Brownlee Gerry: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18730] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The difficulty that we are in is because of Supplementary Order Paper 327 put on the Table by the Hon Margaret Wilson which asks the House to consider placing a new recital (10A) in the preamble to the bill. There is also a proposed amendment to that Supplementary Order Paper on the Table in the name of the Hon Margaret Wilson to insert a further expression in the bill that expression being “2002”. The bill itself refers to activities that took place in 2003. The question is further made complex by the fact that the Maori text is to be numbered (10A) and we are told that the translation for that is (12) in the English version. The question that comes to mind is that if those recitals are translated one by one why do the numbers get out of order? We are just keen to understand that what is written in the letter that was circulated today is what is in the bill. That is not unreasonable and given that the insertion is going in because of a mistake and there is a mistake in the insertion itself I think it not unreasonable that we ask for the translation extraordinarily of just seven lines of text. 
I refer you in the matter of interpretation to Speaker’s rulings 34/1 and 34/2 because although Mr Tamihere has generously volunteered to interpret my contribution to the Committee he has done so while the Committee has its own interpreter here. You will see that Speaker’s ruling 34/3 states: “The interpreter is responsible to the Speaker (in committee the chairperson). If members do not like the way the interpreter is rendering their speeches into English they are at liberty to give their own interpretation. Members do not ‘own’ the interpreter’s contribution; it is controlled by the Speaker on behalf of the House. Members can seek to correct the subsequent  
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 translation in the normal way.” 
I will not have access to Mr Tamihere’s translation in  
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 before it is published so the question arises of why we have an interpreter in the House responsible to the Speaker where members are able to reasonably consider how well that interpretation has been given if we are to have the Chairperson of the Committee determine that we will not use the interpreter provided to the House. Rather the Chairperson has said we will use a member in political opposition to the person who has spoken to interpret that member’s words thereby denying the member who has spoken in Maori the opportunity to check that the  
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 record is correct or to take issue with any aspect of the interpretation that a political opponent may like to put upon the originally stated words. In other words the situation would be a little like Parekura Horomia as Minister of Maori Affairs coming to the House to make a ministerial statement choosing to do so in his chosen language te reo Maori someone on the Opposition side of the House being asked to interpret what he has said and the House leaving him with no opportunity to question whether that interpretation was totally accurate. 
I would like your view on whether if we proceed with this particular course of action we will create a new Speaker’s ruling that will do away with Speaker’s ruling 34/3 which was given to the House in 1999 at about the time the interpreter’s services were required in the House on each and every sitting day. So the real question is why my rights as a member to have my speech interpreted by the official interpreter are being usurped in this case.