Norman Russel: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12038. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):This is an incredibly serious matter that we are dealing with now in the Chamber. It strikes at the heart of our democracy. If we are to have freedom in New Zealand if we are going to have a democracy if those things mean anything—and if the people whose names are inscribed on the walls of this Chamber fought for anything they fought for freedom and democracy and freedom and democracy rely on a free press. But we now have the situation where the Prime Minister’s office is menacing anybody who dares to disagree with the Prime Minister and forcing them to release information. We have the situation where the chief of staff of the Prime Minister’s office was leaning on Parliamentary Service in order to get it to release information about members of Parliament and about the phone records of New Zealand journalists.It is an extraordinary turn of events where the Prime Minister’s chief of staff is in phone contact with Parliamentary Service is sending emails to Parliamentary Service telling it to release the parliamentary emails of Peter Dunne and for all we know—and we have not managed to get to the bottom of it yet—is having something to do with the phone records around New Zealand journalist Andrea Vance and certainly around the building movement records of that journalist. We are now in the situation where the head of the executive the Prime Minister’s office the Prime Minister’s chief of staff the Prime Minister’s closest staff member in the entire Government—there is no closer staff member to the Prime Minister than the chief of staff—is in contact with Parliamentary Service in order to pressure it to release the email logs of a member of Parliament.Let us remember that those email logs were parliamentary email logs not ministerial email logs. Let us remember that Peter Dunne—the subject of this—never gave consent for his email logs to be handed over from the Parliamentary Service to John Key’soffice. That is the situation we now find ourselves in. The chief of staff WayneEagleson John Key’s closest ally and the closest member in the Government to the Prime Minister pressured Parliamentary Service to hand over the private parliamentary email logs of Peter Dunne and Parliamentary Service did it. That is the situation.Who now is safe from the Prime Minister’s office? Who now can protect their records from the prying eyes of the Prime Minister—the bullying menacing Prime Minister who will come down like a tonne of bricks on anyone who dares disagree with him? The Human Rights Commission—oh well it is going to have its funding cut because it dared to disagree with the Prime Minister about the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. We now have a menacing frightening Prime Minister who is determined that the only way he can win the next election is to crush all opposition to make sure that all journalists know that if they do not do what John Key likes then he might pull their phone records just like he did to Jon Stephenson in Afghanistan and just like he did to Andrea Vance here. He will pull their movement records to find out whom they are talking to. And if there is a member of Parliament whom John Key does not like then John Key will get their email logs to find out whom they have been emailing. It is a matter of fact that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff leaned on Parliamentary Service to obtain Peter Dunne’s parliamentary email logs.What kind of freedom and what kind of democracy do we have now when it is the Prime Minister’s office that is engaged in this kind of menacing behaviour and menacing anyone who disagrees with him? It ties into a persistent theme from this Prime Minister of menacing anyone who disagrees with him of removing the democratic rights from the people of Canterbury and of removing people’s right to go to court to get a judicial review of the Government’s legislative agenda. It is a persistent attitude that says: “I’m the Prime Minister. I get to decide. The rules and regulations don’t matter. Parliamentary Service must hand over the email logs of members of Parliament. Parliamentary Service must tell us where journalists have been moving about in the building.”When it is all revealed the Prime Minister says: “Oh it’s nothing to do with me. I had nothing to do with it.” Of course his chief of staff was leaning on Parliamentary Service to release the information but John Key says: “Oh I knew nothing about it—nothing to do with me.” We ask him in the House whether he was aware of it and oh well—