1. Police—Deputy Commissioner of Police Inquiry into the Appointment ProcessHon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSPolice—Deputy Commissioner of Police Inquiry into the Appointment Process1. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: On behalf of the Prime Minister and when correctly stated in their context yes.Hon Paula Bennett: Why did the Deputy Prime Minister say yesterday in relation to Wally Haumaha The fact is the person is not a witness. The person may be a complainant" when the New Zealand Herald report was very clear that the person was a witness?SPEAKER: Order!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I'm happy to answer the question.SPEAKER: Well the member might want to seek leave to answer the out-of-order question.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I seek leave to answer that abhorrent out-of-order question.SPEAKER: If the member wants to seek leave in a straight manner—Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Sorry I seek leave to answer that question. SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that? There is none.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answer is that the New Zealand Herald does not clearly in the form of those two writers understand the fundamentals of the law. They were wanting to make out a case of witness tampering and to be able to do that they constructed a potential complainant or three potential complainants as witnesses. My challenge to them is—witness where in what inquiry and saying what? Complainants they may be but you can't call them witnesses.SPEAKER: Is there a further supplementary question to the Prime Minister?Hon Paula Bennett: If her deputy is not involved in the process around Wally Haumaha why does she think he thinks he has so much other information that others don't?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because it's not the habit of her deputy to go out and shoot off his mouth without the facts.SPEAKER: I'm going to remind the Deputy Prime Minister of the tradition in this House when one is answering even a supplementary for another Minister to acknowledge that at the beginning of the answer and that might just have an influence on the tone of the reply.Hon Paula Bennett: Does she know if her Deputy Prime Minister knows the identity of the witness or any of the complainants and if so how he might have found this information out?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister the answer is: the deputy does not know the identity of the three potential complainants but what the deputy does know is that on the two former promotions of Mr Haumaha in 2012 and in 2016 the National Party was in Government the Commissioner of Police was their appointment—first Marshall and then Bush so there are two occasions on which the kind of information which is being sought to be elicited now in an inquiry would have been covered at that point in time if the National Party was doing its job properly.Hon Paula Bennett: Were previous promotions of Wally Haumaha statutory appointments that went through an honours committee and made by Ministers or the Prime Minister then to the Governor-General?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I just ask the questioner—Hon Members: On behalf of.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister can I ask the questioner slowly and without interruption what honours promotion is she talking about?Hon Paula Bennett: In reference to the answer that the Prime Minister gave two questions ago where she clearly stated that there'd been two promotions of Wally Haumaha previous to her being in Government can she verify whether or not those were statutory appointments appointed by the Governor-General at the recommendation of the Prime Minister or were they internal police promotions?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I can say on behalf of the Prime Minister that on the general manager Māori Pacific and ethnic affairs 2012 to 2014 appointment that was handled by the department. With respect to the deputy chief executive Māori now a significantly larger promotion—happening under the National Party—2014 to 2018 that was handled by commissioner Mike Bush also chosen by the National Party at the point in time. So you might say the National Party's DNA is all over this.Hon Paula Bennett: In the context of the appointment of Wally Haumaha in recent months to the role of deputy police commissioner which is a role made by her and her Cabinet shouldn't she finally take some responsibility for what a fiasco it's turned out to be?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I just say on behalf of the Prime Minister the moment the Prime Minister knew about the allegations that were being made the Prime Minister had two very singular thoughts—one at a time of course. The first one is surely this information came out in 2014 and 2012 when the previous Government was handling the promotions and second we must have a full-scale inquiry and get to the truth of this matter as to process. That's what the Prime Minister did and thought.Hon Paula Bennett: Would she support the State Services Commission doing an inquiry into the three totally different accounts of how the three women were treated by the State sector as asked for by Chris Bishop via a letter to the commissioner today?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: First of all the Bishop letter did not cover off—on behalf of the Prime Minister—the time of these alleged offences rather conveniently because it happened as I understand during the National Party's time in Government. The second thing is the State Services Commissioner has replied to Mr Bishop and said that they are considering his request. That's where things are precisely as we speak.Hon Shane Jones: Is she confident that the terms of reference will be wide enough to identify those members of the police force importuned by Opposition members for private information?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister that is a matter which having been alluded to by the Minister the consideration with respect to the inquiry must have. But it's being conducted by a QC the wife of a former National Party Minister and any allegation of bias is malice aforethought. Hon Stuart Nash: Did the last Government provide Mr Haumaha with any sort of honour and if so would that have gone through a Cabinet committee and been approved by Cabinet?SPEAKER: Order! That is not a matter for the Prime Minister's responsibility.Hon Paula Bennett: So in light of police being part of the inquiry can she please still verify that police will be able to make submissions to the QC in light of it being anonymous and them not going through threats; of actually them being able to speak the truth?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister she has a burning desire to repeat her statement of yesterday which was exactly that. It hasn't changed in 24 hours. The new information we have got of course is that there was an honours committee nomination from the National Party; it went through their full honours committee subcommittee and Cabinet."