The new Parliamentary Intelligence and Oversight Committee has been announced, and it has the potential to be a milestone for intelligence oversight in NZ. Tariana Turia and Rodney Hide were appointed by John Key (who chairs the committee), and Russell Norman was chosen by Phil Goff (who also serves on the committee). Turia and Norman lead parties that have had their members spied on by the SIS or Police, and Hide has opposed on libertarian grounds the expansion of security based constraints on civil liberties (he opposed passing of the Terrorism Suppression Act, among other things). Thus three out of the five new members have been critical of the intelligence services, which is in stark contrast to previous members during the Fifth Labour government. Although the possibility of their being coopted cannot  be discounted, there is an equal if not greater possibility that their appointment signals a shared belief by Mr. Key and Mr. Goff that the time has come for a review of the way intelligence operations are conducted in NZ. Lets hope so. There are already signs that moves in that direction are afoot–Mr. Key’s request of the SIS Inspector General to report to him on the domestic spying programme and SIS Director-General Warren Tucker’s apparent commitment to more transparency being two examples–but what is needed is for the committee to undertake a thorough review of the NZ intelligence apparatus, including its legal charter, operational conduct and organizational focus, and its accountability to parliament as well as to the government of the day. In short, rather than the ineffectual government and SIS lapdog that it was during the Fifth Labour government, the committee needs to grow some teeth and bite hard into the meat of the matter–the lack of transparency and accountability traditionally exhibited by important elements of the intelligence community. That requires a re-write of its charter, since it is not a select committee and therefore does not have the independence or authority to demand classified briefs (or any other information) from the agencies it supposedly oversees. A more detailed review of the potential for reform embodied in the new committee is offered in this month’s “Word from Afar” column at Scoop (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0903/S00147.htm). For the moment, the new committee should be applauded, yet more importantly, encouraged to undertake its responsibilities in pursuit of a new culture of democratic accountability and transparency in the NZ intelligence services.