The difference between scrutinise and abolish

NewstalkZB reports:

The Prime Minister is not comfortable with allowing Green MPs to be part of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The committee oversees the SIS and GCSB.

They are allowed to be part of it, and have been in the past. Andrew Little is the person who dumped them from the Committee, not Bill English.

With legislation reforming intelligence laws due back before Parliament next month, Labour is pushing for the size of its oversight committee to be broadened to include other political parties.

The Opposition have two seats on it. It is up to the Leader of the Opposition whether to give one of them to the Greens.

Bill English said he has not yet seen Labour’s proposal, but expressed strong reservations about the Green Party getting a position on the committee.

“They’ve got a deep-seated hostility to any intelligence apparatus at all, which is not a responsible attitude, and we wouldn’t want to foster it.”

But the Labour Party’s pushing for there to be broader political representation on the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Andrew Little is “very comfortable” with the Green Party being represented on the committee, saying it’d add to oversight of the spy agencies and public confidence.

The trouble is the Greens do not wish to oversee the agencies or hold them accountable. Their policy is to abolish them entirely. Their only interest is to undermine them.