Source: New Zealand Government
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Thank you to Dan Wildy for the kind invitation and for the hard work you do to keep this institute alive while balancing your day job at New Zealand Police.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you in person today. However, it is comforting to know that our intelligence professionals come together like this to share ideas and update each other on best practice. I say that because there has probably never been a time when your work is more in demand.
For a long time, intelligence insights from professionals like you, have been a key source of information and insight for decision makers like me.
You have enjoyed a monopoly on the best tradecraft; you have had the best relationships with overseas partners; and the best access to specialised technology from which to draw your insights.
It is fair to say that there are signs that monopoly is beginning to crumble.
Intelligence professionals are now competing in a highly contested information environment where there is some very interesting work happening in the open source.
My colleagues and I as decision makers rely on your hard work to cut through the noise by giving us clear, impactful and credible insights on the things that truly matter.
I am fortunate that I to get to read rich and impactful intelligence across all of my portfolios.
You can count me as a happy customer, but I’m not the only one that can benefit from your insights.
A key challenge for you is to understand how to use your insights to support a wider range of New Zealanders: from the private sector, to critical infrastructure operators, to community organisations.
These groups all make decisions that can have implications for our national security.
How can you provide actionable intelligence and guidance that organisations and citizens can actually use?
There will always be intelligence that is too sensitive to be shared broadly.
No one is expecting you to relinquish the Crown jewels, but there’s an opportunity to find a balance.
How you engage as intelligence professionals is crucial to ensuring New Zealanders have confidence that you are focused on what matters to support our nation’s prosperity and security.
Another key challenge is to understand how innovation and technology can support this endeavour.
New Zealanders need you to stay ahead of the threats. That’s not going to happen without an innovation mindset and embracing the technological solutions that can help us solve our biggest problems.
Today I will share my thoughts on these challenges, to hopefully set the scene for some of your discussions today.
Implementing the national security strategy
This Government is focused on ensuring a secure and resilient New Zealand- one that is protected as a free, open, and democratic society for future generations.
This is the vision outlined in our national security strategy.
The strategy sets out three priorities:
- Acting early to prevent national security threats and build resilience;
- Working together with our international partners, businesses, and people across New Zealand; and
- Adopting an integrated approach for our national security system.
As Minister of the NZSIS and GCSB, Defence, and Space, I’m lucky to see the great work happening in this area.
We are achieving some wins, and I think you can help us drive further change.
Acting early
The first priority is acting early.
Intelligence insights are absolutely crucial to helping the national security system, and the country as a whole, to act early on a range of threats.
I see this regularly in the reports that come across my desk.
In the cyber-security space the sooner we become aware of and take action against a threat, the stronger our defences are.
The National Cyber Security Centre’s Malware Free Networks, or MFN capability, is an excellent example of how early access to intelligence gives us the awareness needed to protect New Zealanders.
MFN has disrupted more than 500 million threats since it started operating in 2021.
If that’s not a success story for intelligence then I don’t know what is.
But there is the potential to deliver even greater impact.
There is some excellent thinking underway across the national security system about how we act earlier to disrupt the capabilities of these malicious actors and legally prevent them from striking in the first place.
When it comes to countering violent extremism, early intelligence insights are supporting efforts to disengage individuals from a radicalisation pathway.
The next step is to think about ways we can disrupt individuals when they are first engaging in violent extremist propaganda.
In order to stay ahead of the threats, the intelligence and security agencies need to do more than just collect intelligence and provide protective security advice.
What if the NZSIS was able to covertly divert an individual in some way? Or encourage a potential violent extremist to seek help and support? We could achieve an even greater impact.
In the murky world of foreign interference and espionage, early intelligence insights and protective security advice help prepare government officials and the private sector to visit countries where they may be targeted.
These insights can also support communities who are being targeted by transnational repression activities such as surveillance or harassment.
The new foreign interference legislation currently before the House will send a message to foreign state actors that this behaviour is unacceptable in New Zealand. It will also make it harder for them to operate here.
Working together domestically and internationally
The second priority from the strategy is about domestic and international collaboration.
We’ve seen significant advances from this intelligence community to make your insights more accessible to a broader audience of New Zealanders.
I may be biased as their Minister, but both the GCSB and the NZSIS have been shining lights in this regard- for example the GCSB’s annual Cyber Threat Report and the NZSIS’s Threat Environment Report.
I would like to congratulate the Service for publishing another excellent document last week.
This report brings these threats to life through clear descriptions of what we face and case studies based on actual activities that have been observed over the past year to 18 months.
There are some challenging issues in the report that will need to be addressed by our broader society.
It’s about time these conversations were normalised and for more people to understand why our national security is worthy of attention.
There is an attitude in some quarters that security and economic growth are somehow in competition with each other.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. You can’t have prosperity without security, and you can’t have security without prosperity.
In my space portfolio, we talk about growth and security in the same conversations.
We attract investment into this sector not only because we have brilliant people and technology, but also because we’re a safe place to do business with an enabling regulatory system and strong security provisions.
The most recent example of this is the ground-based space infrastructure legislation I recently passed in Parliament.
To be attractive to potential investors, New Zealand needs to show we can protect our IP and those of our customers.
That’s why I’m glad to see the NZSIS and GCSB raising awareness about the threat of foreign interference, espionage and cyber attacks. This is encouraging much more mature conversations about identifying threats and managing risk.
I would like to see these conversations taking place in boardrooms across the country, but particularly in our technology and research sectors.
If we don’t take security seriously enough, it will be a foreign state actor benefiting from our leading edge innovation, not New Zealand.
To foster collective understanding we must also focus on the work you do with our international partners.
I know those relationships are strong and I know they are vital.
You as intelligence professionals are well regarded, particularly within our most important relationship with the Five Eyes intelligence partnership.
We receive tremendous value from these relationships, but I know we contribute significant value too.
That’s why it is so galling to hear commentary that questions the value of our Five Eyes participation or claims that it interferes with our independent foreign policy.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and frankly it is time people grew up. We remain firmly in charge of our own destiny. In fact, our Five Eyes relationships help us to maintain our independence. When we receive good intelligence, we make good decisions.
I think it is time we talked more about the kind of value we receive.
It is as simple as this: our membership of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership contributes to the safety and security of New Zealand each and every day.
Being part of the Five Eyes gives us access to capabilities that help to disrupt drug flows. It helps us counter violent extremist, terrorist and foreign interference threats. It keeps us in the fight on espionage and cyber attacks.
Any cooperation with Five Eyes partners is always on our own terms. It needs to be done in accordance with our own laws and priorities, and our sovereign decision-making abilities are maintained throughout.
I think there are plenty of reasons for New Zealanders to have trust and confidence in these relationships.
The debate misses the real point – our security and prosperity, now and into the future.
Thank you for the work you do as intelligence professionals to keep our Five Eyes relationships so strong.
Adopting an integrated approach
I will finish with the third priority from the national security strategy: adopting an integrated approach.
Because of our size, we can only achieve the scale we need by working together and sharing resources across government.
New Zealand risks being left behind by the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence if we don’t look at how to achieve greater technological integration.
It’s important to get the transition to AI right, but we also can’t afford to muck around.
From a security and intelligence perspective, AI is important for three reasons:
- AI has huge potential to make your agencies more efficient and effective.
- Our adversaries are already using AI in ways that undermine our interests; and finally
- Intelligence professionals need to support New Zealanders to embrace AI safely and securely.
I am pleased that your agencies have work underway in these areas, but it would be even better if we went faster, if we were more joined up, and if we better leveraged private sector capabilities.
There is no point undertaking this work within our agencies’ silos – an integrated approach will make us both stronger and safer.
If you were after a challenging and rewarding career, you have come to the right place.
There are some incredible opportunities to deliver credible, impactful and actionable intelligence that has the potential to make a real difference. You are excellent at countering threats but let’s consider how you can disrupt threats too.
You are lucky enough to work with the best of the best both here in New Zealand and alongside your international partners.
My message to you is to make the most of those opportunities and always strive for better.
Thank you for keeping us well informed and for the great work you do to keep New Zealand safe and secure.
