Blunder blocks spy agency’s eyes

Ma¯ori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta says compulsory te reo in schools is the logical endpoint of her Government’s language policy.

The Government’s current policy only calls for an increase in te reo teachers to make the language universally available in school, and for it to be ‘‘integrated’’ into the primary and early childhood curriculum by 2025.

The Government has specifically avoided the word ‘‘compulsory.’’

Indeed, on Monday Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern repeatedly failed to endorse the Green Party’s calls for it to be made compulsory, saying ‘‘universally available needs to be the first step’’ in answer to questions about her support for it.

During the election campaign Ardern said that she would want to ‘‘keep that conversation going’’ once te reo was universally available in 2025.

But yesterday morning Mahuta made clear what that first step was towards in her mind – compulsory te reo.

‘‘In order to deliver on compulsory te reo Maori we would have to increase the number of Maori teachers in our schools,’’ Mahuta said.

Asked directly if that meant compulsory te reo was the end goal Mahuta said it was ‘‘I think it’s only a matter of time’’.

‘‘It’s not if it’s when. We need to ensure we have the pool of teachers available so they are able to go into schools to be able to teach te reo Ma¯ ori,’’ Mahuta said.

‘‘If we look at mainstream schools like King’s College, who have already made a commitment to compulsory Ma¯ ori to Year 9, that’s a signal that New Zealand is ready, it’s just that the education system isn’t.’’

This isn’t the first time a Labour minister has drifted slightly from the party line on whether or not te reo would be compulsory. Associate Ma¯ori Development Minister and chair of the Ma¯ ori caucus Willie Jackson said in December he ‘‘didn’t think it was a difference’’ between compulsory and universally available.

The incoming briefing to Mahuta revealed that in 2013 just 21.3 per cent of the Ma¯ ori population were able to hold an everyday conversation in te reo and that number was dropping. If the trend continued only 12 per cent of Ma¯ ori would be able to speak te reo by 2038.

The Green Party’s policy, which its new co-leader Marama Davidson is pushing strongly for, is to make te reo compulsory in all public primary and secondary schools by 2030. For six months in 2017 the NZ Security Intelligence Service was unable to get visual surveillance warrants, which allow New Zealand’s spies to use video surveillance tools to watch terrorism suspects in their cars, homes or workplaces.

Former minister in charge of SIS Chris Finlayson said the legal blunder was the fault of the spy agency or DPMC, not himself, and if there had been a terrorist attack during that time, it would have been the fault of the security officials who he believed failed to spot the issue.

In a briefing to the minister on June 30, 2017, SIS director-general of security Rebecca Kitteridge told Finlayson about the gap in the law, which meant from April 1, 2017 to September 28, 2017, the agency did not have the power to seek or be granted a visual surveillance warrant.

As part of the Countering Foreign Fighters legislation, amendments were made to the SIS Act in 2014.

The amendments allowed the agency to apply for visual surveillance warrants to detect, investigate or prevent a terrorist act, and for urgent authorisations granted by the director-general.

But this amendment had a sunset clause, which came into effect on April 1, 2017. So until the Intelligence and Security Act took effect on September 28, 2017, the SIS was left without that tool.

A second briefing to the former minister on July 6, 2017 said the oversight arose through the Cabinet recommendations and drafting instructions, it was not a drafting error.

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet deputy chief executive of security and intelligence Howard Broad said the oversight occurred during the development of the bill and was not picked up by DPMC or the agencies during its passage.

Yesterday, Finlayson said he went through the amendments ‘‘clause-by-clause’’ with the SIS and it was up to them to raise any gaps, which they did not, meaning the responsibility lay with the agency.

On the bottom of the June 30 briefing paper Finlayson made it clear he would not change the law in order to plug the gap.

‘‘You will not be seeking a legislative solution AT ALL. Don’t even bother asking. This should have been covered in the transitional provision.’’

While Kitteridge did not ask for the minister to rush through any legislation to fix the problem – as he had received criticism for doing in the past – Finlayson said he believed the briefing was a ‘‘pre-cursor’’ to the SIS asking him to make legislative changes.

‘‘I wanted to make it clear beyond any doubt that if they were thinking along those lines they should think again... it was never explicitly asked, but these things never are,’’ he said.

‘‘I made it very clear to them that I wasn’t going to be pushing through any urgent legislation... the media had criticised me and the Government in 2011 and 2013 when intelligence legislation was dealt with under urgency, and I was determined while I was minister there was going to be no repeat performance of that.’’

Finlayson said he did not believe New Zealanders were put in danger because of the legal blunder.

But when asked who would have been at fault if a terrorist attack happened on New Zealand soil during that period, he replied: ‘‘they would have been’’.

Yesterday, Kitteridge said the situation was ‘‘by no means ideal’’.

‘‘But we did have other tools in our toolbox. We were pleased when the new law came into force on 28th September 2017.’’

Kitteridge said terrorism continued to be an ‘‘obvious threat’’, and the SIS continued to focus on keeping Kiwis safe.