McCully Murray: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
McCully Murray: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2576] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 Madam Speaker I first of all welcome the fact that you are in the Chair to hear this debate; you recognise the importance it has for Parliament and in particular the Privileges Committee which is often referred to as being the most powerful committee of Parliament. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Usually with irony. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: As Dr Mapp notes that expression has been used with some irony in the past. I am pleased to see that the committee is on the road to showing that it expects a higher standard of behaviour from those who are obliged to report to the elected representatives of the owners of those sorts of businesses. 
I thank the chairman of the committee Mr Simon Power not only for the clear exposition of the committee’s findings for the House today but also for the way in which the committee was chaired. It is no mean undertaking to get so many quite adventurous members of Parliament who have their own views around a Privileges Committee table to agree on a report of this nature. I commend him for the way in which he chaired the committee during those quite difficult hearings. 
I welcome the report of the committee because I am one who has for some time been engaged in pursuing the odd Crown entity or State-owned enterprise that has fallen short of its obligations to Parliament and to the select committees of Parliament. As the Privileges Committee report states there has been a pattern of insufficient behaviour in the past—loose behaviour—that has required the committee to make a decision that is fundamentally about whether this place will ever take itself seriously in respect of the accountability of publicly owned businesses. 
The decision that has been made to impose a fine and to acknowledge the token nature of the fine—because it is the first time in 103 years that such a step has been taken—is the right measured response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. A step had to be taken. As Mr Power has said a line had to been drawn in the sand. But we had to be careful to ensure that one organisation or one group of individuals was not being unduly penalised because the Privileges Committee in the past has been inclined to extend some generosity to State enterprises and simply to accept even a grudging apology as being an end to the matter. 
So I think the Privileges Committee has got it right. There will be critics who say that $1000 is not a significant fine for an entity the size of Television New Zealand (TVNZ) but I think that to go significantly further than that would have been to put TVNZ in the position of being to some extent a victim of the rather generous attitude that the Privileges Committee has shown in the past. 
The report refers to the 2002 New Zealand Post case which Mr Hide will remember with some interest because he and I were involved as members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee at the time; indeed we made the referral to the Speaker that brought the matter to the Privileges Committee. What had happened was the senior executives of New Zealand Post had told a barefaced lie to the select committee. The Privileges Committee was inclined to accept an apology. I am bound to say I thought its decision in that case was not only generous but extraordinarily light and to some extent it has contributed to the sort of problem we have had in the ensuing 2 or 3-year period. But in that case the committee did at least lay down a warning. It did at least remind all State-owned enterprises and Crown companies of their obligations to report and account to the select committees of the House. 
Faced with the clear warning that was contained in the 2002 New Zealand Post Privileges Committee report the Privileges Committee in 2006 had no option but to take the next logical step to ensure that at least some authority was restored to this Parliament and to the committees that report to this Parliament. 
The report of the committee makes it clear that this is not the only difficulty that has occurred in respect of TVNZ. Although the committee focused merely upon whether there had been a contempt or a breach in this particular case it rightly recalled the previous difficulties with securing TVNZ’s cooperation in the supply of information to select committees. As someone who has sat frequently on the Finance and Expenditure Committee and sometimes on the Commerce Committee—in an examination of TVNZ in particular—I say that particular organisation has had a really bad attitude which has led inevitably to the finding that is being reported to the House today. 
In recent years I am sad to say it has been my experience that the very senior executives and the chair of TVNZ have had a grudging and minimalist attitude to complying with their obligations to supply information to the select committee that is supposed to mark with a tick or a cross its performance for the year under review. The TVNZ chairman and some of those who have reported with him have been disdainful of those obligations. That disdain and that grudging and minimalist attitude to compliance is what has got them into hot water on this occasion. 
The committee in making its findings has drawn attention to the fact that ignorance is no excuse. It has made the further point that the company has a longstanding general counsel who is on a large salary specifically to advise the board and the senior management on their compliance with obligations to Parliament. That particular gentleman has been found to be seriously wanting on this occasion and I am sad to say to the House that he has been at the root of many of the difficulties that this Parliament and its select committees have had with that organisation in recent years. The law firm Bell Gully is also singled out for mention in the appendices to the report—and it is rightly singled out for mention. Surely it should have turned its mind to the question of privilege when giving advice on a matter that was before a select committee. Clearly Bell Gully let its client down on this occasion. 
I want to give a more general warning today to the major law firms that make very substantial profits out of doing work for State-owned enterprises and Crown companies. Those law firms need to be aware that if they are engaged in advising State-owned organisations on how they might avoid their obligations to account to Parliament or select committees then the Privileges Committee will mention them in dispatches when it finds that their advice has led to bad conduct—indeed in this case to a very serious breach of the Standing Orders of Parliament. I say to the internal legal advisers of Crown entities and State-owned enterprises as well as to the external law firms that this particular report has a message for them. In future I urge those organisations to take much more seriously their obligations not just to provide advice to their clients but to make sure their clients—those publicly owned bodies—are aware of their obligations to this place. 
I join others in welcoming the report. I think it is a milestone in terms of Parliament’s ability to exert its authority over the bodies that are owned by the taxpayers of New Zealand. It is the next step forward in improving behaviour that has become loose and undisciplined in recent times. I welcome the fact that the Privileges Committee which represents parties from across Parliament has been able to bring a unanimous finding here. It is a finding that will benefit not just Parliament but also the public of New Zealand which ultimately owns the businesses that are at issue.