Carter John: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Carter John: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9202. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 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 Maori 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 Maori 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 Maori 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.