Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee—Draft Report of Māori Affairs Committee

I move, That the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege relating to an article published in the Sunday Star-Times purporting to summarise the contents of a draft report of the Māori Affairs Committee on its inquiry into the Crown Forestry Rental Trust.

Mr Speaker, the Privileges Committee has met on this issue, which was referred to the committee by you. I give an apology to the House for the delay. The committee was dealing with the other matter that was before us—on the question of citizenship. No tardiness was meant but, unfortunately, we were not as quick to rule on this issue, or to bring down recommendations, as we would have liked.

There are four key recommendations that we have put to the House. One is that the House take no further action on this question of privilege. That is not because there are not serious issues, but in terms of the evidence before the committee, in terms of what we were able to find, based on what was before us, we are not of the mind that we are able to take actual action against any particular individuals on the issue. But we have recommendations, because out of this hearing came some important issues.

The second recommendation is to you, Mr Speaker, and it states that we have asked the Speaker to “refer the issues raised in this report to the chairperson of the Press Gallery to deal with in accordance with the rules of the Gallery and to ensure that members of the Press Gallery are fully aware of the House’s confidentiality rules in respect of select committee reports.”

Thirdly, our recommendation is that select committees “clearly separate their procedures for obtaining responses to allegations made in evidence, under Standing Order 223, and the procedures for obtaining responses to adverse findings, under Standing Order 242.” The two separations there are these. One is where, in the course of deliberation on a particular matter by a select committee, there are matters that the committee wishes to put to an individual or an entity, because they have adverse statements with regard to that individual or entity—that is one step. The second step is the question, once a report is in draft, of a need to have comment from individuals or entities that are named in that report—that is a separate step to be taken. In this issue, there was a mixing up of issues of adverse allegations with regard to one particular individual—Sir Graham Latimer, the chair of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust—and the draft report itself.

Finally, our recommendation is that where the select committee seeks submissions on adverse findings under Standing Order 242, the confidential nature of those findings be made absolutely clear to anybody making such submissions—that is, of course, confidential until the report is delivered to this House.

The background to this question was that the Māori Affairs Committee, in the last Parliament and in this Parliament, was conducting an inquiry into the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. Subsequently, on 8 June 2003, in the Sunday Star-Times, a report was published, written by a journalist for that paper, Mr Jonathan Milne, which stated, first: “The report is understood to describe his fees—for just over 200 days’ work—as ‘grossly excessive’.”, then, later in the article: “The report will recommend the government abandon its policy of big, comprehensive Maori settlements, instead speedily returning forests to local Maori without waiting for wider grievances to be considered.” The wording of that article led the select committee to believe that a copy of the draft report was with that particular journalist.

When the Privileges Committee was seized of this matter, it saw that, first of all, two issues existed. One was the question of finding out from individuals whether they had any comments to make on adverse allegations. The second was the question of whether, in a draft report, there were any issues that should be commented on by any particular individual. I have already stated in the previous part of my speech that those are two issues that we have recommended should be separated out. Unfortunately, in this case they were not.

The Māori Affairs Committee, when it wrote to Sir Graham Latimer, did not state clearly to him that the matter was confidential. We accept that Sir Graham Latimer is an experienced person in public life. Nevertheless, we believe that a select committee should make it very clear, so there is no room for doubt, to any individuals or entities it writes to what they are allowed to do with the particular document that is sent to them. In this case, that was not done, and that was very important in terms of the findings of the committee. That is a criticism from the Privileges Committee of how the Māori Affairs Committee dealt with the matter. However, we are aware that all of us are able to sit on select committees, so we wish this finding to be a generic statement, and, in terms of the recommendations, we have written to all the select committees, pointing that out to them. We hope that is a positive outcome from this particular issue, and that greater care can then be taken in the future.

The committee heard from three people, two in person and one by letter. By letter we heard from Sir Graham Latimer. There were reasons why Sir Graham could not appear before the committee, and we accepted that. We heard in person from the Chief Executive of the Crown Rental Forestry Trust, Ms Karen Waterreus, and also from the journalist of whom the allegation of a breach of confidentiality was alleged, Mr Jonathan Milne.

Sir Graham Latimer wrote to us: “The Chief Executive informed me the reporter had explained they had advance copy of the Committee’s report. On that basis I agreed to be interviewed to discuss my views on the Maori Affairs Select Committee inquiry … I was interviewed via telephone … [for] approximately one-half hour.”

When Ms Waterreus, the chief executive, gave evidence, she stated that she was not quite sure what Mr Milne had said to her, and Mr Milne, in evidence, said he did not tell them he had a copy of the draft report. So we had two witnesses who were saying that, and Sir Graham Latimer was in the situation, if one likes, of his evidence being hearsay, in any case, through Ms Waterreus. So the evidence before us was that we did not have evidence that the draft report was in the hands of the journalist.

But we do not accept Mr Milne’s argument that the matters were in the public domain; they were, clearly, within the confidence of the committee. Therefore, we have recommended that the press gallery, through yourself, Mr Speaker, consider the effect of rule 23 of the press gallery rules: “No member of the Press Gallery shall—(a) infringe any of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives”.

The four recommendations I put to members at the beginning of my speech are the four recommendations we are asking the House to accept.

The National Party supports the recommendations of the Privileges Committee. We have taken a keen interest in this matter, because there are a number of obvious issues. The chairman gave a very good summary of the things we found were important to the Māori Affairs Committeee and to this House. Indeed, I think it is important to re-emphasise three or four matters, in terms of the points made by the chairman in his presentation. The recommendations are worth noting, and we should make sure they are put into Hansard.

We recommend that the Speaker refer the issues raised in this report to the chairperson of the press gallery to deal with in accordance with the rules of the gallery, and to ensure that members of the press gallery are fully aware of the House’s confidentiality rules in respect of select committee reports. That is very important. Obviously, there are a number of reasons why we would want members of the press gallery, firstly, to be aware of them, and, secondly, to respect them. When select committees are dealing with issues there are times when members of the public, in particular, bring before committees matters that are confidential to them, and it would be most unfortunate if the press gallery did not respect that confidentiality.

We recommend that the Māori Affairs Committee clearly separate its procedure for obtaining responses to allegations made in evidence under Standing Order 223 and its procedures for obtaining responses to adverse findings under Standing Order 242. Again, I think it is timely to remind all select committee members, and particularly the chairpersons, of their responsibilities. Often, new members on select committees may not be aware of their obligations in that regard. I do not think we need to point the finger at the Māori Affairs Committee in particular; it just so happened that on this occasion this event occurred in respect of that committee. However, any other select committee could have been affected, and there have been occasions when they have been. It is worth reminding members that they, too, have a role to play in this. A loose lip can often give members of the fourth estate the opportunity to put together a story that should not be available to them. We also recommend that where select committees seek submissions on adverse findings under Standing Order 242, the confidential nature of the findings be made absolutely clear to those making submissions. Again, in this case, we could have been far more explicit in that regard.

I think that the chairperson, Matt Robson, has already set out how he got into the inquiry—why the event occurred—and I do not intend to repeat that. But I think there are a couple of important matters that those on the Privileges Committee may want to consider a little further. In hindsight, in the hearing of evidence, it may well have been better if we had asked Sir Graham Latimer to come before us personally. He was unable to attend at the time, for a number of reasons. He did give us some information, but it may well have been far better for him, and useful to us, if he had come to the committee and been involved in the discussion. He made some comments on how he saw the situation, and that was useful to us, although, again, his comments did not set out clearly where the issue was founded.

I want to turn my attention to the one thing I think the committee was unable to find: evidence of the leak. There are two points of view on whether the journalist—Jonathan Milne, in this case—actually had the document, or whether he was being a very clever journalist. I think there is evidence to suggest it was maybe the latter, rather than the former. Something we all need to be aware of is that those people have the skills to pick up one or two comments from one or two people, and to put together a story. Here it was a case of a journalist asking a question of Sir Graham Latimer, and getting a line or two that then added to the view the journalist had. Suddenly, a story emerged that ended up, probably, being reasonably accurate, maybe to the extent that one could come to the conclusion that a leak had occurred—that a document had been given to a journalist when, maybe, it had not, at all.

The important thing that we as members of Parliament, in particular, should understand is that in respect of select committees, where there are confidential issues we must be very careful in any discussions we have with anybody to make it very clear that we will not discuss those matters outside the committee with other members of Parliament. Certainly, we should not talk to members of the press, whether or not they are members of the press gallery, because to do so would give them the opportunity to write stories about things that, at that stage, they should not be involved in or know about.

I tend to think that in this case the situation may well have been as I have suggested; we will probably never know. In the questions that we put to the said member of the press gallery, he was not able to confirm that he had the document. I think he did not want to confirm that he did not have the document because if he confirmed that, then of course that would perhaps affect his status. So he was sort of caught either way—one way or another. The fact was that we were not very clear on that point. The journalist concerned is the only one who will ever know whether he had the document, and we will probably never get to know that—although who knows, one night at a press gallery party we might find these things out, later on. One never knows.

The important point for us to take on board is that all of us have a responsibility with regard to such issues. The issue is that members of the public expect us to look after and protect them when they come before us to make submissions. Therefore, as responsible members of this House, we have to make sure that they know they can go away with confidence that their information will not in some way or another be misused or used in a way that they would not want to have happen. In this case there is a whole set of circumstances, which the report covers. I commend the chairman and those who have written the report. It is a very good report for us to consider. There are some lessons to be learnt from it, and as we go through this debate I hope that the House, particularly the select committees, and, indeed, the members of the press gallery, take those lessons on board, so that we can carry on doing the job that the public expects us to do.

Standing Order 242 requires committees to inform any person of adverse findings and to give him or her the opportunity to make submissions. There is a booklet entitled Natural Justice Before Select Committees—a Clerk’s booklet—that makes it clear that draft reports are confidential, and that was sent to Sir Graham Latimer.

If members look at the Sunday Star-Times article, they will see that the article clearly points the reader in certain directions if one is inquiring as to the source of that article. Sir Graham Latimer was about to be severely criticised by the Māori Affairs Committee in respect of his and his colleagues’ handling of funds dedicated to Māori research in respect of forestry, in Sir Graham’s capacity as chairman of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. If members read the article they will see, firstly, that it is pure damage control on the part of Sir Graham Latimer and, secondly, that it is intended to put the best possible spin on adverse facts that are about to become public. We have to ask ourselves who would be the possible source of the leak. For my money, I would say that it is the person who is painted in a far better light than he is entitled to be. If members look at page 5 of the Privileges Committee’s report, they will see that Sir Graham Latimer was interviewed via telephone and, from memory, he took approximately one half-hour—that is, 30 minutes. He was called by the Sunday Star-Times and told that there were certain matters that needed to be discussed, and he took a full 30 minutes for that.

I cannot disclose the report on the use of funding for Māori research in respect of forestry, because the Māori Affairs Committee is yet to report. I cannot disclose that, and it concerns me that the Minister of Finance, notwithstanding that, has acted on one of the recommendations in the report, which is yet to be tabled in this House.

I ask this question: can someone who has been the chairman of the New Zealand Māori Council since the early 1970s be ignorant of the requirements in respect of parliamentary procedure? I do not think so. How could a person be there as long as that, attend so many parliamentary select committees, and not know what the requirements are, particularly since the head of the organisation in question, the woman Karen Waterreus, chief executive of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, stated on oath that she knew about the Natural Justice Before Select Committees booklet. However, on oath she could not recall exactly what Jonathan Milne had said to her. She could not state categorically whether Jonathan Milne had told her that he had a copy of the draft report. She told us that he conveyed sufficient information for her to think that he had a copy.

It is not too hard to speculate as to whence the copy of the report came from. I would put my money on it that the copy came from the person who is seeking to put the best possible spin on adverse facts in respect of his job as head of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. This is a chairman, of course, who was being paid over $104,000 a year—$104,000 a year to head that trust. What he did to deserve that sort of money I do not know, but it has now been properly reduced down to $25,000. That payment of $104,000 a year is just one more example of how certain people have, in my view, abused Māoridom over the last few decades, and of how they have crushed any rise in young Māori leadership and done their best to conspire with both Labour and National over many years to pervert the development of Māoridom.

This issue relates to a Crown Forestry Rental Trust that has an income of $21 million a year, of which only $2.5 million goes to the Māori beneficiaries in whose name the money is claimed. All the rest has gone into a pyramid that has been built up and dominated by Sir Graham, and in an authoritarian way it has even demanded that all research be done by the people whom the trustees have built up. That is what they have done—that is, they have not let the Māori claimants get the money to do the research; they themselves do the research. Members should read the information that was released last year by myself during the pre-election campaign as to just how bad that is. I ask journalists, before they rush off to defend Sir Graham Latimer, why they do not defend the Māori beneficiary who is being ripped off here to the tune of $16 million a year. That is an abject disgrace.

Whilst we could not find evidence as to the leak in this case, I honestly think that the only possible place for the leak to emanate from is the person who had every reason to put the best possible spin on adverse information that is soon to be released.

We are debating a report of the Privileges Committee. It is a report of a question that Mr Speaker referred to the Privileges Committee in respect of an article published in the Sunday Star-Times that purported to summarise the contents of a draft report of the Māori Affairs Committee on its inquiry into the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. The reason that a question of privilege arises is because under Standing Order 397(m) it is a contempt to divulge the proceedings of a report of a select committee contrary to the Standing Orders, and it is contempt to divulge it prior to its being reported to this House. The Privileges Committee has raised before as to whether it is a ruling we should sustain, but in this particular case it is a very bad breach.

The reason is that—and this is a reform that has occurred since I first arrived in Parliament—it has now been recognised that if a select committee is going to make an adverse report about an individual and say something about that person that is damaging to his or her reputation, then the concept of natural justice or basic fairness means that those points should be put to that person so that he or she can respond or maybe point out that it is an error, but at least respond back to the committee before it makes an adverse report.

In this case the committee had made some adverse findings, as the right honourable gentleman who preceded me stated, that Sir Graham Latimer’s fees for just over 200 days work were “grossly excessive”. That had been sent to Sir Graham. That is what was reported by the Sunday Star-Times. It actually reported matters that the committee had not reached a final conclusion on. From Sir Graham’s point of view he was deprived of the fairness procedures that this House wants, and he was deprived by a newspaper breaking our Standing Orders.

The next question we had in the committee was that the newspaper’s attitude to the Standing Orders Committee, I think, left a great deal to be desired. We had Mr Milne in front of us, and to say that he was not frank would be a reasonable way of describing his attitude. The fact that he had deprived Sir Graham Latimer of his fair trial did not concern him at all.

I, however, reached a number of interesting conclusions, and somewhat different from Mr Peters. I asked Mr Milne whether he had a copy of the report. If one looks at the comments, it is only a small part of the report that was published. It is pretty obvious what actually happened. It is pretty clear what Mr Milne, who is a young reporter of some enterprise—some cynicism, but some enterprise—did. He knew this was under way. The fact that Sir Graham Latimer’s fees were being looked at—how can I put it—had become common knowledge, so that did not make it very difficult to ring up the Crown Forestry Rental Trust and imply, and there is some debate about whether he did say he had the report, that he had the report. Mr Milne certainly left the impression with the trust and Sir Graham that the Sunday Star-Times had the report and it was going to print it unless he responded, and then he would not have his side of the story. That led Sir Graham to then send what information he had to the Sunday Star-Times, which of course then enabled it to print that part. Now that is, of course, a breach of the rules by Sir Graham.

Well, the committee decided that Sir Graham had actually punished himself far more than we could ever do. Because his expenditure, I have to say, does seem somewhat excessive. That is a very polite way of putting it, but I am not trying to put him on trial. His expenditure was all over the front page of the Sunday Star-Times, and that was a degree of publicity that he brought on himself. I do not think there is any requirement by the Privileges Committee or this House to put any further penalty on Sir Graham. I think he will be very, very careful about giving out a confidential parliamentary document again.

The next question is: what about Mr Milne? Well, it is an interesting question. Is it actually a breach of privilege to say that one has a draft committee document when one has not? I doubt it. It might be, but I doubt it. It is more of a problem that he has. The committee has not reached a conclusion about that, but I reached the conclusion that he never had the document. Then it is a question of journalistic ethics: whether it is a good idea to ring up people and say one has documents when one has not. Well, that is a question of what goes around comes around. The question of credibility is not just on MPs, it is also on newspapers and the like.

I do say this to Mr Milne. He has the potential, I think, to be a very good reporter. But he ought to think about those sorts of things. He should also think about the cynicism that he displayed towards the parliamentary process. I think he is one of those young reporters who think that good reporters are just cynical. Well, in my opinion, that is not so. Those are second-rate reporters. Really good reporters become enthusiastic. They look at the subject, and of course they are sceptical about information they are given. But they do not go around, just prior to the release of a report, being negative. They try to report the full story.

Mr Milne’s reporting would be a great deal better if he were to take a more rounded approach. But should we take a tougher stand towards someone who is now occupying quite a senior position—but still quite a young man? No, I do not think we should. Would we again be as lenient to Mr Milne? No, we would not. There are people who think that the Privileges Committee will not do anything. I have had a few of them in front of me over the years. That is a mistake as well. There are a lot of things we could do.

But I do say this again. For a newspaper to take away a person’s right to be able to correct a record, to actually violate fairness—even if we think all the things that Mr Peters thinks about Mr Latimer, and even if Mr Peters is right in what he thinks about Mr Latimer, which I suspect he might be—even the Graham Latimers of this world are entitled to a fair hearing. In that sense, that did not reflect well on the Sunday Star-Times, but I do not believe we should take any further action. The report itself, as they say, speaks for itself.

Debate interrupted.