National Security — Security Risk Certificates
1. KEITH LOCKE (Green) to the Minister of Immigration:
Does the Minister stand by her statements in the House of 24 March 1999 that “I am frightened … that there will be people who will have a security risk certificate issued against them and they will not know why. They will be fighting windmills. They will be unable to defend themselves against specific charges because they will not be informed as to what those charges are.”?
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration):
No. On 24 March 1999 I rose in the House, raised those concerns, having asked the Minister in the chair to take the call to explain how the part would work in practice. The Minister, the Hon Tuariki John Delamere, did not take the call. Now that I have seen how the process works in practice, with the protection of the inspector-general’s review, I am satisfied with the process.
Keith Locke:
Does the Minister concede that Mr Zaoui, in terms of the security risk certificate taken out against him, is in exactly the same situation of not being able to see the evidence against him, and is that not precisely why the member, in a speech made in 1999, said: “I think this is an incredibly dangerous area for us to be moving into.”?
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL:
In this House I said at the same time that Labour members had struggled with Part 3, which became Part 4A, that we had great difficulty in accepting the changes that were put in place, but we were prepared to let them go. In the meantime we were prepared to look at having it implemented, and to review it once it has been in operation for a period of time. This is the first time the provisions have been used.
Keith Locke:
Is the Minister taking steps to verify independently the evidence provided as part of the Security Intelligence Service certificate of risk against Mr Ahmed Zaoui in the light of the discredited, broad-ranging dossier provided by the Security Intelligence Service to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, or does she agree with the Prime Minister that it is “a bit rough for the SIS to be somehow responsible for the quality of that information.”?
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL:
I refer the member to the statement put out by the Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service — the Prime Minister — yesterday where it is made absolutely clear that no classified information was provided to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, and that it was simply a compilation of publicly available materials, that it had no status, and was not used by the Director of Security in making the security risk certificate.
Keith Locke:
Does the Minister not agree, in reading the very detailed report of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, that the dossier provided by the Security Intelligence Service to the authority was very detailed, had a lot of opinion, had a biographical chronology of Mr Zaoui, related to a lot of sources, and had a description of both the Armed Islamic Group and the Islamic Salvation Front, with a lot of opinions, and that it was not just a handful of press clippings thrown to the authority?
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL:
I refer that member to the answer I have just given — that is, the service, in accordance with the Official Information Act, provided unclassified information it held. Among the documents provided was a chronological background of Ahmed Zaoui, based entirely on open-source material. The document was simply that — a compilation of publicly available materials.