Inquiries Bill

Can I just seek clarification. Are we doing clauses 1 and 2 of the Inquiries Bill together, or are we doing them separately?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): You can do both together, but there will be two separate votes.

I am happy to seek leave that clauses 1 and 2 be taken as one debate but with two separate votes.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Oh, that was pretty speedy progress in a resolution. I would recommend that to other members of the Committee who tried putting procedural motions before the Committee earlier this evening. Mr Chairman, ordinarily you do not miss a thing that goes on this House. You are one of the most careful followers of procedures. I just want to draw to your attention that a little earlier, very recently in the Committee, I tried to get a call on Part 3, and you missed it. So that is the second time this evening, by two separate members who have been sitting in the Chair. The first one asked me to speak a little louder, which caused great amusement not only to me but—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Maybe the member should get two calls this time.

—other members of the Committee, but then you missed my call altogether, so I take particular note of that.

There were actually some specific queries that I had in relation to Part 3. I am disappointed that I was not able to raise them. They related to things that I am actually genuinely interested in, and I think other members of the Committee are, in regard to the way that the inquiries will be amended under this legislation—obviously, the Inquiries Act 2008—which will come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. Those are the two clauses we are discussing at the moment.

In respect of the previous debate on Part 3, which I was not able to participate in, clause 12 refers to the reporting requirements of different inquiries—a public inquiry, which is reported to the Governor-General, compared with a Government inquiry. Then clause 12(3) states: “The final report of a public inquiry must be presented by the appropriate Minister to the House of Representatives as soon as practicable after the inquiry has reported”. I was going to ask a question to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Chester Borrows, even though he is not the Minister in charge of the bill. I know that he is quite fussy about responding to questions in the Committee. It is a trait of his that I particularly enjoy. I was going to ask him, actually, when the Government inquiries have to report to the public. So if the Minister for Courts would not mind passing that on to the relevant Minister, and if he could refer to it in his third reading speech and answer my question, which the Chairman did not allow me an opportunity to ask, then I would really appreciate it.

The other comment that I want to make is that I was really concerned about an earlier contribution from the New Zealand First member Denis O’Rourke in relation to clause 19(3), where he talked about the chief executive of the legal aid authority being able to determine whether an inquiry set up under this Inquiries Bill was able to get legal aid funding. My understanding of what the member Denis O’Rourke said was that the legal aid agency, rather than the inquiry itself, would make the determination. I had some discussions with colleagues about that because I was concerned about that alerting that the member had drawn to the attention of the Committee of the whole House.

My understanding is that in that clause it is actually the chief executive of the department who is responsible for the inquiry under this bill. So it is either the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs or, if an inquiry set up under this bill was, for example, the inquiry that my colleague Darien Fenton was referring to, an inquiry into health and safety in the forestry regime, well, it may well come under the Labour Group within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, or at the end of the year it would come under the chief executive or the chair of the board of the new health and safety agency. I think that the member Denis O’Rourke was not correct in his interpretation.

There is another thing that I think would be useful for the Minister in the chair to refer to the Minister responsible for the bill. I still feel a bit of a need for an inquiry into the particular question of who the Minister responsible for this bill is. Is it the Hon Chris Tremain, or is it the Hon Nathan Guy?

Either way, I think that between the two of them they should be very satisfied that the particular amendments put up by members tonight from both sides of the Chamber, from the Government side and from the Opposition side, have been supported. I am pretty sure that the amendments have passed without exception. That is a good indication of careful consideration of the bill. My colleague Trevor Mallard put in an amendment that I actually wished had been considered under the earlier legislation that we were discussing, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation, because his amendment inserted a subclause about the benefits of observing the principle of open justice. Well, we would have supported that in the GCSB legislation, but I do not suppose that the Government members would have.

Just going back to the clauses that we are debating at the moment, we know that the legislation is unamended. This is the bill to amend the Commissions of Inquiry Act. It is the Inquiries Bill, so the primary Act will be the Inquiries Act 2008. This bill before the Committee now was introduced in 2008 by the Hon Rick Barker under a previous Government. It has been a long time coming to this point. Fortunately, the commencement date, which is the other part that we are voting on—the Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent—cannot come soon enough.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

I will report this bill with amendment.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would just like to draw your attention to a discrepancy, or an apparent discrepancy, between the clocks that are currently in here. I know that members have been carefully timing their speeches for 9.55 p.m., which is the time when you have to report progress. But I note that it says 9.55 p.m. now on the clock that you are looking at, but the one that I am looking at says 9.54 p.m. I would invite—

💬 Grant Robertson: From my angle it actually is 9.54 p.m. there.

Is it? Do you think so? Fifty-four, 55, 56? I think it is probably appropriate to have an inquiry. I am sure that when it does get to 9.55 p.m. you will interrupt my point of order in order to report progress because that would be your obligation under the rules. The question is whether you are looking at the clock just in front of you or the one up there or the one over here.

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. I will report this bill with amendment.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Inquiries Bill with amendment, no progress on the Resource Management Reform Bill, and no progress on the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.