Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 03 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13146. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to thePrime Minister: Is he satisfied that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has always operated lawfully under his leadership?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of thePrime Minister: As far as I am aware yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is the case why was there a raid in July of last year on the Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement in New Zealand an organisation promoting by lawful and peaceful means the restoration of democracy in Fiji?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is referring to an operational matter and consistent with the practice of all New Zealand Prime Ministers on the Prime Minister’s behalf I am not going to answer that question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service is it not a fact that the SIS acted on the pretext of a fictitious assassination plot against the Fiji military regime yet claimed there was credible evidence of the plot?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not intend to answer that question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and as the Prime Minister can he let us know why the SIS claimed credible evidence of an assassination plot when the New Zealand Government later backed down when sued in the High Court for matters arising from the raid?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In respect of SIS operations I will not answer that question and any issues related to the court will be a matter of public record.Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service why a week before the Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully visited Fiji did his Government engage in an illegal raid at the behest of the dictatorial regime in Fiji if it was not an attempt to ingratiate itself with the Fiji military regime?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I will not be answering a question on any operational matter but—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not asking about what happened; I am asking “Did it happen?”. I have sat here for three supplementary questions and he has been allowed to get away with saying he is not going to answer to this Parliament or the country. It is the nature of the question that either affords him shelter or not and I do not believe that I have couched those questions in such a way that he can escape by saying “I refuse to answer anybody.”Mr SPEAKER: It is indeed the nature of the question and the issue is around the New Zealand SIS and the Minister in this case answering on behalf of the Prime Minister has said that he does not think it is in the public interest to answer that question. That is a satisfactory answer as far as I am concerned. I certainly accept it is not a satisfactory answer from the member’s point of view but if that is the way the Minister chooses to answer the question that is his choice.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you seriously telling the House and the country that if there is an illegal raid by an agency of the State then a Minister can get up and say—and I can prove that it was an illegal raid—“Well I’m not answering at all.”? That cannot be the way this democracy has been conducted in the past and I hope it is not the way it is going to be done in the future.Mr SPEAKER: That is exactly what I am saying to the member. In this particular case it is for the Minister to accept responsibility for the answer that he or she wants to give and in this case the Minister has chosen to say it is not in the public interest to talk about an operational matter concerning the New Zealand SIS.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Well is it a fresh point of order?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes it is a fresh point of order because the essence of the matter is that I am not asking how the operation was conducted—who did it when it happened and on what day and in what form. I am asking “Did it happen?”. That is not an operational matter—it goes to the fact.Mr SPEAKER: For the final time—because that is not a fresh point of order; that is simply relitigating the earlier points of order which I have answered—the Minister can choose how he decides to answer the question. In this case the Minister has on all occasions said he does not want to answer any further detail because he does not consider it to be in the public interest. That is the prerogative of the Minister and that is the course he has taken.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Before I start can I also clarify that this is again a fresh point of order and not any attempt to relitigate the point of order I have just ruled on.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well it goes back I think three supplementary—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is it a fresh point of order or not?Hon Trevor Mallard: It does ask you to look at your ruling in the context of the answer that was given by the Minister acting on behalf of the Prime Minister to I think the second supplementary question from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Mr SPEAKER: Well I will accept that point of order. It is in fact asking me to reconsider an earlier ruling. I will certainly be looking very very closely at the questions that were asked and the answers that were given but at this stage I am not changing my ruling.