Inquiries Bill

This is an interesting start to a bill, because within the preliminary provisions there are some relatively important points. Within that part there is the purpose clause. I must say that it is a very well-drafted purpose clause, and I want to compliment the work of the Government Administration Committee on that, and the Hon Rick Barker—

💬 Grant Robertson: Annette King as well.

Well, in fact I was going to go right back to Sir Geoffrey Palmer. Shall we get the history right, as to how this purpose clause got here? Annette King asked Sir Geoffrey Palmer to do some work. He gave that work to the Hon Rick Barker. It was introduced into the Parliament before the 2008 election. It was sent to a select committee and had its consideration during 2009.

💬 Grant Robertson: On 20 November it came back.

It came back on 20 November 2009. I think it is fair to say that, unlike the legislation that we have just been dealing with, this is something that has the broad support of the House. The Labour Party, after 4 or 5 years in Government, realised that there was a gap—a pretty massive gap—in the inquiries function and the ability to run inquiries. To make it clear for members who are not across it, a commission of inquiry or even a royal commission of inquiry is an enormous undertaking. They are exceptionally formal. There are a lot of requirements around them. They are expensive, and they are slow.

At the other end of the scale we have arrangements that can be made between the Prime Minister and the State Services Commissioner. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of issues that happen within the State sector generally can pretty easily be handled by inquiries that are set up by the State Services Commissioner at the request of the Prime Minister. But there is an enormous gap where things go wrong in the private sector or where there are issues in the private sector that have to be dealt with, and ministerial inquiries find it very hard where there is not cooperation, where there is not transparency, to get at facts and to make conclusions.

Therefore, it became clear to those of us involved in the previous Government, after 4 or 5 years in Government and the experience of a number of issues, that it was important that we got something that covered that gap. We thought: “What is the right way of doing it?”. Could we take the approach that the current Government takes to the Government Communications Security Bureau and just sort of make it up? Or could we get a decent organisation to have a good look, get a coherent piece of legislation coming back from that organisation, get it into the House, and try to get broad support for it? What we decided was that we would ask the Law Commission, which was at that time headed, I think, by Sir Geoffrey Palmer—someone whom most people in New Zealand think is a—

💬 Grant Robertson: Except the Attorney-General.

Well, the Attorney-General seems to think that Sir Geoffrey Palmer has an inferior legal brain to his.

💬 Hon Annette King: He thinks everybody does.

No, I disagree with my colleague about her cousin. I think her cousin knows he has an inferior brain to Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s and probably that of every other Queen’s Counsel in the country, and as a result of that we have some of the attitudes that flow through into the House.

💬 Hon Member: Inferiority complex.

Yes, an inferiority complex; there are a number of other expressions that could be used. But I am told by the deputy leader of the Labour Party that it is probably inappropriate to use those descriptions of the current Attorney-General.

But what became very clear to the previous Labour Government was that there was a gap and that we needed to fill it. So what we have done here is something that is designed to do that. It goes to questions around how the inquiry is going to be set up and how the members are to be appointed to it.

The actual detail of that comes in a later part of the bill. It goes to the powers and the duties and the privileges of the inquiry, and the immunities that apply to the inquiry and to its members. That is something that is quite important. It is exceptionally important in some cases. If I was David Henry at the moment, appearing before the Privileges Committee, I would be getting pretty anxious about the lack of immunities that I had been granted by the Prime Minister in that particular case. When you have senior Ministers—Gerry Brownlee, I understand; Judith Collins; and Anne Tolley—turning on the Prime Minister’s man, my view is that he will be looking to some of his immunities and some of the protections and some of the resources that he has got, because it is pretty clear that he has overstepped the mark, and I am relatively certain that the immunities that he would require are not properly in place. There are questions that go to the protection available for witnesses and counsel appearing before an inquiry.

Later on, when we get to clause 15, I will be putting forward an amendment. I do want to acknowledge and thank the Minister who is in charge of this bill—and I will just say that last night there was a bit of confusion as to who is in charge of this bill. Last night we had Nathan Guy move the motion on the bill. The bill was printed in Nathan Guy’s name, but on the Order Paper it said it was in the name of Chris Tremain. I have been informed by the learned Clerk that, in fact, it is the Order Paper that counts, and for good reason. When a Minister of Internal Affairs has been—who was the first one? Was that Worth? Was he a Minister of Internal Affairs?

💬 Hon Annette King: He was.

So we have had a bit of a churn—not a good history for Ministers—

💬 Hon Annette King: They’ve had lots of affairs.

Internal affairs? Well, there is not a good history. They lost Richard Worth. They were almost certainly going to lose Nathan Guy a short period after he was the Minister of Internal Affairs. And, frankly, Chris Tremain—in matters that are going to become clear to people as to what is going on in Napier, and in issues of corruption around dams—is himself unlikely to be a Minister by time of the end of this Government.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Or an MP.

Or an MP. Well, I think it is fair to say that he will probably make it to the end of next year, but that will be the end of it. But the point I am making is that in clause 15, which we will get to later—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well, not now.

—there are some protections, and I mean to put forward an amendment. But I can refer to it because I am referring to clause 3(2)(c), which refers to “the protection available for witnesses and counsel appearing before an inquiry;”, because this relates to that particular area. The Act does go to the 1908 Commissions of Inquiry Act, and repeals—

💬 Grant Robertson: Were you here when that passed?

Well, I can remember talk of it, and I have been subject to, I think, three or four lectures from the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer on the question of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, its benefits, and its problems. My advice to younger members—members who, unlike me, are not at the midpoint of their career but are a way off it yet—is they might want to get that lecture from Sir Geoffrey Palmer, because it is pretty informative. It does go to some of the things relating to performing ministerial duties in an appropriate way, which are really important.

I am sure my colleagues will soon be able to take a call on this important Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. Mr Mallard, in an interesting exposition on Part 1, covered the material around exactly what this part does. It establishes the purpose of the Inquiries Bill, and, in particular, it runs through a set of the changes to the Inquiries Act that are set out for how an inquiry can be established.

I think it is quite clear that across the House there is an enthusiasm for a range of different inquiries. As Mr Mallard said, at the moment we have the royal commission, the big kahuna of inquiries, at one end of the spectrum, and we have ministerial inquiries at the other. In the middle there is a grey area that needs to be filled and is filled by the public inquiry function and the ministerial inquiry function that are established under this bill.

There has been no better recent example for me of why the purpose clause of this bill is needed than the David Henry inquiry. Today in the Privileges Committee we were treated to an absolute circus. We had David Henry himself, the person who allegedly was undertaking the inquiry, telling us what he thought his powers and parameters were.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, he was more than allegedly undertaking—

Well, he was undertaking—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: —he was actually undertaking.

He was undertaking it under terms of reference set by the Prime Minister, which Mr Henry was quite clear enabled him to, for example, get Andrea Vance’s swipe card records. But then moments later we had Andrew Kibblewhite, the chief executive of the Prime Minister’s department, and Wayne Eagleson, the chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s office, come in and say that this inquiry’s terms of reference did not give Mr Henry that power. Or, in the case of Mr Eagleson, he said that he had not contemplated that it might give that power. There was complete confusion. It appeared that nobody knew what the parameters of this inquiry were.

Of course, the inquiry itself was fundamentally undermined by the fact that it did not have the powers that are given through the purpose clause here, which is the power to call witnesses and to call them under oath. Had Mr Henry had that power, we might actually know for sure today who leaked the Kitteridge report. As at today we have an accusation that Peter Dunne leaked the Kitteridge report, but we have no actual proof of that—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He denies it.

—because Mr Dunne denies it, quite categorically denies it.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Who else might it have been?

Well, that is right. My colleague Mr Lees-Galloway asks who else it might have been. If an inquiry was established—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Hey, hey, Grant, some of the others have history.

Yes, we will come back to that. If an inquiry was established under the purpose clause here in Part 1, which we are debating, it would have a range of powers and duties and privileges, as outlined in clause 3(2)(b), and that includes the ability to call witnesses on oath. That ability was not there.

Today in the Privileges Committee David Henry was asked—in fact, it was Kennedy Graham who asked him, actually—“Why didn’t you go back and get some more powers? You were charged with finding out who did this, who leaked the Kitteridge report, so why didn’t you go back?”. I do not think he answered the question. I certainly do not recall a definitive answer from him. That raises a number of questions about when Ministers call for inquiries. Sometimes they do not really want to know the result, and it may be that John Key did not really want to know who leaked the Kitteridge report.

Today what we have is an inquiry that was unable to fulfil its function. Its function was to get to the bottom of who leaked the Kitteridge report. Under this piece of legislation, that inquiry would have significantly wider powers, or the ability to have significantly wider powers, including calling people on oath, and for that reason alone this bill is worthy of support.

I want to raise a couple of other points. I am not going to speak for much longer, because I know that my colleagues are very keen to. But I want to raise another point within this part, and that is in the interpretation clause, clause 4. It is the question of who the appointing Minister is and who the appropriate Minister is. In the Henry inquiry—let us just be absolutely clear—John Key was what would be, under this clause, the appointing Minister. I believe that the appointing Minister of an inquiry has some responsibilities to actually ensure that the inquiry takes place in the way that it is meant to. I think that that is what is meant by the wording here. Unfortunately, John Key fell well short of that. I hope that if he is part of any future inquiries established under this legislation, he will actually take a more active approach and ensure that those inquiries are dealt with properly. But Part 1 is a reasonably good part.

I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. Part 1, of course, as has been noted by my colleagues, sets out the purpose of this bill, which is essentially to reform and modernise the law relating to inquiries. We absolutely support this in the Green Party, because the existing legislation governing the conduct of inquiries is over 100 years old and well in need of modernisation and updating.

I think that what this bill reflects is the fact that we need the ability to have different types of inquiries for differing situations. There are essentially two different kinds of inquiries that routinely get carried out. The first is an inquiry that seeks to get to the bottom of a particular issue or incident, and find out what happened, what went wrong, who was responsible, and so on—the most topical example, of course, being the Henry inquiry into the leak of the Kitteridge report. That has provided much fodder for consideration in this debate, and I will talk about that a little bit more in subsequent calls on other parts of the bill. Another example would be the Fonterra botulism crisis, which has prompted the resurrection of this bill from the bottom of the Order Paper in a sudden burst of enthusiasm from the Government to pass this legislation, because it realised it would have been quite useful to have it in place for that particular inquiry. There are many similar inquiries that are undertaken to determine what has caused a particular event.

The other type of inquiry is a broader kind of inquiry, and that is an inquiry that examines particular issues of national significance, makes recommendations, and often results in cross-party adoption of those recommendations and major change and steps forward in public policy. Some examples of those would be the Royal Commission on Nuclear Power Generation in New Zealand, which was set up in 1976; the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in the early 1990s, which resulted in the adoption of our MMP electoral system; and, of course, the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification about a decade ago. Those kinds of broad public inquiries are very important as well.

So this bill provides in Part 1, in the purpose clause, for two kinds of inquiries, both of which could be established to inquire into any matter of public importance. It provides for Government inquiries, which are established and led by Ministers, and it provides for public inquiries, which are established by the Governor-General and are independent of the Government, and within the scope of public inquiries can exist royal commissions of inquiry. In practice it is likely that the first type of inquiry, the ones that try to get to the bottom of something, some particular incident or issue, will be largely Government inquiries—those initiated by Ministers and with the terms of reference essentially driven by Ministers. The latter, the general inquiries, will be the public inquiries. But, of course, it does depend on the context, on the seriousness of the inquiry, and on the gravity of the situation. So there is flexibility within the bill for those to be applied flexibly, and either could apply in either situation.

Part 1 outlines how the remainder of the bill provides for basically the establishment and powers of those inquiries. So it talks about how the inquiries are set up, the membership of those inquiries, and the powers, duties, and privileges that the inquiry will hold. It talks about the protection for witnesses and the principles that will govern the inquiry, and it talks about the sanctions that the inquiry has available to it if people do not cooperate. All of these powers will be extended identically to both the public inquiries and the Government inquiries that are established under this bill. That is a key difference between this bill and the existing rules. At the moment the equivalent of the Government inquiries that will be enabled under this legislation are ministerial inquiries—those inquiries driven by Ministers. But at present ministerial inquiries have no power to compel witnesses to appear or to provide evidence before the inquiry, as we have indeed seen with the example of the Henry inquiry, which was before the Privileges Committee this morning.

Because of that, this is quite a fundamental change that this Government is making—to extend in the future to Government inquiries, which will be driven by Ministers, the power to compel witnesses to disclose evidence. It is a big change and it is an important one, which the Committee should take seriously. It is a big difference between what has existed under the existing legislation and what will exist in the future. As we have seen from the very topical example of the Henry inquiry, it is a very salient point as to whether a ministerial inquiry has the ability to compel witnesses to disclose information, particularly if it is the source of a journalist’s story, if it is a private communication between an MP and another person, or if it is, indeed, privileged information under parliamentary privilege.

In my contribution to the second reading debate last night I raised a number of questions about these concerns, and I outlined the fact that the Green Party was abstaining on this legislation at the second reading because of concerns about these protections and whether they were adequately protected under the legislation. I am pleased to say that upon closer inspection we are largely reassured here on the Green Party benches that the appropriate protections are in place in the bill. They are not outlined here in Part 1; they are found in Part 3. So when we get up to Part 3, I will speak more about the particular provisions that I think provide the adequate protection that will allow us to support the bill, because we are very much in favour of modernising the law governing inquiries.

But I want in this contribution on Part 1 to emphasise the importance of the Committee taking seriously the fact that we are now extending to Minister-led Government inquiries the power to compel witnesses to provide evidence. That is a big change and it does have a material impact on the very example that we have all been thinking about today—the Henry inquiry—because if that inquiry was held under the new legislation, David Henry would have had more powers to compel evidence from those appearing before him. So then a question of parliamentary privilege arises, and that question is whether things like Peter Dunne’s email records, Andrea Vance’s swipe card records, and the phone records between the two of them are covered by parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary privilege is still protected under this legislation, along with all other kinds of legal and professional privilege.

If the Privileges Committee rules that those things are privileged information, then they will be protected in future inquiries, but it is not yet clear that that is the case, because it is a live issue before the Privileges Committee. So I think it behoves the Committee of the whole House to have in mind when considering Part 1 and subsequent parts of this bill that we take very seriously the fact that we are giving more power to Government-driven, ministerial-led inquiries—which one would like to think would be apolitical, but which, in reality, often are not entirely apolitical. So it is very important that we have that in mind as we consider Part 1 and subsequent parts.

In my future calls on subsequent parts of the bill I will outline in more detail why we think the protections are in place to address some of the concerns I raised last night and why we are comfortable now to support this legislation going forward. But I would like the Committee to have in its mind as it continues with the Committee stage the fact that we are making quite a substantial change to the powers of ministerial-led inquiries so that we think carefully about the appropriateness of that.

It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 1 of this very important piece of legislation, the Inquiries Bill, and really to continue on from where the last speaker, Holly Walker, left off, which was to note the distinction between what we have now, where we have a law relating to commissions of inquiry and inquiries appointed under the authority of the Governor-General, and the existing situation with ministerial inquiries, which do not have the same status or standing, or certainly gravitas, perhaps, as commissions of inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act. This bill, and subclause (3) of clause 3 in particular, repeals section 2 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, which confirms that commissions of inquiry under that Act are convened under the auspices of the Governor-General.

This bill, once enacted, will give a similar status to ministerial inquiries to that which currently applies to commissions of inquiry. As Holly Walker has noted, that is a big step, but I would say that that is a good step. In addition to the many other enactments that provide for various inquiries—standing commissions of inquiry such as the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and Acts that allow inquiries to be established—this bill allows, at least in relation to those matters of important public interest that arise from time to time and that fall well under a Minister’s bailiwick, the Minister to act with some haste to establish an inquiry that has some authority and that can get to the bottom of those matters.

There is no question that as the complexity of Government administration grows, mistakes do happen, misjudgments happen, and catastrophes happen, and the public needs to know that if those sorts of circumstances arise, then we have the means and the machinery to ensure that an appropriate inquiry can be established, the causes of a particular incident or event can be established, and the public confidence can be restored. So that change in subclause (3) of clause 3, the repeal of section 2 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908, is a very important one.

I might say that it is quite coincidental that the Government introduced new legislation today for incorporated societies. The Incorporated Societies Act is another piece of 1908 legislation that has stood the test of time. There are not many pieces of 1908 legislation that remain on the statute book. The Trade Unions Act—

💬 Louise Upston: This is getting a bit bloody desperate.

—is another one. These are very important pieces of legislation that have stood the test of time—more than 100 years—and yet here we are, repealing these important provisions. I think that reflects—and I think Louise Upston understands and agrees with me—that after more than 100 years, circumstances change, and that it is important to consider modernity and what we need to do to modernise these pieces of legislation.

The other point I wanted to comment on was clause 4, “Interpretation”, and the definition given to core participant, which actually appears in clause 18, which is in Part 3 of the bill but is referred to in clause 4 by reference. I just want to make this point. I think that that is a worthwhile development—to give an inquiry that is set up under the aegis of this legislation, once it is passed, to allow the inquiry, a ministerial inquiry included, to establish who the critical people are whom it needs to talk to, so that they are given an immediate standing in terms of participation in the inquiry. I think that will enable inquiries, once they are called and set up, to get under way very quickly and to get the people who need to be involved, quickly involved as well. If there are other participants, other people who consider that they ought to be called upon, of course they can register their interest, and the person who is called upon to conduct the inquiry can very quickly make a judgment about whether those other perhaps slightly more peripheral people should be called upon. But in the meantime, it is good that we have core participants identified who can be called upon to make submissions and to give evidence to an inquiry.

Of course, that goes along with the power that is provided for in this bill, set out in clause 3—the new power to compel people to participate in an inquiry, as required. That would also, obviously, include core participants. So these are good and important measures when it comes to restoring public confidence in the Government.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. I want to begin just by commending my colleague the Hon Annette King for instigating this bill in 2008—some 5 and a bit years ago. The driving force for that instigation was the frustration that many people felt, as has been explained by other contributors in this part of the debate, and that many of us felt about the lack of ability of inquiries to really get to the basis of the truth. That is a really important point for the Committee of the whole House to consider, because the reason that inquiries are called for, whether it is at the instigation of the Governor-General or at the instigation of a Minister, is that from the public’s point of view there is some information that we do not have, and the public of New Zealand, quite rightly, expect that information to be made available to them.

These are about serious matters. We have had two very serious inquiries over recent times in New Zealand. The first one was in relation to the Pike River tragedy, and the Minister in the chair, the Hon Simon Bridges, is very familiar with the recommendations that flowed from that. I certainly hope that the focus on health and safety, particularly in the mining area, continues. What a massive tragedy we had to suffer before that focus was given, but it is there now. But, once again, we know that the families on the West Coast are frustrated about the lack of complete information that they have, and that is primarily because of the inability of the inquiry, because of its terms of reference, to get that information for them.

In my own town of Christchurch we have had similar situations with inquiries. In the royal commission of inquiry into the collapse of Canterbury buildings, we have seen in the example of the collapse of the CTV Building an extraordinary series of faults. People have acted irresponsibly, people have acted beyond the scope of their registration and their ability, and people have cut corners and lied about things being safe or otherwise, and as a result of that series of errors we lost 115 lives in one building. There cannot be a greater call for the right of the public to know what happened in the first instance and the right of people to be confident that Parliament will address the causes of tragedies such as the two I have just outlined, so that the public of New Zealand—our citizens—can be sure that we know the facts and we address them in order to make sure that such situations can never occur again.

That is not the current situation with inquiries. For a variety of reasons, there are often frustrations for either the person leading the inquiry—or, in my view, more important—members of the public who are waiting for the information that is so critical for their ability to understand the situation and, perhaps, if it is appropriate, to move on in their lives. The ability of the terms of reference to be set in a way that satisfies that public interest is not in the current law. In 2008 Annette King recognised that. She got a very good report from the Law Commission, and this bill was a result of that. It was reported back to Parliament by what I understand was an excellent Government Administration Committee. It was chaired at the time by David Parker. Our deputy leader, Grant Robertson, sat on that committee. He has contributed—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He was a junior member at the time.

He was a junior member of the committee at the time. That is how long ago it was—2009. And here we are some time later, 4½ years later—actually, 4 years and 9 months later—looking at this with some urgency.

I want to go on, later in this debate, to the reason for the urgency, but I just want to briefly allude to it before I move back to the other questions about the scope, which are dealt with in the primary purpose of this legislation. The Government has brought this Inquiries Bill back to the House suddenly, with such huge pressure, for a very serious reason, and that is the Fonterra issues of contamination in our exports. I do not think that there is a single member of this House who would not confirm that in relation to potential contamination of any of our export products, the safety of consumers, particularly when those consumers are children, is paramount. So I want to say to the Government that despite its total inability to manage its legislative programme, which has left us looking at this bill in August 2013 when it was reported back to the House in 2009, and also the inability of its management this evening, demonstrated by an extraordinary proposal by the senior whip on a bill that we all agree with and which is now going to take a little longer than perhaps may have been envisaged because of a lack of willingness to listen to what other people say, work out what their concerns were, and get the bill progressed, I do not want anyone to be in any doubt of my view and the view, I think, of every member of this House. In relation to the Fonterra issue and the need for a robust inquiry, there would not be a single member who does not say that the safety of children and other consumers in relation to our exports is paramount. That is why I certainly support this bill progressing.

I heard the member Holly Walker, the Green Party member, express the Green Party’s original concerns about the potential for overuse of some of the powers given in the bill. I appreciate those concerns and I think they are very valid. I guess our awareness of those sorts of concerns is heightened, given that just a little while ago—almost an hour ago—the Government rammed through the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation, which in any ordinary time and with a Government that was considerate of the rest of Parliament, and, indeed, of its citizens, would have received much more collaboration, discussion, and thought and received, if not the unanimous support, the overwhelming support of Parliament because of the nature of the process that would have been put together to address any changes. That is often the sort of work that an inquiry would do. An inquiry can step aside from the politics of the situation, examine the circumstances that people have identified as being a problem or an issue that needs examination, and make independent recommendations to Parliament. I think it is the responsibility of this Parliament to behave more like that on a lot of issues, but particularly in regard to issues of national security. It is exactly the opposite of how the Government behaved this afternoon and this evening in relation to the passing of the GCSB legislation. So I think the concerns that Holly Walker raised were absolutely correct to be raised, and I am really pleased that she has found that the amendments, as outlined, and further consideration have given her party the ability to support this bill.

How the membership of an inquiry panel is set up, what powers it has, what duties it has, and what privileges it has—these are all set out in the changes outlined in Part 1. The ability to call witnesses, to require witnesses to attend an inquiry, and for the witnesses to testify on oath is a big change. Certainly, had that been the situation with the David Henry inquiry into the leaking of the Kitteridge report, the outcome for Peter Dunne and his ministerial post—and perhaps the outcome in terms of other people who have fallen victim; who have been used as scapegoats, actually, by the Government, in my view—in regard to the leaking of the Kitteridge report may have been entirely different. I do think that when you are talking about people who have very little ability to speak in this House in defence of their position and to defend their own personal integrity, or where you have people who might lose their Public Service positions and who have no ability for a comeback from that in the future—Wellington is a village; we all know what happens in those situations—it is the responsibility of anyone in a position of power, and the National Government certainly is in this regard, to maintain a position of absolute integrity and independence from the situation and from the judgment and from the ramifications. That has not been the position in regard to either David Henry or the other people who have been involved in the subsequent fallout.

I was stunned, actually, to hear tonight the stories of the National Party members of the Privileges Committee—that is, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, the Hon Judith Collins, and the Hon Anne Tolley—and the way they turned on David Henry in that Privileges Committee hearing in a way that I am not sure I recall having occurred before in my time in Parliament. I heard of the disrespect, the abuse of a powerful position, and the total undermining of the fact that that man was appointed to do a specific role and did his job not just to the best of his ability—I do not know him at all, but he was appointed by the Prime Minister because of his ability—but also within the mandate of the inquiry that he had. So I think that when we are looking at the way that people run inquiries, we have to recognise that until this bill becomes law, they are restricted by the mandate, by the terms of reference, by the scope, and by the law of the inquiry that they have been tasked with. I do not think that Mr Henry has been treated by Government members on the Privileges Committee in a way that is appropriate, and I do not think that it has been a fair reflection of the role that he was asked to undertake and that he took within the scope of that inquiry.

So because we do not have, as this bill makes obvious—in Part 1 we change all the rules—the scopes for inquiry, and because we currently do not have that ability or the power to call witnesses and to require witnesses to appear on oath, we still do not know who leaked the Kitteridge report. As a result of the fallout, not only has a Minister lost his position but also we have had the amazing exposure of information about the fact that the Prime Minister’s political chief of staff can get access to the phone records and swipe access cards of members of Parliaments and members of the press gallery, which tell people—other people who are inquiring into something that might be irrelevant—which parts of the building we have accessed. Many of us might think in response to the naive comments that the Prime Minister has made that if you do not go anywhere that is a bother, then you should not have a concern about it. Well, I reject that. I reject it because my right to privacy and my right to security as a New Zealand citizen should be reinforced by the Government, not undermined by it.

We have not had just the example where Wayne Eagleson from the Prime Minister’s office is able to put pressure on various parts of our parliamentary system to get access to information about our movements; it is information that we could not get through a normal process of inquiry. I hope those sorts of—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Just come back to—

—in Part 1—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No. You will have to do better than that.

Clause 3, the purpose of the bill, is to extend the ability of inquiries to get this sort of information openly and with accountability and transparency, compared with what we have seen done with skulduggery and political pressure in the last little while in New Zealand.

I want to finish by just going back to the Fonterra inquiry. Our exports are of fundamental importance in terms of our reputation internationally, in terms of our economy, and in terms of how we relate to people and nations around the world. That reputation has had a number of dints in recent times, and one of the driving forces for this bill coming back to the House now is to ensure that the Fonterra inquiry is able, through its enhanced scope and powers, to give not just the public and the citizens of New Zealand but those who will shop for, and hopefully buy, our exports from the shelves in many countries the confidence that we were as concerned about contamination in New Zealand as they were, and that we got the full truth about the situation, aired that full truth, and made sure that what we learnt from that contamination was addressed so that it could not happen in the future. The security of our exports and the safety and security of consumers are of critical importance.

I was not going to take a call in the Committee stage of the Inquiries Bill, but as it seems everyone else is now in favour of the bill it may be useful for me to take a short call. I have a letter from the Speaker guaranteeing me the same rights and privileges of any MP within this House, and I was speaking on that before I was foully given a yellow card earlier this evening—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The member may not refer to a matter that was in a previous bill. That ruling has been made and done. If the member is going to use this opportunity to redress that, I will terminate his speech.

Thank you, Mr Chairperson. I was not able to talk in those second and third readings and not able to do anything about that, but I will not seek to take more than a proportionate time of this Committee.

Last night when the House was considering the second reading of this Inquiries Bill, I was in Auckland at a meeting of 300 to 500 people concerning Nathan Guy’s Snapper 1 snapper review. Parliamentary business takes many forms—the swans in Hyde Park, as Paul Swain recalled in his valedictory speech, and, in August 2013, being able to catch a feed of snapper. But this morning, arriving back from Auckland, I caught up with the Hansard from last night and learnt that Holly Walker and Metiria Turei had expressed the concerns that I had.

This law change is being passed after languishing on the Order Paper since November 2009, having made absolutely no progress since the Government Administration Committee reported on it. The issues with it have been well canvassed, and I do not need to repeat them. I could deliver a dissertation on the benefits of the Government having a well-managed legislation programme instead of a logjam on the Order Paper of sometimes 50—and often 60—Government bills. Then yesterday a substantial, revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 330, appeared in the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs, having presumably being expedited through Cabinet and departmental processes in the past week or two.

I take my purpose and responsibilities as a member of Parliament scrutinising legislation seriously, and I do all I can within the resources and the hours available to me. I make the effort to consider my vote on every bill, and my vote opposing the second reading was based on caution—based on the knowledge that those who legislate in haste often repent at leisure.

When I first read this bill I immediately found a spelling error. At first I thought it was self-depreciating humour, and it is appropriate that that member, the Minister of Energy and Resources, is in the chair beside you. I thought it was humour of the stuttering, bumbling administration of the Snapper 1 proposals, of the Crown minerals bill and other bills that have passed through this House.

But I am today still concerned that the revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper, a document of some 25 substantive pages, has changes to the bill on 15 of those pages—60 percent of the pages have changes. I do not know what devil may lurk in that detail. I was not able to look at every page, but I know that some parties have been negotiating with the Government, have been looking at the detail, and have been making progress. That is their right and their duty, and that is good. However, I believe that it is good for there to be time available for interested parties to be able to look at proposed changes. What would the Law Commission, the Law Society, or, indeed, others think of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, with changes on 60 percent of the pages? We simply do not know, because there has not been time.

I would draw two matters to your attention. Some time ago the Minister of Justice of the day brought the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 3) to this House. I would like to quote from Doug Graham’s Hansard from 29 February 1996, moving the second reading of the bill, the equivalent of what is now the first reading, after changes to Standing Orders. In moving the bill, he said: “It tidies up a printing error that occurred in the Office of the Clerk during the preparation of the assent copy of the Electoral Amendment Bill (No. 2). Members will recall that in passing section 79 of that Act, the House agreed that the threshold figure and the definition of national donation in the new section 214f of the Electoral Act would be $10,000. Unfortunately, when the Clerk’s Office came to prepare the assent copy, a zero was omitted from the figure so that it mistakenly became”—

I move that the motion be now put.

I am not accepting that—you have not used the right words.

So, “ … a zero was omitted from the figure so that it mistakenly became $1,000.” I remind the House of this not to embarrass, but to point out that stuff happens.

Then I ask the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Energy and Resources, to turn his attention to schedule 2 of the revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper 330 to the Inquiries Bill and the proposed new paragraph (ha)(i) of the definition of “official information” in section 2(1) of the Official Information Act, which refers to “any mattter subject to an order”. Yes, the word is spelt “mattter”, with three “t”s. It is not self-deprecating humour, because it has been there since 2009. How can anybody support this bill when there are these obvious mistakes, these errors? I suppose this Government in its haste will just turn to Standing Order 312 and rely on the Clerk of the House to correct typographical errors. But that is not good enough, and I cannot support this bill.

I must say it is interesting that in earlier times in this House this Government was in such a rush that it would deny this member opportunities to speak in first readings, second readings—not for 5 minutes, not for 4 minutes—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I have cautioned the member. We are on Part 1, and that is what he should be referring to.

Thank you, Mr Chairperson. I cannot trust that this bill does not have any more errors in it, and therefore I will not be supporting it.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to Part 1 be agreed to.