Financial Review Debate — Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

I want to talk about the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, an office that has some $15 million a year available to it, a substantial amount of which is for the provision of free and frank advice of an impartial nature to the Prime Minister. That raises a number of questions about the advice that the Prime Minister has received in recent days, particularly about the seabed and foreshore issue, and the credibility of the department itself has also taken a very severe knock during the year because of the way in which the head of that department, Mr Prebble, chose deliberately to remove, from the public arena, official information relating to the “corngate” affair.

I would like the Prime Minister to take a call to tell us the nature of the discussion with Mr Prebble, once it was clear that this department had been caught. Further, I think it is important that the Prime Minister tell us whether she knew, at the time of his withholding of that official information, that it was in existence. These are two simple questions that have not been dealt with over the past 12 months. There have been so many things on the radar screen that little incidents like this tend to drop off and be forgotten, and this is the appropriate time to have those issues discussed.

If we cannot get those sorts of answers, then all we can conclude is that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is a highly politicised body that might be better known as the “Department of Propaganda” or the “Department of Political Management”.

I want to turn for a moment to the advice that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet may or may not have been giving the Prime Minister on the seabed and foreshore issue. It seems the Government has had a range of positions. The initial advice coming after the Court of Appeal decision was: “Don’t panic. We’re about to legislate for Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore.” We then had a period where clearly that was unacceptable to the Labour members of the caucus known as the “Māori caucus”, and some other form of advice had to be given to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

We would like to know whether the next lot of advice was part of a transition of advice, part of a stream of advice, or was it separate, because in that advice Dr Cullen seems to have been the person sent out on the attack. He made a speech to the Chapman Tripp business dinner earlier this year, where he picked up on some of the comments made by Dr Don Brash. He made the very strong statement that the Treaty of Waitangi made it untenable for the Crown to assert Crown ownership. He went on to suggest that his Government, in wanting to recognise customary rights, would come up with some form of dual title. He felt that much of the alarm that was being expressed by New Zealanders was of little point, because the Government had this so well strapped down there would be no real ongoing problem.

We now know that the advice to Dr Cullen was wrong—advice presumably via the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, because the advice is available on strategic political matters to all Ministers in the Government. The advice was completely “off”, compared with the public’s view of the issue. That raises a question about how that department gets its information, and how it assesses what a public view is at any given time.

It would seem to me that we have now had a third shift in the Government’s thinking where we are talking about dual management of seabed and foreshore being in Crown title, except we are told by Margaret Wilson that it is not title, as we might ordinarily understand it; it is something new and quite different, or as my colleague Dr Mapp would advise us, it is perhaps best deciphered as life, but not life as we know it.

It is remarkable that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is there to give strategic advice to the Prime Minister, who, I guess, has built something of a reputation in this country of always being close to the pulse of the nation and understanding the mood of the nation. Clearly, her political instincts have abandoned her and she cannot look to her department to bail her out. If this is strategic advice, then it must come from satellites and not from the people of New Zealand. The people have given a clear message that they want Crown title. That is apparently not what the Government thought in December last year, although it is what it thought in July last year. Maybe the advice the Prime Minister should take is the advice she gave herself back in July, without reference to this incredibly highly paid group of individuals in her department—that is, her own instincts to go for Crown ownership. However, she was rolled by her own caucus.

In August her department allocated $369,000 for the management, although better called “mismanagement” and the administration, better called “maladministration” of this project, and a further $116,000 appropriated to fund the Ministry of Māori Development. Ten huis were held up and down the country, costing $131,000. The Government has boldly claimed that was a saving out of $180,000. It came up with this oxymoron, this so-called “dual title public domain” that the Prime Minister proudly proclaimed would meet the needs of New Zealanders.

💬 John Key: Why doesn’t she go on Holmes and tell the people?

Yes, why does she not explain to the people why public domain is so much better than Crown title because—

💬 Rt Hon Helen Clark: Because she is in the House.

Will the Prime Minister take a call to explain to the public of New Zealand why she has done another flip-flop and returned to the concept of Crown title, where she was back in July last year, and why that is now so much superior to public domain, which seems to be part of the documents of 17 December?

It seems to us, and to the people of New Zealand, that this Government is struggling to catch up. It adopts one position after another. The Associate Minister of Justice said today: “Spare me any more questions. I just want to get rid of this. Thank goodness the legislation is going to come into the House—soon.” But we have questions for the Prime Minister. Will this legislation really be Crown title as we understand it, or will it be some sort of new variation with still this idea of dual title, which has been paid for to the tune of $369,000 for this highly paid, high-powered advice, or will it be in some form of co-management, as envisaged by the Minister of Māori Affairs? What does Tariana Turia have to say about this? We know that this Prime Minister prides herself on having complete control of her caucus, on the ability to marshal votes, yet one would have to conclude that in the last few weeks, and the public has seen that, clearly, the Prime Minister has completely lost control of this issue.

The $369,000 of expenditure has essentially amounted to nought. In fact, she should have stuck to her own advice to herself, not needing reference to her department, and simply legislated for Crown title.

These are serious questions. The Prime Minister is required to answer to this Committee why she has had so many different positions, understandings, new views, revised views, and old views on this issue.

I would like to comment on the points that members have made across the two votes that have been discussed in the last few minutes. On the question of the Security Intelligence Service and Mr Zaoui’s case, let me just tell the Hon Matt Robson that I do not think any member of this Committee could seriously mount a case for saying that Mr Zaoui has not had his legal rights protected in this country. Indeed, his legal bills and costs will probably be far greater than for just about anybody who has approached legal aid. He has been through a full Refugee Status Appeals Authority process, and he has full representation for the review of the security risk certificate. In other words, all the protections of New Zealand law are available to him.

But the fact remains that a security risk certificate is extant, and as long as it is extant the very clear advice the Government has had is that there is no option but to detain him in a penal institution. Whichever way one looks at it the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, where some have suggested he be sent, is not a penal institution; nor is the option of home detention open under the law as it is written. I look forward, when this case is over, to a full review of the legal processes around the processing of a case where a security risk certificate is issued, because I do not think the time lines have been satisfactory. I think we need to look at where they can be streamlined. No doubt in due course that may result in proposed changes to legislation, which a select committee can then have a good look at.

I come to matters that other members have raised this afternoon. I note the issue Mr Brownlee raised around what papers should have been released by Dr Prebble when I called for all papers to be released. It is a matter of record, of course, that I was not told that all papers had not been released. As I did not personally check the many hundreds of pages that went out I could not have known that at the time. The select committee that did the financial review acknowledged that Dr Prebble had acknowledged that his judgment could have been better in that case. I leave the matter to rest there, and look forward with interest to the select committee report.

The final issue raised was around foreshore and seabed. It would be desirable for the Opposition to realise that this does raise complex issues. In this country we are used to dealing with grievances in this area under a treaty claims process. This one came out of left field as an aboriginal title issue, and it is clear that it has significantly raised expectations in Māoridom. Many in Māoridom have asserted that they own those areas, and always have. The strong international legal advice that the Government has and that was in the opinion by Dr Paul McHugh, which went to the Waitangi Tribunal, was that nowhere where the English common law is recognised have courts awarded exclusive possession of areas like foreshore and seabed to indigenous people. That has not happened. While the courts may find under the common law that there is, indeed, entitlement to a bundle of rights, the strong international precedents suggest that that bundle of rights would fall short of exclusive possession.

So we have a dichotomy between expectations that are common in quite a lot of areas in Māoridom, and what the common law would actually award, and what the expectations of most New Zealanders are. I think I speak for most New Zealanders in saying that we see these areas as part of our birthright, and we want that strongly asserted. That is why, from day one, the Government has said that the rights of the New Zealand public to access these areas freely, and enjoy them, must be upheld. Of course we also want to see that Māori customary rights are upheld, and that is why it is appropriate that a new statutory framework is put in place.

I welcome the fact that the Opposition has chosen to raise these issues today. I have been making the point in recent days that the forum that is provided, at enormous expense by the New Zealand taxpayer, to debate issues like this with me as Prime Minister, or any Prime Minister, is right here in this Parliament—not Mr Holmes trying to make himself important. I welcome the fact that the deputy leader of the National Party is one who fronts up and has a go. Good on him. I welcome that. But there are others who prefer to cut and run to television studios and not face this House. All I say is that the taxpayers of New Zealand pay a lot of money for us to debate issues here.

After the Prime Minister’s little comment in that contribution to the Committee, suggesting that she was all for a debate on this particular issue, perhaps now, for the sixth time, I could seek leave for there to be a debate on the seabed and foreshore issue in the House tomorrow, immediately after question time.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member knows that he cannot seek leave during the Committee of the whole House.

We have heard quite an extraordinary contribution from the Prime Minister, and I really want to challenge her, and her Ministers, as to just what the Government’s policy is with regard to the foreshore and seabed. I make the point to the Prime Minister that the people in my own electorate of Nelson have been holding out for 9 long months to get some idea of the Government’s policy. We met with the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, and the Mayor of Tasman District, who said that the lack of decisive leadership from this Prime Minister is costing our community $45 million a year. I have listened over the last 9 months to six different positions in respect of the foreshore and seabed. Every time the House comes back after a recess, the Prime Minister has changed her mind. We started with the position, which National reaffirmed, that the foreshore and seabed should be in Crown ownership. We have gone right around the paddock over the last 9 months, back to that position.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Have we, though?

Gerry Brownlee quite properly asks whether that is the position. Perhaps the Prime Minister, because she is so keen to openly debate these issues in the Chamber, could debate this question: will the Government vest the foreshore and the seabed in the Crown? The silence is deafening. She challenges us to come down to the Chamber and have the debate here, yet Government members will not engage in it. Can the Minister of Local Government, or can the Minister of Health, answer this question: is the Government going to vest the foreshore and seabed with the Crown? [Interruption] Well, the Minister of Health does not know the answer to that, either.

I say, given the Prime Minister has provided such a level of indecision for 9 months, it is no wonder that her Government is toast—it is no wonder, at all. The people of New Zealand are demanding firm leadership, and they are getting none of it from the Prime Minister.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: They used to!

They used to say that they believed what the Prime Minister said—that they believed in her. She said that the Government would vest the foreshore and the seabed with the Crown, but that has not come to be. So I ask the Prime Minister this question again, seeing that I have her attention and because she challenges us to raise these issues in the Chamber: will the foreshore and the seabed—

💬 Hon Chris Carter: Where is your leader?

Just because the Prime Minister chose to show up during the Committee stage for the first time in the last 12 months—

💬 Gerry Brownlee: It is her first speech for the year!

It just shows how effective the Opposition has been that finally the Prime Minister has decided to show up in the Chamber. So I ask her a very simple question: is it Government policy that the foreshore and seabed will be vested with the Crown?

💬 Jill Pettis: Wait and see.

We have been waiting to see for 9 months.

I ask the Prime Minister when the legislation will come before us. I remember that last June, when the decision first came out from the Court of Appeal, we were told there would be legislation within the next couple of months, then the next couple of months, and then the next couple of months.

So I ask the Prime Minister today when we will see the bill.

💬 Mark Peck: When will the member be deputy leader?

Is that not interesting! Mr Peck does not want to answer the real questions; he wants to divert attention from them. So I ask the Prime Minister this: when will we see the foreshore and seabed legislation?

💬 Jill Pettis: Soon.

We had “Soon” last July. We had “Soon” in November. We had “Soon” in the Prime Minister’s address, and it is still “Soon”. That is not good enough. It is not good enough because people all over New Zealand are sitting back with their investments, sitting back with uncertainty and adding to the racial tension in our country, because the Prime Minister—

💬 Government Members: That’s rich!

I say to Government members that they should show the courage of their convictions and state their position clearly to the people. The very day that the Court of Appeal decision came out, National knew where it stood. On the very first day National said we needed to have certainty, and the foreshore and seabed should be vested with the Crown. Despite all the resources of all the Crown agencies—the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and all the other departments—9 months later this Government is still riddled with indecision.

I simply say to the Prime Minister that if she does not have the capacity to govern, she should do as she says—let us bring it on. Let us see the Prime Minister front up on the Holmes programme to debate with Don Brash and answer this question: what is the Government’s policy on the foreshore and seabed?

Why do the National members not bring on their leader? What an extraordinary situation this is! Here we have, before the Committee today, the financial review debate on the Prime Minister’s department and votes. We are told that the Leader of the Opposition is desperate to debate with the Prime Minister. Where is he? I again pay a compliment to the deputy leader of the National Party, Mr Brownlee, who is prepared to front up.

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It is out of order to refer to the absence of any member from the Chamber. The Prime Minister should desist from doing so.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member is correct. It is a Speaker’s ruling not to refer to the absence of members.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: Condemned by their own point of order!

Condemned by their own point of order—that is, indeed, a fair point. It is an extraordinary situation, when we have these departments open for scrutiny in the financial review debate today, that the firing is done by the bombastic deputy leader of the National Party. He is very capable too, I may add, but is not a particularly serious deputy leader. [Interruption] Well, National has had so many deputy leaders that I can hardly remember which members have stood up to be deputy leader. In fact, I am not sure whether the Hon Nick Smith ever made a speech in the House as deputy leader. He went so quickly that he never even had a pay cheque, probably.

What I want to say to the Committee today is that the Government began with the position that the foreshore and seabed is the birthright of every New Zealander. That was the position at the beginning; it will be the position at the end. It has also been very clear that on issues like this we must endeavour to reconcile the interests of the whole public with customary rights, and we will do that. Some people may not care about customary rights. We do recognise that the common law internationally would recognise such rights, and we would not want our country to be out of step on that. So we will go for a solution that upholds both sets of interests. We think they are complementary. They are not in competition; they can be reconciled. We are interested in a country that endeavours to bring about not only reconciliation for past wrongs but also a present and a future that bring Kiwis together, and does not drive them apart. We are not interested in the sorts of politics that split New Zealand down the middle. We want a future where people go forward together. The basis of what will be presented to the House in the form of legislation, which those members will just have to wait for, will be those principles.

Three simple questions were asked of the Prime Minister by Nick Smith—three simple questions that could have been answered by the Prime Minister but were avoided by her. The first question was: will there be Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore—yes or no? The answer was that we should wait and see, because the Government does not know—it has no idea—and maybe it will know tomorrow or next week, but not just now. The second question was: when will we see the legislation? The answer was that the Prime Minister does not know—perhaps tomorrow or next week, but soon. And when she was asked why she will not debate with the leader of the National Party, Don Brash, in a public forum, what did we get? We had the cowering little excuse that she wants to debate with him here in the Chamber. No fewer than six times there have been requests for leave for a snap debate on the very issue of the seabed and foreshore, and the Prime Minister has instructed the troops on every occasion not to let her get into the situation of debating that tangle with Don Brash.

Now we have the crazy idea from the Prime Minister that Don Brash should be here this afternoon with about maybe 10,000 or 11,000 people, if we are lucky, listening to the radio broadcast of this debate, whereas—

💬 Rt Hon Helen Clark: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think it would be useful if the deputy leader of the National Party could clarify whether he is trying to speak long enough to get Dr Brash to appear here in the Chamber. Is that the purpose of his speech?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is not a point of order.

Is that coming off my time?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, the member will be given time for it.

I want to know what the Chair will do about a frivolous point of order like that from the Prime Minister. That shows what a terrible state the Government is in. Dr Brash is right now—let us not refer to his absence from the Chamber in any particular way—making himself available to be on the Holmes show tonight to discuss, in front of over a million New Zealanders, this particular issue. The Government knows, and the Prime Minister knows, that the Prime Minister cannot be there to appear on Holmes because New Zealanders do not want to hear these answers: “I don’t know. I can’t see when it is going to happen—maybe soon, at some time in the future.”

💬 Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I feel that this entire speech is out of order because Mr Brownlee is constantly indicating the absence of his leader from the Chamber in his speech, and that is out of order.

Speaking to the point of order, I point out that I said Dr Brash was making himself available to be on the Holmes show this evening.

💬 Hon Annette King: He’s not here.

I know the difference—we live in a technological age. Mind you, we would not expect the Labour Party to know that. It is not necessary for Don Brash to be anywhere other than within the precincts of Parliament. [Interruption] The point is—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Order! Has the member finished speaking to the point of order?

I have now, yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Would the member please continue with his speech.

How many times are we going to have to put up speakers this afternoon before the Prime Minister decides to give the Committee some answers? We know that the Prime Minister does not want to get cornered by Paul Holmes or to get into a head-to-head debate with Dr Don Brash. We know that the Prime Minister says she is prepared to debate the matter here in the Chamber, but when she came down here this afternoon and the questions were put to her, what did we get? She said she did not know, and could not tell us. That is just unacceptable. I can only assume there are people up on the seventh floor of the Beehive now, people from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who are ripping their hair out, knowing what option No. 7 will be for the Prime Minister. They know what option No. 7 will be for the Prime Minister. It is a very simple thing. She must tell the country whether the foreshore and seabed of this nation are to remain in Crown ownership.

💬 Hon Annette King: Hear, hear!

Is that right?

💬 Hon Annette King: Of course it will!

Annette King has just said that that is what is to happen.

I want to know whether Mahara Okeroa or Tariana Turia will take a call this afternoon and tell us they agree with that position. How about Dover Samuels, John Tamihere, or any of the rest of them? Some of them I cannot remember. There is a “Miha Ritinui” and a “Dave Horeore”. Where do they stand on this stuff?

Those are simple questions, and the Opposition will keep asking them until the Prime Minister is prepared to answer them. Why can we not have simple answers? Why can we not have a public debate about this matter? Why is the Prime Minister so fearful of going on State television with Don Brash? It seems to me that it may that the Government has a little bit of “poll-itis”. The great spin machine from the seventh floor has let Government members down.

Today we have the extraordinary situation where the Prime Minister has actually turned up in the House. I have been in this House so many times on a Tuesday afternoon and this is the first time in 5 years that I can remember on a Tuesday afternoon when the Prime Minister has chosen to front up. Why has the Prime Minister chosen to front up today in the House? The reason is her weak excuse for not fronting with Don Brash on the Holmes programme. Why does the Prime Minister want to front up in the House, rather than on the Holmes show? She has probably only 50-odd cheerleaders for the Labour Party—the only 50 she can find. She was quite happy to give a sermon in the Christchurch Cathedral. She was quite happy to do that. She thought the Christchurch Cathedral was quite an appropriate forum to lecture on politics, but she was not prepared to front up on the Holmes programme. Why?

Will she answer why she thought it was appropriate to give a sermon in the Christchurch Cathedral, but was not prepared to front up on State-owned television? I will tell members why. As my colleague says, we can smell the poultry from here. The Prime Minister does not want to front on the Holmes show. She does not want to have a neutral chair. She would much rather be in the House where she has a Labour Party MP chairing the debate, than have Paul Holmes. She does not want to have to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will be seated. That is not—

She has suddenly got all pricklish about the Standing Orders.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. Have you left the Labour Party?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will now leave the House.

I am sorry?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will now leave the House.

I will recall the Speaker. I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. I have ruled. The member commented on my ruling. The member will now leave the House. I have ruled. The member will leave the House now please.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. The member will leave the House. An instruction has been given.

Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber.

I move, That the Speaker be recalled.

Motion agreed to, and House resumed

Speaker Recalled