Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7873. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
8. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs 
: Did any of the reports referred to in his response to Question for Written Answer 09873 (2012) include the governance and financial position of the Richina Pacific group of companies? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: No. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What was his reaction and what did he do when Richina Pacific was first described as a “surrogate Government agency” by the University of Auckland business school given that the company was deleted from the NZX in 2009 due to inadequate corporate disclosure and huge financial losses; or second when the Richina Pacific chief executive officer Richard Yan announced in September last year that Prime Minister John Key would open New Zealand House Shanghai within 2 months when as of 5 November 2012 in the written question that he has got according to him as Minister no decision had been made on the property in Shanghai? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: No decision had been made and what Mr Yan had to say was for Mr Yan but it did not accurately represent the facts of the matter. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in conjunction with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise was looking at a property given that the lease of the current property expires on 31 October this year. They were looking at a number of options. Mr Yan approached them and they were looking at such matters as the site the structure of the building and so on but it was a long way away from getting anywhere near what the member has said in his question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: So we are to believe that a man called Richard Yan has been making all sorts of statements internationally and widely broadcast and he as the Foreign Minister did nothing at all; or for example that when Richina Pacific chief executive officer Richard Yan asked Jenny Shipley to step down from the board of Mainzeal in December last year did he find out what the reason for Mrs Shipley’s departure was given the association with the Shanghai building that Mr Yan had been widely publicising? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Well that is a very convoluted question but what I will try to do is— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What’s the answer? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Well I will give the member the answer to his rather scrambled question and it is this: the Minister of Foreign Affairs cannot be responsible for any statements that Mr Yan may make. I have said to the member that what was going on was that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—and it was happening at an officials’ level—were looking at alternative premises in Shanghai. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well what did he do as Minister when the Minister of Maori Affairs said that “New Zealand house [in Shanghai] is an enormous and generous gesture.” or when for example as Minister he became aware of the enormous and generous gesture Mr Richard Yan had given to Mr Sharples? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: It is Dr Sharples actually and that would have been an aspirational statement by the Minister of Maori Affairs when he looked at the property. But the situation is that as I said officials were looking at the property in Shanghai from a cost and construction point of view and all other questions relating to Mr Yan or his company’s financial solvency would have come much further down the line. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a copy of Dr Sharples’—or Mr Sharples’—electoral return. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well again it is something that is pretty freely available to all members but it is over to the House. Leave is sought by the Rt Hon Winston Peters to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. It can be tabled. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.