Urgent Debates Declined — Overseas Investment Rules—Judicial Decision on Sale of Crafar Farms

I call on order of—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you have another matter to deal with, unless you are just going to call Mr Parker straight away.

I thank the honourable member for his intervention, because indeed I should consider this before I call the Address in Reply debate. What has been lodged is a letter. Letters seeking under Standing Order 386 an urgent debate on matters can be lodged up till—I mean, ideally lodged before the House sits. But I am not in any way turning this application down because that was not the case; my understanding is it may not even have been possible to achieve that.

What I am faced with here—and it is not very often that the Speaker has to make a decision on one of these on the hoof—is a letter from the Hon David Parker that seeks under Standing Order 386 that I allow an urgent debate on the decision of the High Court in Wellington that “The Ministers’ consent to the overseas investment to be made by Milk NZ in the Crafar farms is set aside.” I feel able to make a ruling on this pretty much on the hoof, because for an urgent debate on an issue to be allowed, the issue must be an issue for which a Minister has direct responsibility. A Minister does not have direct responsibility for a decision of the court. That is not a matter the Minister has direct responsibility for, and I believe on those grounds that it is not appropriate for me to allow that urgent debate.

I make it very clear that I am not turning it down on the basis of the slightly unusual arrival of the application. I accept that the application is perfectly in order, but Ministers are not responsible for decisions of the court. Urgent debates can be allowed, and the business of the House set aside under Standing Order 386, only for matters that are the responsibility of Ministers.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The triggering factor that makes it urgent is certainly the decision of the High Court, but it was a decision of the High Court to overturn a ministerial decision. What this does is undo a ministerial decision and leave a void where that decision was. Now, if I were you I might turn it down on the fact that there is an Address in Reply debate going on, and there is possibly an ability to deal with it there, or on the fact that it can be the subject of a later debate, but I am pretty sure that if we go back through some of the precedents, we will see it is not the timing around the original decision; it is when it comes to light and becomes urgent. And that, I understand, happened at some stage this morning but was then reported. The other—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Can I make one other point?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I will hear the member.

That point is, as Mr Parker has just pointed out to me, that unless another amendment is moved—and it would be an interesting confidence amendment—he cannot speak on it because, of course, he spoke yesterday in the Address in Reply debate, as have some others.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I will hear the honourable Leader of the House.

I think that if you were to accept that argument from Mr Mallard there would be numerous occasions where ministerial decisions are revisited one way or another—perhaps, sometimes, many, many years after the event first occurred. So I think you are quite right in saying that the provisions for an urgent debate in this House are for occasions when a Minister makes a decision that has very significant public interest, and where there has been no other occasion for the House to discuss the matter.

Now, this matter has been the matter of questions in the House. It has been the matter of various bits of speculation in speeches in the Address in Reply debate, and, of course, as Mr Mallard points out, we are still in the Address in Reply debate. So I think you are quite correct in maintaining the long-held view or precedent that is reflected in the Standing Orders that says it has to be a recent decision by the Government—by a Minister, effectively—on which there has been no other opportunity, or there is not likely to be any other opportunity, for debate. Further, I would point out that although you are saying you do not have to have the application in by that time, the Standing Order does say 1 hour before the House commences, and this decision technically was available within that time space.

💬 Dr Russel Norman: Point of order—

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I do not really need to hear a lot more, but I will hear firstly from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Just as a suggestion, there is a precedent for such a ruling, and that is the injunction against—you remember—the All Black tour to South Africa, where the ruling was given by the judge favouring the injunction, whereupon that triggered an urgent debate in Parliament. I am not trying to gainsay your decision, but there is precedent where that is exactly what happened.

Just very briefly, I would argue that rather than looking backwards, as the members over here have suggested, it is actually a question of ministerial responsibility. What the courts have said is that the Ministers must redo the decision. That is the ministerial responsibility. That is the specific language that is used in the Standing Orders. There is now ministerial responsibility to reconsider the decision; that is what the courts have directed them to do.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Very briefly I will hear the Hon Trevor Mallard.

Although I hesitate to disagree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, I think he might have had his argument slightly upside down. My memory is that the House declined the debate on the injunction when it was granted, and the reason that it was declined was that it was an injunction between a group of individuals and the Rugby Football Union, for which there was no ministerial responsibility. But in this case, I do not think we could have anything that was more involved with ministerial responsibility. I think if you look at the accompanying documents and go through them, you will see there is line after line where the court has pointed out that ministerial responsibility appears not to have been exercised properly. That, I think, when you have a court finding that Ministers are not doing their jobs according to the law—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, I think we have heard sufficient on this. I do not need to hear further on this.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is my application.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I accept the point the Hon David Parker made there. It is his application. I will hear him.

There are three parts to the test laid out in Standing Order 386. The first is that it is a particular case of recent occurrence, and this clearly is. The second is that it involves the administrative or ministerial responsibility of the Government, and with regard to the Speaker’s initial comments, I think, with respect, that it does, and that the difference with the case of the Rugby Football Union that was referred to is that was not a case of ministerial responsibility. In my submission, Mr Speaker, the decision for you is whether this requires the immediate attention of the House, because the first two legs of the test are made out.

I thank the members for their contributions, because this is an important issue of order. I appreciate the contributions. As the Hon Trevor Mallard pointed out, in fact, the application way back in, when was it, 1980—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: 5.

—1985, was it? It was 1985, indeed. That application was turned down on the grounds that the Hon Trevor Mallard has mentioned. The reason why I have declined this application is that the case was not made for an urgent debate. This is not a recent Government decision or action. What has triggered this is the decision of a court; that is what the application is based on. The application is specifically to debate the decision of the High Court, and no Minister is responsible for the decision of the High Court.

What I am not ruling is that the issue is not important, or that it is not possible to frame an application that might meet the Standing Orders. But it is my view that this application does not meet the requirement of the Standing Orders, because this application is to set aside the business of the House to debate the decision of the High Court, and that is not a responsibility of a Minister. That is why I believe we have to be very careful not to allow setting aside of the business of the House for actions that are not the responsibility of a Minister—and this one is not. The application is based on the decision of the court. But it does not rule out further applications.

What I am saying is the application in front of me, in my view, does not meet the test. But just because an application has been made today does not mean to say that it is not possible to make further applications. Members may recollect, in fact, that there was an issue in the last term where I finally did consider that an application met the test. It might have been the third application on a particular issue. So this does not rule out future applications. It is just in my view today—I have to be careful. In this particular application I am not in any way belittling the issue, it is just that the way this application is made does not meet the test, because we cannot set aside the business of the House to debate a decision of the High Court. On that basis I must decline this application.

I seek the leave of the House to set aside time for such a debate.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.