Monday, July 15, 2013



Spy bill submissions

Normally when a select committee hears submissions on a bill, they post them online on the Parliamentary website to inform the public. Except, apparently, for the Intelligence and Security Committee - they've refused to post submissions on John Key's spy bill. Meaning that the public can't see just how few people supported it.

Fortunately, Stuff's Andrea Vance has got hold of them, and posted them here [PDF]. I wonder if they'll try and prosecute her for it?

I'll post an analysis of submissions once I've had time to skim them all.

Update: 124 submissions, with Jim Veitch the only person in favour of the bill (and he was outnumbered by cranks talking about the bicultural constitution and the Palmerston North windfarm conspiracy). While many of the submissions were form submissions (including about 10 people who had simply copy-pasted my one - thanks guys for reducing my impact), there were a lot of people who had simply written an email to say "I object to this bill because it invades my privacy". Sadly, I suspect that Key will listen to the spies, on the basis that their information is secret and unverifiable and therefore Must Be True, rather than ordinary New Zealanders.