Norman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17311. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Energy and Resources: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): Yes.Dr Russel Norman: Does he stand by his statement that it is “emotional claptrap” to stand up for the New Zealandfernbird—the threatenedfernbird—to try to protect it from drilling rigs?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes because I think what the member was doing was presenting the worst conceivable scenarios as if they were fact. The member was totally ignoring the extensive consultation process with the Department of Conservation iwi and local government. He was ignoring the extensive legal processes—which we are really just at the start of here—that involve again the Department of Conservation access arrangements Resource Management Act processes and the like which very much safeguard environmental factors. Fundamentally he was also ignoring the fact that the area he talks about has been mined for 100 years.Dr Russel Norman: Is he aware that the Victoria Forest Park which he unknowingly opened to petroleum drilling is home to thekākā and the rock wren—two birds ranked last week in the scientific journalCurrent Biology as being in the top 100 most evolutionary—[Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister’s shouting is making it very difficult for us to hear over here.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! It would certainly assist the order of the House if the member could ask a substantially shorter question and without injecting his own opinion as to whether the Minister knowingly or unknowingly approved a particular site. I invite the member to reword his question.Dr Russel Norman: Is he aware that the Victoria Forest Park which he unknowingly opened to petroleum drilling is home to thekākā and the rock wren two birds ranked last week in the scientific journalCurrent Biologyas being in the top 100 most evolutionarily distinct birds under threat from extinction?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I always knew there was a conservation park here that I was deliberately opening up. I also know that fundamentally the Green Party is anti-development. That is OK—that is a perspective. But it also means no taxes and royalties and no jobs including the hundreds in this park in gold mining and other activities.Dr Russel Norman: In the extensive consultation that he described earlier did he realise that the Victoria Forest Park is home to thekākā and the rock wren two birds that were ranked last week in the scientific journalCurrent Biology as being in the top 100 most evolutionarily distinct birds under threat of extinction in the world?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: At the end of the consultation process I received extensive documentation. I studied it conscientiously and it made very clear that there are a number of areas of sensitivity that were excluded and indeed others that I excluded as well. But I come back to it: this particular area of conservation park which the Labour members laugh about includes hundreds of jobs that frankly Damien O’Connor should be standing up for. I appreciate the member’s position of no development; that is not the Government’s position.Dr Russel Norman: I seek leave to table a journal article that is not readily available “Global Distribution and Conservation of Evolutionary Distinctness in Birds” fromCurrent Biology No. 24 May 2014.Mr SPEAKER: On the basis that it is not—I will take the member’s word that it is not—readily available to members I will put the leave and the House will decide. Leave is sought to table that particular journal. Is there any objection? There is objection.Rt Hon John Key: Can the Minister tell us how many previous mining permits were on the Victoria Forest Park and does he have any idea what view other parties in Parliament took on that?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The first part of the question can be answered.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well there are 58 mining permits in that area. Some 12 at least were granted by the last Labour Government when the Green Party did absolutely nothing.Dr Russel Norman: Are New Zealanders wrong to love the unique and threatened rock wren with its rounded olive brown wings and to want to protect it from the bulldozers and gigantic drilling rigs that this Minister is proposing to send in to wreck the habitat of this globally threatened bird?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was very hard to hear what Dr Norman was asking there—Hon Annette King: Because you were yelling.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No Mrs King I was not laughing although every time you speak the House does come to a certain standstill.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Will the member please get to his point of order otherwise—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well I would if I was not interrupted. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Could I ask you to consider whether in fact the material that Dr Norman is putting into his question is reasonable under the Standing Orders. He is making all sorts of assertions casting aspersions etc. and then asking a question that is always couched in a catch-22 nature. Everyone knows that the Greens support this sort of thing when Labour is in Government but not when National is.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That last part is unnecessary. [Interruption] Order! Would the member asking the question please have a look at Speaker’s ruling 171/1: “Questions are meant to be succinct not speeches or long statements.” If the member was prepared to adhere to that Speaker’s ruling he would greatly assist the order of this House. The member does many times ask very long questions that do invite a lot of disorder and a lot of interjection and the answer he then gets is probably one that is unhelpful to the member anyway. But I am not going to rule that question out of order. I am relatively generous in allowing fairly extensive questions to be asked but extensive questions are very unlikely to deliver an answer satisfactory to the person asking them.Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Can I just clarify that the member is not in any way disputing a ruling I have just made?Gareth Hughes: No I am not disputing; but it is related.Mr SPEAKER: Good.Gareth Hughes: I would just like to point out to the House in terms of the Standing Order around disorderly conduct that we have twice seen questions interrupted by interjections from the Government side and twice you have chastised the Opposition side of the House for the questions when in fact all the disorder was coming from the Government side of the House.Mr SPEAKER: I would really appreciate it if the member would listen to the point that I have just made. When we get lengthy questions—almost speeches—that inject a lot of opinion from a particular member it does create disorder. So it would be helpful if we could get away from these lengthy questions that are full of a particular member’s opinions. Are there further supplementary questions?Dr Russel Norman: How can the Minister justify his attempt to destroy the habitat of thekāka which many New Zealanders—if not the Minister—love and want to protect when this is a treasure for all of New Zealand and he is letting it be destroyed?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I repeat what I said last week. The member is scaremongering because he is simply not taking account of the extensive consultations and legal processes that protect our environment in this area and will be ongoing. The fact is that actually New Zealand is one-third conservation estate and 40 percent of that is in schedule 4 and we should be proud of that. But I repeat: where was the member when the Labour Government in this very area that he talks about opened up open-cast coalmining which he is all of a sudden upset about?Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to answer the Minister’s question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now trifling with the Chair. Question No. 5—[Interruption] No. Question No. 5. The Hon Kate Wilkinson.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked for a supplementary question as is my right. You may not like my questions but none the less they are questions within the Standing Orders of this House. It is my right to ask questions.Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. I have already explained to the member that I find his questions very difficult to chair because of the length of them. He has done nothing to rectify that. He then trifled with the Chair with his point of order. I have moved to question No. 5. The Hon Kate Wilkinson.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister invited Dr Norman to answer a question. I have heard many times in this House people doing exactly what Dr Norman did and seeking leave to answer a question. Clearly you did not feel that that was in order. The next step is then to ask whether there are any more supplementary questions. Dr Norman had one. I think it would help the order of the House if he were able to ask another supplementary question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I hope that members will listen to the rulings that I have given today. Question No. 5. The Hon Kate Wilkinson.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will know that the House is the master of its own destiny. If the member seeks leave in the way that Dr Norman did that leave should have been put to the House. We run this in the end not just you.Mr SPEAKER: No no no. The leave was sought to answer the question on behalf of the member. That is not appropriate leave. If the member sought leave to ask an additional supplementary question that he is asking that is leave that I would have to put.Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Greens have more allocated questions as of right by proportionality in this House. So I think the member Dr Russel Norman should be able to ask a supplementary question if he wishes.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now questioning a decision I have made. I have moved to question No. 5. The Greens—[Interruption] Order! If the Greens wish to use their supplementary questions they have another opportunity later in the day. Question No. 5—Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: I want to be fair to all members. I have made a decision—[Interruption] Order! I have made a decision that we are moving to question No. 5. If any member is now relitigating that decision I will be inclined to ask that member to leave the Chamber.Hon David Parker: It is a new point of order. The Minister in his answer was out of order. I would ask why you did not call him to order in that he is meant to answer questions not ask questions. I am surprised that he was not stood down in the way that Mr Norman was for breaching the Standing Orders.Mr SPEAKER: It is a reasonable point the member has made. I can assist the member. If you go back and look at the context of the question that was asked—how the Minister can justify destroying habitats etc.—it was a question that some might say was emotive. It was certainly full of opinion. On that basis as I have said to this House on many occasions it gives wide licence to the Minister when he answers the question.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There was a ruling made by Speaker Hunt in the term of the last Labour Government that political parties would be able to determine how they allocated their supplementary questions. Previously there were set numbers of supplementary questions per primary question and the responsibility was then given to parties as to how they allocate them. You have now indicated that it is no longer up to a party to indicate how it allocates its supplementary questions and that you will determine when you have had enough supplementaries on a particular primary question. I wonder whether you could give us some further clarity around that ruling.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now in danger of leaving this Chamber. He is relitigating a decision I have made. I was very unhappy with the point of order raised by Dr Russel Norman. I have put up now with lengthy questions despite asking him to ask them consistent with the Standing Orders and being completely ignored. We are moving to question No. 5.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I just want to be absolutely fair to the Hon Trevor Mallard—if in any way this is a point of order that relitigates my decision to—Hon Trevor Mallard: No not all.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am talking. If it—[Interruption] Order! If it in any way relitigates the decision I have made to move to question No. 5 I will then be asking the member to leave the Chamber.Hon Trevor Mallard: I am not relitigating the question. I am making it absolutely clear—I am not asking you to reverse your position now but to consider an alternative method going forward and that is to allow members if you believe their questions are out of order and inappropriate to ask their questions and then rule them out of order the way that previous Speakers have.Mr SPEAKER: I will consider that.