KEY POINTS:
National Party leader John Key last night tried to defend himself over an embarrassing gaffe in which he revealed that he had a Security Intelligence Service briefing ahead of this week's dramatic police raids.
The security blunder has echoes of Helen Clark's own gaffe as Opposition leader in 1996 when she let slip the reason intelligence agents broke into activist Aziz Choudry's house in Christchurch.
But last night Mr Key insisted he had not breached any long-standing protocols in revealing that he had been briefed by the SIS.
Mr Key's comments about the briefing provided the first confirmation of the spy agency's involvement in pre-raid investigations, and yesterday prompted SIS director Warren Tucker to take the unusual step of issuing a press statement to explain.
Dr Tucker said he regularly briefed Mr Key on intelligence and security matters. The briefings were required by law. "The subjects of these briefings are necessarily confidential."
Mr Key has not said anything about the content of the briefing, given just before he left for Europe on Thursday last week.
"What I think is that people should be cautious in their comments until they see all of the facts unfolded," Mr Key told Radio NZ.
"New Zealanders should reserve judgment until the police have an opportunity to lay out fully their case before the courts, and at that point New Zealanders will have to decide whether the actions taken by the New Zealand police force were warranted," Mr Key said.
Dr Tucker said in his statement that the SIS had no powers to enforce security, such as arrest or detention, and that the "much-publicised operations earlier this week are a police matter".
Police raided locations throughout the country early on Monday seeking people and firearms allegedly linked to military-style training camps in the Urewera Ranges over recent months.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad said on Monday other agencies had been involved in the year-long investigation, which included extensive surveillance.
But Mr Broad would not discuss which agencies had taken part and Prime Minister Helen Clark has also refused to confirm any SIS involvement.
She deflected questions with, "I don't comment on security matters".
Staff from the Prime Minister's office delivered the SIS statement to Parliament's press gallery yesterday in order to help the agency, but nobody from Helen Clark down was willing to criticise the National Party leader for talking about his briefing.
A spokesman for Mr Key, who is in London, said National would not respond to any "ridiculous" claim that the Opposition leader had made a mistake by revealing the SIS involvement.
Mr Key is one of a handful of people who were briefed about the police raids in advance of their happening.
Mr Broad briefed Helen Clark late last week and she is almost certain to have been briefed by the SIS.
The commissioner also briefed Police Minister Annette King, and she then spoke with the leaders of Parliament's other political parties after the raids had taken place.
A group of officials - the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Co-ordination, which is chaired by the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet - met last week before the raids.
The committee provides strategic policy advice to the PM, with oversight in the areas of intelligence and security, terrorism, maritime security and emergency preparedness.
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said Mr Key's comment about the SIS was the first she had heard of its involvement and she questioned what it would have been doing.
