Estimates Debate — Justice Sector (continued)

There are 4 hours and 26 minutes remaining in the debate. When we were last considering the bill, the committee was debating the justice sector. The question is that Vote Attorney-General, Vote Corrections, Vote Courts, Vote Justice, Vote Parliamentary Counsel, Vote Police, and Vote Serious Fraud stand part of the Schedules. The Hon Tim Macindoe had the call and has 2 minutes and 15 seconds remaining in his speech.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It was a bit frustrating to be interrupted last night when the committee rose to report progress, as I was in the middle of highlighting a very serious constitutional concern that was raised by National members but not responded to appropriately by the Attorney-General during the Justice Committee’s Estimates hearing following the 2019 Budget. At the time of the hearing, the Hon Amy Adams was the shadow Attorney-General, so she led the charge for our side during the Estimates hearing. I was present on that occasion, and soon afterwards I was appointed to succeed her in that role, when she announced her intention to retire at the next general election.

It’s important to understand the chronology of events and the actions and public statements of senior Ministers that led to the Hon Amy Adams’ questions to the Attorney-General. If the committee will indulge me for just a moment, I’ll recap that first matter, which arose in the week leading up to this year’s Budget, during which Opposition members gained easy and completely lawful access to Budget information via a search engine on Treasury’s website.

Without any evidential foundation and for purely political reasons, senior Ministers, including the Minister of Finance and the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as one of the nation’s top public servants, quickly responded with false and very serious allegations of illegal behaviour, and the matter was referred to the police for investigation. Nevertheless, Mr Peters, as usual, without having any understanding of the issue or knowing anything about internet technology or cyber-security, had crowed to media—who delight in his every utterance, no matter how fatuous they are—that he knew exactly what had gone on and there would be grave consequences for the Opposition. Well, once again, he was talking nonsense merely to keep himself in the spotlight, and he demonstrated his total ignorance of what had transpired. This was confirmed soon afterwards, when the police confirmed that nothing illegal or worthy of their consideration had occurred.

During the justice Estimates hearing, Opposition members provided ample opportunities for the Attorney-General to condemn the fact that both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance had made serious, fatuous allegations of criminal behaviour, as senior members of the executive, without having any evidence to support those actions. Quite simply, they had botched the management of the 2019 Budget and they were desperately seeking a smokescreen to cover their own incompetence.

The Attorney-General was invited repeatedly, during the Estimates hearings, to acknowledge the inappropriateness of Ministers and Crown entities, when carrying out their legal functions, making serious allegations of criminal behaviour without an appropriate evidential basis. But he was left dancing on the head of a pin in his refusal to do so, even though that is what his role demands. Now, that is a very serious issue, and it alarmed National members of the committee that the Attorney-General ducked and dived for more than 10 minutes but repeatedly refused to condemn what had occurred, despite that clearly being his responsibility. The point was made that Ministers and Crown entities should adhere to a clear threshold, backed up by solid evidence, before making allegations of criminal behaviour and requiring the police to commence a criminal investigation.

On our side of the House, we absolutely believe that it is vital for Crown Law, and the Attorney-General as the primary legal officer, to ensure that the Crown conducts itself carefully and prudently, and that before choosing to refer matters to the police, they should seek expert legal advice. As was subsequently demonstrated when the report into the Budget documents issue was released, that clearly didn’t happen. It’s a further matter of considerable concern that the Attorney-General, again, failed to condemn that reckless and irresponsible referral to the police when, subsequently, that long-awaited report into the matter confirmed that no illegal or inappropriate action had been committed in the all too easy access of Budget documents.

That wasn’t the only significant matter of concern to Opposition members of the committee during our Estimates hearing, because the Attorney-General was also asked for his view of ministerial meddling in Crown prosecutions and the role that the Attorney-General should play in such instances. Specifically, he was asked if he considered it appropriate for the Associate Minister of Transport, firstly, to have made public comments about a New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) prosecution, in which Mr Jones had criticised NZTA’s carrying out of the prosecution by referring to Filipino witnesses being used by NZTA as “pimps” to acquire information; and, secondly, to have had discussions with the chief executive of NZTA on that matter while the agency’s prosecution was under way.

But again, instead of asserting the importance of his role as the Crown’s principal legal officer and his expectation that the Crown and its Ministers would carry out their legal functions appropriately and to the highest standards, the Attorney-General refused to give a straight answer and suggested it would depend on the timing of those comments and to whom they were made. But it was a matter of public record that the comments had been made by Mr Jones to the media, and published by the media, while the investigation and prosecution were under way and continuing. These were very serious matters for the Attorney-General to answer, and it is deeply to be regretted that he failed to rise above a political defence of his senior ministerial colleagues, who had all behaved so inappropriately in both instances. One can only hope that he has reflected on both of those matters since the Estimates hearing and will expect higher standards of his colleagues and, by virtue of the important functions of his office, of himself in the future.

In the time remaining, I want to switch my focus to the issue that was debated last night by the Minister of Justice and the Opposition spokesperson for justice, before I spoke in the debate, in respect of the lack of a Budget allocation this year for the roll-out of alcohol and other drug treatment courts in New Zealand. The Minister was at his angry best in responding to Mr Mitchell’s criticism of the lack of commitment and funding for alcohol and other drug treatment courts, but he failed to explain why this year’s Budget made no allocation of funding beyond the expiry of the two pilot courts of that nature that were set up by the last National Government—and those pilots conclude at the end of June next year.

I was encouraged to hear the Minister express his support for such courts, which have been shown to be so effective internationally in tackling the underlying causes of crime and reducing recidivism. But instead of frothing at the mouth as he volleyed and thundered last night, what the Minister should have done was confirm that funding will be made as widely available as possible. We’re waiting for it with open arms in Hamilton, where we have a formation committee fully behind the project and waiting to go. I ask the Minister to make sure the Budget funding is there very soon.

Debate interrupted.