Tauranga Independent MP Brendan Horan is 'not ashamed” of being kicked out of Parliament after being refused an opportunity to speak on the newly passed GCSB and Related Legislations Bill.

The bill passed is third and final reading last night by 61 votes to 59.

Tauranga Independent MP Brendan Horan.

Brendan asked the speaker on two separate occasions if he could be heard on the bill but was denied the opportunity.

Assistant speaker Lindsay Tisch told him he wasn't on the previously agreed list and when Brendan tried to argue the point was asked to leave Parliament.

'I am absolutely passionate about our freedom, privacy and security. I was well within my rights to speak about the subject.

'I'm not ashamed for being rejected for trying to stand up for the rights of New Zealanders and protect the basic human rights of New Zealand.”

The GCSB and Related Legislations Bill gives the GCSB three functions - foreign intelligence gathering, cyber security and assisting the police, the Defence Force and the NZSIS.

Brendan says New Zealander's freedom, privacy and security have been compromised with the passing of this bill.

'On August 1, when the second reading of the bill was passed, I tweeted our democratic rights were being threatened and now they are compromised.

'With the emerging technologies we have and moving into a digital infrastructure the future for a lot of New Zealand business will be in the ‘cloud'. Within the wording of this bill it will allow the GCSB and indeed the United States, to be able to have access to personal intellectual properties.”
Brendan says this means people who have businesses in the cloud and have international partners will have all private information easily accessible.

'We haven't got the infrastructure to contain it all yet, but we are getting there, unfortunately we are about five years behind the rest of the world because of the slow rollout of our broadband and the limitations we have.

'We also had the ability to make New Zealand's isolation our strength and we could have become the information holding pen of the world because of our isolation. That opportunity is now lost.”

He says there are a lot of long term ramifications.

Prime Minister John Key says bill allows the GCSB to help protect government organisations and important private sector entities from cyber-attack.

'Despite ill-informed claims to the contrary, nothing in this legislation allows for wholesale spying on New Zealanders. It actually tightens, not widens, the existing regime,” says Prime Minister John Key.

'This essential legislation makes it clear what the GCSB may and may not do, and fixes an Act passed under the Labour Government a decade ago, which was not, and probably never was, fit for purpose.”

He says it clarifies the GCSB's legal framework and substantially increases oversight of the country's intelligence agencies, which will go some way to rebuilding public confidence in the GCSB.

Read more from John Key on the bill here