Spark gave GCSB heads up it would go public on Huawei block

Wednesday, 15 May 2019

The controversy over the 5G block on Huawei later morphed into a row over whether Spark should have said there was one.

Spark gave the Government Communications Security Bureau a heads-up in November that it was going to go public with the news that the spy agency had blocked its proposal to build a 5G network using equipment from China's Huawei, documents released by the GCSB show.

Regional Economic Development Minister and NZ First MP Shane Jones blasted Spark boss Simon Moutter in March for publicising the fact that the spy agency had put the kybosh on its plans, saying the fall-out – which included concerns China might retaliate – had caused 'anxiety and stress' for New Zealand exporters.

But documents released under the Official Information Act by the GCSB showed Spark did at least give the spy agency advance warning of the statement it released to the NZX on November 28, in which it said the GCSB had turned down its Huawei 5G proposal.

Its release said Spark was disappointed with the decision, but was confident that it would not in itself derail its ambition of having a 5G network up and running by July next year.

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The heavily-redacted documents released by the GCSB include briefing papers on Huawei provided to its director-general Andrew Hampton and the minister responsible for the spy agency Andrew Little, and email correspondence between the GCSB and Spark.

They do not show whether the GCSB would have preferred Spark to keep its decision on the Huawei block out of the public eye, but they do show the GCSB told Spark the day beforehand that neither the spy agency nor ministers intended to make the decision public.

The redacted documents appear to shed no fresh light on the detailed reasons for the GCSB blocking Spark's proposal.

Much of the contents of a 12-page briefing paper from Hampton to Little dated November 26, in which Hampton advised Little of the GCSB's decision, was blocked out.

The paper said Hampton had determined that Spark's proposal would raise a 'significant network security risk' and noted that 5G networks were different from mobile networks that preceded them in that many of the sensitive functions of 5G networks would be distributed across those networks rather than residing in a central core.

Spark spokesman Andrew Pirie said Spark had not yet decided whether it would seek to mitigate the concerns that had been raised by the GCSB over its original proposal and resubmit a plan to use any Huawei equipment in its 5G roll-out.

Were it to do that, and if it was still unable to allay the GCSB's security concerns, Little could be called on to make a final decision.

The alternative could be for it to give up on the proposal and buy equipment from Nokia or Ericsson.