gets a bigger salary.

Reddy should be our last Governor-General

Yesterday, John Key appointed a new Governor-General via the traditional method of a secret shoulder-tap. The appointment was immediately followed by demands for future such appointments to be made by Parliament, which would be an improvement on the current system. But Peter Dunne has gone one better and called for this Governor-General to be our last:

However, she should be the last person to occupy the role. It is high time for New Zealand to elect its own Head of State, and for our country to become a republic. We should take the opportunity of the appointment of a new Governor-General to commence the process of public debate, leading up to a public referendum, which if supportive of our becoming a republic, should lead to the installation of our first President, when Dame Patsy’s term comes to an end in September 2021.

The Irish Republic provides the model for New Zealand, with a parliamentary system of government and an elected President as Head of State. The President does not exercise any executive functions and is obliged to act on the advice of his or her Ministers, in pretty much the same way as our Governor-General does now. The difference is of course that Uachtaran na hEireann (President of Ireland) is the supreme Head of State, elected directly by the people, not the representative of a foreign hereditary monarch at the other end of the world, as is our Governor-General.

Dunne is calling for an eminent person group (as opposed to a Parliamentary inquiry) to recommend a model, to be put to us in a referendum by 2020, so that when Reddy's term ends we can have a democratic President not another foreign stooge. I'm not that fussed about the final model, but I want that foreign monarchy, and the secrecy and unaccountability it promotes, gone. And the quicker that happens, the better.

Dunne protects pokie parasites

In 2013, the government cracked down on the pokie industry, increasing the proportion of revenue it was expected to return to the community. Now, just two years later, Gambling Minister Peter Dunne wants to reverse that:

Increases to the proportion of revenue clubs and bars with pokie machines give to community groups will be delayed under a new Government proposal.

Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne said the possible breathing room for pokie operators came as they faced increasing financial pressure.

The rise of online gaming, lower drunk drive limits and stricter rules were possible factors he said.

"The levels of funding to the community from class 4 gambling have dropped significantly in real terms since 2004," Mr Dunne said in a speech to the Hospitality Association's annual conference in Nelson.

"We need to rethink the proportion of proceeds that societies give to the community. Some societies could go out of business because of the combination of higher fees, other cost pressures and a high proportion of proceeds required to be given back to the community.

To which the response is "so what"? Pokie trusts are parasites. The trustees drive BMWs paid for by the poor communities they exploit. The sector is riven with fraud and other crime, and tends to redistribute money upwards, from poor communities to wealthy ones. If they go out of business, no-one should shed a single tear for them. If we're concerned about maintaining the pool of grant money, then we should be making other forms of gambling pay more, rather than letting pokie parasites off the hook.

As for Dunne, once again he looks like a total tool of the hospitality industry. And if he's upset about people saying that, maybe he should change our minds by changing his decisions.

Humiliation

That's the only way to describe National's defeat in Northland over the weekend. You have to go back 30 years to 1985 to find another by-election where a government's candidate was defeated - and then it was a narrow victory. Winston's victory is a comfortable one. Turning a safe National seat into a safe (if Labour doesn't stand) opposition one is something I haven't seen before, and a testament to Steven Joyce's campaigning skills.

As for what it means, Peter Dunne and the Maori Party just became the effective checks on government policy they were in the last Parliamentary term. In concrete terms, that means that National's plans to oust local decision-making from the RMA and have Ministers micromanage everything (coincidentally turning them into a nexus for corruption and patronage - sorry, campaign donations) is dead again, because those two parties won't vote for it. And I think the same can be said for their plans to grant the SIS and GCSB wider powers after their strapped chicken "review" this year: the Maori Party won't vote for spies who spy on them, and they've burned Peter Dunne once already on this issue and he won't be fooled again. Which means they'll need to rely on Labour or NZ First for votes, both of whom are likewise suspicious / see some votes in refusing to give the government a blank cheque. They're still going to be able to pass a lot, but just six months into the term their policy agenda is in tatters. And meanwhile, the opposition will be able to pass legislation over their heads if it unites. There are three examples in the past month where they found issues they could all agree on: feeding the kids, paid parental leave, and warm and healthy homes. I expect we'll see bills for all of those reintroduced to the ballot the moment Standing Orders allow.

And meanwhile, someone should be asking Dunne and Flavell what they think of National's "mixed model" for Canterbury. Because that will require legislation, which means one or other of them has to support it. If they don't, Canterbury gets its democracy back by default in 2016 when the current law expires.

National is not going to cope well with this. They're the party of arrogant entitled people used to getting their own way. And now they're not going to. I expect much pouting and foot stomping. And I'll enjoy every minute of it.

A pure power grab

When the government proposed extending the duration of passport revocations in its recent urgent spy bill, several people raised the obvious question: what was the justification? Why was it necessary? Had the government ever had trouble using the courts to extend a revocation?

Thanks to an FYI requester, we now know the answer: no, because they never tried:

No application to a Judge of the High Court has been made for an order to extend a cancellation of a New Zealand passport on the grounds of national security using the provisions of section 8A(3) of the Passports Act 1992.

So, there was no "problem" to be solved by the bill (though if the courts were rejecting extensions, it wouldn't be a problem with the courts, but that Ministers were revoking passports without justification). Instead, it was a pure power grab. The bill's shoddy Regulatory Impact Statement said that it was just too much hassle for them to prepare documents for the courts after a year. Even if we accept that at face value (difficult given that they also say that they would be preparing repeated documentation and ongoing risk analysis for the Minister in the case of any extended travel ban), the administrative convenience of officials is simply not a good reason for interfering with fundamental human rights.

Naturally, Peter Dunne buried this admission until after the bill had passed. But he voted for this legislation knowing that there was no case for it. People should judge him at the ballot box for that.

Dunne and the GCSB

Peter Dunne isn't happy with the GCSB:

In a speech in Wellington last night, the United Future leader accused the Government Communications Security Bureau's director Ian Fletcher of trying to make Government decisions.

Mr Dunne said the first pillar Mr Fletcher laid out recently - that the agency should be "effective at defending the Government's own critical information against sophisticated cyber espionage, and against disruption from any source" - was a reasonable assumption.

But he had problems with Mr Fletcher's comments that the GCSB should be "conducting sophisticated intelligence activities against any legitimate target, no matter how hard", and that it should also be "a potent and effective contributor to military capability".

"With respect, I say to the director those are not his calls to make," Mr Dunne said.

[...]

The GCSB's credibility had been damaged by last year's disclosure that it may have spied illegally on 88 New Zealanders and it was up to the Government to decide what is a "legitimate target" and how the agency may contribute to military capability, Mr Dunne said.

"And as they are Government decisions, they should be formally conveyed by the minister to at least the intelligence and security committee and arguably the whole parliament, and then the GCSB required to report upon them," he said.

Dunne is completely right about the proper separation of powers: the GCSB is supposed to work for us, and that means it should follow priorities set by statute and their Minister. However, arguably they are: sections 8A - 8C of the GCSB Act define the functions of the Bureau as Information assurance and cybersecurity, (foreign) Intelligence gathering and analysis, and Co-operation with other entities to facilitate their functions (including the Defence Force). Peter Dunne voted for that legislation - indeed, his vote was the one that allowed it to be passed. If, like me, he thinks that the GCSB shouldn't have any role beyond securng the government's computers, then perhaps he shouldn't have voted for it?

And cheap-shots aside: I look forward to Dunne supporting legislation to gut the GCSB and eliminate its intelligence and defence support functions. Those functions have no place in a democratic society, and the sooner we cut the spies down to size, the safer we'll all be.

Statute or its bullshit

Last year, Peter Dunne betrayed us all by agreeing to support John Key's spy bill. His vote was crucial in ensuring the bills passage - he was the government's majority in the second and third readings. His excuse was that Key had promised him that the definition of "private communication" - a crucial term in the bill, which apparently allowed the GCSB to spy on our metadata without any regulation or oversight - would be reviewed to ensure consistency and to ensure that metadata could not be captured.

But it turns out that Key lied: there will be no review. And thanks to that lie, we have a bill which enables NSA-style mass domestic spying.

The lesson should be obvious: do not accept such promises from Key (or any other politician) in future. Instead, demand that concessions are enacted in legislation immediately - and if they require policy work, then delay the legislation until that work is done. Statute or its bullshit. Its that simple.

Back to hypocrisy again

Last year Parliament almost unanimously passed the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013. The bill ended the policy of attempting to regulate new recreational chemicals under the Misuse of Drugs Act and instead established an evidence-based regime which allowed substances to be sold legally if they could show they were low-risk. It was a bold step forwards on drug policy, one which hinted at an end to decades of wasteful prohibition and knee-jerk policy-making. And now, thanks to a moral panic and another election-year knee-jerk, its in ruins.

The ostensible justification is the harm caused by these products and "reports of severe adverse reactions". But Section 40 of the Act already permits an approval to be withdrawn if there is evidence a substance is not "low risk". Over on Public Address, Russell Brown points out that the government's claims that "[i]t has been impossible to attribute these adverse effects to any particular products" are bullshit and that the National Poisons Centre and users know which products are causing the problem. So why didn't the government use it and ban those harmful products? Simple. Firstly, it would be subject to judicial review, meaning the possibility of a court case and an embarrassing backdown if the government's evidence didn't stack up. And secondly, it would have given the Opposition a chance to grandstand instead - and as Peter Dunne made clear over Twitter, he wasn't going to let them do that:

do you really think the government would have given you a victory on this?

And so thanks to petty politics we're back to the insanity of blanket prohibition (with all the ills that that entails), not to mention the constitutional violence of all-stages urgency. Fuck you very much, Peter Dunne.

[And ditto to Labour. We had a good law, one you voted for, and you're feeding moral panic over it and destroying it basicly to make the government look weak. I guess for them its politics first and policy second]

Meanwhile we've been reminded once again of the hypocrisy inherent in drug policy. Old people's drugs - alcohol and nicotine - are legal, despite the immense harm and social costs they cause. Drugs which cause vastly less harm are not (and while its banning more of the latter, the government selects a tobacco lobbyist as a candidate). Such an approach does not reduce social harm. Nor does it encourage respect for the law or our political system as a whole. Instead, it makes it clear to all that our politicians are whores and hypocrites and that their law is an ass. As for the consequences, the widespread flouting of drug laws and declining voter turnout speak for themselves.

Compounding disadvantage

Peter Dunne has released his new flexible superannuation policy, and he thinks Maori and Pacific Peoples will benefit from it:

The proposal allows people to choose to take a reduced rate of NZ Super from the age of 60, or an increased rate if they defer taking up superannuation until they reach 70.

"Flexi Super lets people choose for themselves when they want to take up superannuation without being told by the government when they should or should not retire," Mr Dunne said.

"Maori, Pasifika and other demographic groups with shorter life spans would benefit most," he said.

Really? Yes, they'd be able to retire five years earlier - but they also die five years earlier. So if they retired early, they'd be paid the pension for just as long, but be paid less every week for doing so.

This "flexibility" simply seems to result in compounding the existing disadvantage of reduced life expectancy. Its obvious to anyone who thinks about it for an instant. What this says about Dunne's policy development process is left as an exercise for the reader.

Update: The full document is here [PDF], and oddly it doesn't even mention this problem. I guess nobody in United Future or Treasury bothers to think about the effects of their policies on poor or brown people.

The price of arrogance

Two interesting news stories which have crossed my radar in the last 24 hours:

• Dunne no fan of KiwiSaver deposit plan
  
• Care Needed with Child Abuse Policy
  

Two major policy announcements from National, two "meh"s from Peter Dunne. Dunne claims to be supporting long-established United Future policies, and he is. But as both of these policies need Dunne's vote to pass, the result is that they are effectively dead from launch. Normally governments consult their support partners and ensure there is a majority before announcing policy which requires legislation. But National has had things too easy for too long, and this seems to have led to arrogance. Dunne has basicly admitted that National didn't ask him about these policies (something which seems to be in breach of their confidence and supply agreement). And now they're going to pay the price for it.

(Meanwhile, wouldn't it be nice if Dunne stood up for those long-established United Future policies over the spy bill...?)

More lies from the Henry Inquiry

John Key's office has released the email trail between the Henry Inquiry and Parliamentary Services. And it shows that they've been lying to us about whether they had accessed Peter Dunne's emails:

Parliamentary Service gave a ministerial inquiry emails between UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne and Fairfax journalist Andrea Vance, it has emerged.

The revelation follows the resignation yesterday of Parliamentary Service head Geoff Thorn amid fallout from the Henry inquiry.

In documents set to be released this afternoon, it will be revealed that Parliamentary Service recalled the emails that it sent to inquiry head David Henry, who had been tasked with finding out who leaked a confidential report on the Government Communications Security Bureau to Vance.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) will issue a statement this afternoon saying the emails were never read and the attachments were destroyed.

But why should we believe that statement? Everything we've learned about the Henry Inquiry has shown that it has lied to us at every turn. It said it didn't have access Andrea Vance's phone records. It lied. It said it didn't have access to Peter Dunne's emails. It lied about that too. All it has done is lie to us in an effort to cover up its over-reach and constitutional abuses. Why should we believe it is doing anything different now?

Parliamentary Services manager Geoff Thorn has already resigned over this for bowing to the inquiry's demands, but more heads have to roll. DPMC Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite says he was one of the inquiry's commissioners, along with GCSB Director Ian Fletcher. Let's start with them.

Meanwhile, this pattern of deceit has been absolutely corrosive of trust in government. Such systematic lying means that we can no longer trust anything the government says. And that's not good for our democracy.

Dunne sells us out

Its official: Peter Dunne has sold us out to the GCSB:

UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne says he will support controversial legislation to expand spying powers.

Dunne said he was willing to vote for the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment bill after ''major amendments''.

The amendments give greater oversight of the GCSB's operations, which is welcome (though tempered by the knowledge that this is a lawless agency which might simply ignore them). But contrary to the clear message from submitters on the bill, there is no change to new powers granted to the GCSB. They will still be allowed to intercept all our internet traffic to allow them "to see who... is being attacked", and they will still be allowed to give that information to their foreign partners. They will still be allowed to use class-based warrants, rather than requiring a specific warrant for each suspect. And of course they will still be allowed to use those foreign partners to bypass the prohibition on domestic interceptions. Meanwhile, there's still been no public justification of this sweeping power grab, let alone an analysis of the costs of giving the powers to the (far better supervised) police.

Dunne's support for this bill flies in the face of all his self-proclaimed liberal beliefs, and will determine his post-political reputation. The "fuck one goat" principle applies here. Rather than being the man who gave us the Families Commission, or even the man who prevented any progress on drug laws for a decade, he will go down in history as the man who sold us out to the GCSB and NSA. If he doesn't want to be remembered for that, then he still has time to change his mind. Simple.

Unbelievable

John Key's chief justification for his spy law giving the GCSB the right to spy on all New Zealanders is cost: it would apparently cost too much for the police or SIS to be given their own capability for domestic law enforcement / counter-espionage use, so we have to legalise GCSB using theirs instead (and allow them to use it on everybody, just in case). So you'd expect them to have at least done the costings to back that up, right?

Wrong:

The Government has no idea what it would cost to have the SIS eavesdrop on New Zealanders and intercept their emails, despite saying cost is the reason for getting the GCSB to do it.

This is simply unbelievable. Working out how much a policy will cost is a basic part of the policy process - and certainly fundamental to any claim that not doing it would be more expensive. Instead, the Prime Minister just hasn't bothered, relying on the GCSB's aura of secrecy to prevent anyone from challenging his claim. But the result is that his arguments for the bill are an exercise in pure bad faith.

The good news is that Peter Dunne appears to be calling him on it, demanding an analysis before he will support the bill. And given that his vote is crucial, Key may just be forced to either substantiate his claim, or admit that it is bullshit and that he is selling us out for chump change.

Good news on the spy bill

Labour and NZ First hardening their stance against John Key's spy bill:

While Prime Minister John Key is still scrambling to get enough support to pass his GCSB spy bill by one vote, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said his concerns about the bill had widened beyond the four he specified in his first reading.

And Labour leader David Shearer scoffed at Mr Key's offer to review the new law in 18 months and provide for a mandatory review every five years after that.

[...]

At the first reading, Mr Peters suggested he could support the bill if his concerns were addressed.

But yesterday he said having sat through part of the committee hearings on the bill last week, those concerns had broadened to include at least the issue of metadata.

The latter in particular is very good news - it means that Winston actually paid attention to submitters and their concerns about privacy. Submitting actually made a difference!

And meanwhile, Peter Dunne isn't exactly keen either. So as it stands, this bill will fail unless it is given major amendments.

My outer cynic says one of these politicians - most likely Shearer - will inevitably betray us, and sell out our privacy for an image of "responsibility" and a pat on the head from John Key. But there is a tiny glimmer of hope there that they'll actually stand up for something and refuse to turn us into a totalitarian surveillance state. I guess we'll find out at the end of the month.