---
aliases:
- NZSIS
- New Zealand Security Service
- Security Intelligence Service
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-09-23
location: Wellington, New Zealand
relations:
- fn: 2
  start: 1974
  type: investigated
  with: '[[William Sutch]]'
- fn: 2
  start: 1980
  type: investigated
  with: '[[Vsevolod Sofinsky]]'
start: 1956-11-28
summary: New Zealand's domestic intelligence agency, founded in 1956 as the New Zealand
  Security Service on the model of MI5 and given its present name and a statute in
  1969.
tags:
- Organization
- NewZealand
- Intelligence
- NZSIS
- ColdWar
updated: 2026-09-23
---

The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) is [New Zealand](/places/new-zealand/)'s domestic intelligence agency. It was established on November 28, 1956, as the New Zealand Security Service; "until then, apart from a brief period during the Second World War, national security had been handled by the Police," and between 1956 and 1969 it "existed without a legislative base." The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act 1969 gave it its present name, recognized it in statute, and defined its role as protecting New Zealand "from threats of espionage, sabotage and subversion."[^1]

### Origins

The Police Special Branch was set up in December 1949 and concentrated on the Communist Party and other "radicals"; its limitations were exposed in the 1951 waterfront dispute. In November 1956 the government created the independent Security Service, and the Special Branch was disbanded by August 1957, after "a series of damning reports on the Special Branch from the controller general of police and from British and Australian security service officers" and amid concerns over corruption at the top of the police. The Soviet defector Vladimir Petrov had alleged in Australia that an informer was operating at a high level in the New Zealand government.[^2]

### The Cold War

The service, "closely modelled on the British [MI5](/organizations/mi5/)," concentrated its counter-espionage on the Soviet and East European embassies, and from 1973 on the new Chinese embassy. In 1962 it exposed two Soviet diplomats who were expelled for attempting to obtain information through bribery. In 1974 the economist and former senior public servant William Sutch was arrested and charged with espionage after an SIS investigation; he was acquitted. After the Sutch case and a scandal over leaked documents, the Ombudsman reported in 1976 that the service should concentrate on counter-espionage rather than counter-subversion; the amendment bill of 1977, which expanded its power to intercept communications, drew large protests. In 1980 an SIS investigation led to the expulsion of the Soviet ambassador, Vsevolod Sofinsky, for allegedly passing money to the Socialist Unity Party.[^2]

During the 1981 Springbok tour the service supplied Prime Minister Robert Muldoon with a list of eight "subversives" and seven "radicals not positively known to be members of subversive groups," which Muldoon published in an attempt to discredit the protest movement. In December 1981 an SIS officer mislaid a briefcase that was found by a ten-year-old boy whose mother, Fran O'Sullivan, was a parliamentary journalist; it contained, according to the reports, "three cold oval meat pies, two slices of cake, copies of the latest Listener and Penthouse, three identity cards, the man's letter of appointment to the SIS ... and pages from what appeared to be a notebook."[^2]

### The Stokowski Affair

Under Brigadier [Lindsay Smith](/people/lindsay-smith/), director from 1983 to 1991, the service declined to comment on the disappearance in March 1984 of the American known as Dr Stanley Stokowski, a director of [Chemical Technology Limited](/organizations/chemical-technology-limited/), whom a Sunday newspaper had described as a Russian spy; Smith said it was "a matter for the police and for customs."[^3] The man was the fugitive [R.C. Horsch](/people/rc-horsch/). Smith's term also covered the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.[^4]

### Legislation

The statutory definition of security was amended in 1977 "to take account of international terrorism," again in 1996 and 1999, and in 2003 to align with the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. Further changes followed with the Intelligence and Security Act 2017.[^1]

[^1]: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, "Our history." http://web.archive.org/web/20260513190640/https://www.nzsis.govt.nz/about-us/our-history
[^2]: Clayworth, Peter. "Intelligence services: The Cold War, 1945 to 1984," *Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand,* May 29, 2012. http://web.archive.org/web/20250919013618/https://teara.govt.nz/en/intelligence-services/page-2
[^3]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48
[^4]: "Obituary: John Lindsay Smith," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 20, 2002. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/iobituaryi-john-lindsay-smith/MKZ33367T76UQ4HMATRFJYPYGY/