Spies should be no help

legislation which says the Government Communications Security Bureau should provide foreign intelligence to "protect and advance" New Zealand’s economic well-being. The problem here is the word "advance". It opens up a bulldozer-sized gap through which the spies can happily and legally charge.

The idea of protecting New Zealand’s economic well-being is easy enough to grasp. An official who betrayed New Zealand’s bottom line in negotiations with a foreign country over free trade - say, with China or the United States - would clearly threaten the nation’s economic well being.

But almost anything could count as "advancing" that wellbeing. In this case, the then head of the GCSB, Ian Fletcher, thought Groser’s campaign would justify some international snooping. Fletcher was so keen he suggested it to Groser himself.

Labour leader Andrew Little, whose complaint to Gwyn sparked her report, says he can’t see how Groser’s campaign for the job falls within national security, and he’s right. The law only allows it by redefining "security" in unnatural ways. Gwyn won’t comment on this part of the law - that’s a question for Parliament, she says.

The Government could plausibly say it was in New Zealand’s interests for Groser to get the job. He spent much of his professional life as a trade negotiator. So his success in getting the job would promote New Zealand’s general interest in free trade, a cause which both major parties support. But nobody expected Groser would use his position in the WTO to advance New Zealand’s particular trade interests.

This only means New Zealand would be justified in promoting Groser’s case by the usual diplomatic methods: lobbying governments and so on. It does not by itself justify calling in the spies to help.

Under traditional notions of "security", the spies could only be used if, say, rivals stood a strong chance of winning and then doing harm to New Zealand’s economic well-being. This would be a stretch. Groser’s rivals were the usual run of respectable trade officials and politicians, and the eventual winner, Roberto Azevedo,was Brazil’s ambassador to the WTO. The "advancing economic security" clause is also loose enough to allow spies to snoop on opponents of the current free-trade orthodoxy, and perhaps has already done so. It extends the rights of spies at the expense of citizens’ right to oppose.

What’s more, the spies failed: Groser didn’t get the job.