Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:620;Page:15584] 
7.  
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers and what is her view on her Minister of Police telling Parliament the police are “unable to comment” on whether the Prime Minister has been interviewed by the police investigating the Prime Minister’s speeding motorcade? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes and the Minister’s comment was appropriate. 
Rodney Hide 
: In respect of the Prime Minister’s expectation that her Ministers be upfront and honest will she advise whether she herself has been interviewed by the police investigating the speeding motorcade; and if she has not been interviewed what sort of whitewash investigation is under way here? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As the member knows Ministers are not commenting on matters currently before a police investigation. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Has the Prime Minister at any time had knowledge that the police were exceeding the speed limit in meeting her travel arrangements to the rugby? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I repeat that the Government is not commenting on any matters before a police investigation. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: In light of the Prime Minister’s expressed confidence in all of her Ministers does she support the expressed views of the Minister for Rural Affairs who is promoting public access over New Zealand farmland and does she concede that in some people’s eyes this is akin to the public having free access to roam over the backyard of her Mount Albert villa? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Nothing that the Minister for Rural Affairs or any member of the Government said suggests that a right to roam is being considered. However the Minister commissioned an excellent report from John Acland in a reference group. We have been working on how to proceed with the general spirit of that report. 
Heather Roy 
: Given the Prime Minister’s confidence in her Minister of Health why did the Minister of Health oversee a cut in the real per-person health spending in the 2001-02 financial year and why did the Minister of Health underspend last year’s health operating budget by over $188 million when she has 31000 Kiwis waiting for operations on active review? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It is clear these questions are becoming an opportunity for people to raise any subject under the sun without notice. The Minister of Health has an excellent record in getting waiting times down and in this Budget we have provided for the number of hip and knee-joint operations to be doubled over the next 4 years helping many elderly people. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That question was entirely in order. If the Prime Minister does not want to front up— 
Government Members 
: Aw! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am about to ask somebody to leave. 
Rodney Hide 
: I ask the Speaker not to ask the Prime Minister to leave because we are so happy to have her here. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Will the member please carry on with the point of order or it will be the member who leaves. 
Rodney Hide 
: That question was entirely in order and you accepted it. The Prime Minister rather than taking a point of order and questioning it directed you saying: “Oh well what’s now happening is we’re having these questions without notice put down.” as though suggesting they were somehow out of order. Never once—I know she said some words—did she address the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: First of all the member is wrong. I allowed the question because it was in order. However if members ask supplementary questions in such generality they cannot expect a detailed answer to every point made. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why does the Prime Minister claim confidence in all her Ministers when the Minister of Justice has just spurned Dr Brash’s offer this week to save the taxpayer from more outrageous payments of damages to prisoners and of course the accompanying millions in lawyers’ fees and to what extent is this reluctance to intervene owing to embarrassment that these human rights damages awards are the product of naked judicial activism so long favoured by her friend the Attorney-General? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I fear on this occasion that I cannot blame it on judicial activism. The Government will be very happy to accept the support of any party in the House for the properly drafted legislation it brings to the House. 
Deborah Coddington 
: What is her opinion on her Minister of Health’s advice that Christchurch families whose children were examined by a medical officer of health at Glenelg Children’s Health Camp should take their complaints to the Medical Council and is this not a case of the Labour Government trying to avoid the legal implications that the Ministry of Health warned of in its confidential briefing of October 2003 by dumping the problem on a doctor who has not been registered for 8 years? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: This House has spent endless time since I have been elected to it looking at medical disciplinary procedures and the independent Health and Disability Commissioner’s legislation. Both are entirely appropriate places to direct such complaints. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: In light of her confidence in the Minister of Police what is her response to reports that police officers are being pulled away from emergency response duties forcing them to act as untrained guards to the hundreds of prisoners being kept in dangerous and chaotic conditions in police cells? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My response is that the sooner the new cells are ready the better. 
Rodney Hide 
: In light of her Minister’s inability in 5 years to draft legislation to stop the prison payouts will she accept the National Party’s offer of support this week if ACT drafts this legislation this week? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I do not expect the ACT party’s research unit is any more capable of drafting the legislation than the National Party’s research unit.