Inquiries Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeInquiries Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12716. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Inquiries BillIn CommitteeLOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):I seek leave for the Inquiries Bill to be taken as one debate with all questions put at the conclusion of the debate.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Before that leave is taken I want to make two things clear—that we are not going to limit the number of speeches that individual members make and that closures are not going to be put. If that is the case we will grant leave. If is not we will not grant leave.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will ask the senior whip to respond.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):My understanding is that in the Committee stage the maximum number of calls per speaker is four and that will stand.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I will object then.Louise Upston: That’s fine.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think what the member just said is that there is going to be a limit of four speeches and what that does is cut out three-quarters of the ability or in fact 80 percent of the ability of members to make speeches. If that is what the National Party wants to do we will not grant leave.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): OK are we very clear on the matter? Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.Part 1 Preliminary provisionsHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):This is an interesting start to a bill because within the preliminary provisions there are some relatively important points. Within that part there is the purpose clause. I must say that it is a very well-drafted purpose clause and I want to compliment the work of the Government Administration Committee on that and the Hon Rick Barker—Grant Robertson: Annette King as well.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well in fact I was going to go right back to Sir Geoffrey Palmer. Shall we get the history right as to how this purpose clause got here? Annette King asked Sir Geoffrey Palmer to do some work. He gave that work to the Hon Rick Barker. It was introduced into the Parliament before the 2008 election. It was sent to a select committee and had its consideration during 2009.Grant Robertson: On 20 November it came back.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It came back on 20 November 2009. I think it is fair to say that unlike the legislation that we have just been dealing with this is something that has the broad support of the House. The Labour Party after 4 or 5 years in Government realised that there was a gap—a pretty massive gap—in the inquiries function and the ability to run inquiries. To make it clear for members who are not across it a commission of inquiry or even a royal commission of inquiry is an enormous undertaking. They are exceptionally formal. There are a lot of requirements around them. They are expensive and they are slow.At the other end of the scale we have arrangements that can be made between the Prime Minister and the State Services Commissioner. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of issues that happen within the State sector generally can pretty easily be handled by inquiries that are set up by the State Services Commissioner at the request of the Prime Minister. But there is an enormous gap where things go wrong in the private sector or where there are issues in the private sector that have to be dealt with and ministerial inquiries find it very hard where there is not cooperation where there is not transparency to get at facts and to make conclusions.Therefore it became clear to those of us involved in the previous Government after 4 or 5 years in Government and the experience of a number of issues that it was important that we got something that covered that gap. We thought: “What is the right way of doing it?”. Could we take the approach that the current Government takes to the Government Communications Security Bureau and just sort of make it up? Or could we get a decent organisation to have a good look get a coherent piece of legislation coming back from that organisation get it into the House and try to get broad support for it? What we decided was that we would ask the Law Commission which was at that time headed I think by Sir Geoffrey Palmer—someone whom most people in New Zealand think is a—Grant Robertson: Except the Attorney-General.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well the Attorney-General seems to think that Sir Geoffrey Palmer has an inferior legal brain to his.Hon Annette King: He thinks everybody does.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No I disagree with my colleague about her cousin. I think her cousin knows he has an inferior brain to Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s and probably that of every other Queen’s Counsel in the country and as a result of that we have some of the attitudes that flow through into the House.Hon Member: Inferiority complex.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes an inferiority complex; there are a number of other expressions that could be used. But I am told by the deputy leader of the LabourParty that it is probably inappropriate to use those descriptions of the current Attorney-General.But what became very clear to the previous Labour Government was that there was a gap and that we needed to fill it. So what we have done here is something that is designed to do that. It goes to questions around how the inquiry is going to be set up and how the members are to be appointed to it.The actual detail of that comes in a later part of the bill. It goes to the powers and the duties and the privileges of the inquiry and the immunities that apply to the inquiry and to its members. That is something that is quite important. It is exceptionally important in some cases. If I was David Henry at the moment appearing before the Privileges Committee I would be getting pretty anxious about the lack of immunities that I had been granted by the Prime Minister in that particular case. When you have senior Ministers—Gerry Brownlee I understand; Judith Collins; and Anne Tolley—turning on the Prime Minister’s man my view is that he will be looking to some of his immunities and some of the protections and some of the resources that he has got because it is pretty clear that he has overstepped the mark and I am relatively certain that the immunities that he would require are not properly in place. There are questions that go to the protection available for witnesses and counsel appearing before an inquiry.Later on when we get to clause 15 I will be putting forward an amendment. I do want to acknowledge and thank the Minister who is in charge of this bill—and I will just say that last night there was a bit of confusion as to who is in charge of this bill. Last night we had Nathan Guy move the motion on the bill. The bill was printed in Nathan Guy’s name but on the Order Paper it said it was in the name of Chris Tremain. I have been informed by the learned Clerk that in fact it is the Order Paper that counts and for good reason. When a Minister of Internal Affairs has been—who was the first one? Was that Worth? Was he a Minister of Internal Affairs?Hon Annette King: He was.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: So we have had a bit of a churn—not a good history for Ministers—Hon Annette King: They’ve had lots of affairs.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Internal affairs? Well there is not a good history. They lost Richard Worth. They were almost certainly going to lose Nathan Guy a short period after he was the Minister of Internal Affairs. And frankly Chris Tremain—in matters that are going to become clear to people as to what is going on in Napier and in issues of corruption around dams—is himself unlikely to be a Minister by time of the end of this Government.Iain Lees-Galloway: Or an MP.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Or an MP. Well I think it is fair to say that he will probably make it to the end of next year but that will be the end of it. But the point I am making is that in clause 15 which we will get to later—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well not now.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —there are some protections and I mean to put forward an amendment. But I can refer to it because I am referring to clause 3(2)(c) which refers to “the protection available for witnesses and counsel appearing before an inquiry;” because this relates to that particular area. The Act does go to the 1908 Commissions of Inquiry Act and repeals—Grant Robertson: Were you here when that passed?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I can remember talk of it and I have been subject to I think three or four lectures from the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer on the question of the Commissions of Inquiry Act its benefits and its problems. My advice to younger members—members who unlike me are not at the midpoint of their career butare a way off it yet—is they might want to get that lecture from Sir Geoffrey Palmer because it is pretty informative. It does go to some of the things relating to performing ministerial duties in an appropriate way which are really important.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):I am sure my colleagues will soon be able to take a call on this important Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. Mr Mallard in an interesting exposition on Part 1 covered the material around exactly what this part does. It establishes the purpose of the Inquiries Bill and in particular it runs through a set of the changes to the Inquiries Act that are set out for how an inquiry can be established.I think it is quite clear that across the House there is an enthusiasm for a range of different inquiries. As Mr Mallard said at the moment we have the royal commission the bigkahuna of inquiries at one end of the spectrum and we have ministerial inquiries at the other. In the middle there is a grey area that needs to be filled and is filled by the public inquiry function and the ministerial inquiry function that are established under this bill.There has been no better recent example for me of why the purpose clause of this bill is needed than the David Henry inquiry. Today in the Privileges Committee we were treated to an absolute circus. We had David Henry himself the person who allegedly was undertaking the inquiry telling us what he thought his powers and parameters were.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well he was more than allegedly undertaking—GRANT ROBERTSON: Well he was undertaking—Hon Trevor Mallard: —he was actually undertaking.GRANT ROBERTSON: He was undertaking it under terms of reference set by the Prime Minister which Mr Henry was quite clear enabled him to for example get Andrea Vance’s swipe card records. But then moments later we had AndrewKibblewhite the chief executive of the Prime Minister’s department and WayneEagleson the chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s office come in and say that this inquiry’s terms of reference did not give Mr Henry that power. Or in the case of MrEagleson he said that he had not contemplated that it might give that power. There was complete confusion. It appeared that nobody knew what the parameters of this inquiry were.Of course the inquiry itself was fundamentally undermined by the fact that it did not have the powers that are given through the purpose clause here which is the power to call witnesses and to call them under oath. Had Mr Henry had that power we might actually know for sure today who leaked theKitteridge report. As at today we have an accusation that Peter Dunne leaked theKitteridge report but we have no actual proof of that—Hon Trevor Mallard: He denies it.GRANT ROBERTSON: —because Mr Dunne denies it quite categorically denies it.Iain Lees-Galloway: Who else might it have been?GRANT ROBERTSON: Well that is right. My colleague Mr Lees-Galloway asks who else it might have been. If an inquiry was established—Hon Trevor Mallard: Hey hey Grant some of the others have history.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes we will come back to that. If an inquiry was established under the purpose clause here in Part 1 which we are debating it would have a range of powers and duties and privileges as outlined in clause 3(2)(b) and that includes the ability to call witnesses on oath. That ability was not there.Today in the Privileges Committee David Henry was asked—in fact it was Kennedy Graham who asked him actually—“Why didn’t you go back and get some more powers? You were charged with finding out who did this who leaked theKitteridgereport so why didn’t you go back?”. I do not think he answered the question. I certainly do not recall a definitive answer from him. That raises a number of questions about when Ministers call for inquiries. Sometimes they do not really want to know the result and it may be that John Key did not really want to know who leaked theKitteridge report.Today what we have is an inquiry that was unable to fulfil its function. Its function was to get to the bottom of who leaked theKitteridge report. Under this piece of legislation that inquiry would have significantly wider powers or the ability to have significantly wider powers including calling people on oath and for that reason alone this bill is worthy of support.I want to raise a couple of other points. I am not going to speak for much longer because I know that my colleagues are very keen to. But I want to raise another point within this part and that is in the interpretation clause clause 4. It is the question of who the appointing Minister is and who the appropriate Minister is. In the Henry inquiry—let us just be absolutely clear—John Key was what would be under this clause the appointing Minister. I believe that the appointing Minister of an inquiry has some responsibilities to actually ensure that the inquiry takes place in the way that it is meant to. I think that that is what is meant by the wording here. Unfortunately John Key fell well short of that. I hope that if he is part of any future inquiries established under this legislation he will actually take a more active approach and ensure that those inquiries are dealt with properly. But Part 1 is a reasonably good part.HOLLY WALKER (Green):I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. Part 1 of course as has been noted by my colleagues sets out the purpose of this bill which is essentially to reform and modernise the law relating to inquiries. We absolutely support this in the Green Party because the existing legislation governing the conduct of inquiries is over 100 years old and well in need of modernisation and updating.I think that what this bill reflects is the fact that we need the ability to have different types of inquiries for differing situations. There are essentially two different kinds of inquiries that routinely get carried out. The first is an inquiry that seeks to get to the bottom of a particular issue or incident and find out what happened what went wrong who was responsible and so on—the most topical example of course being the Henry inquiry into the leak of theKitteridge report. That has provided much fodder for consideration in this debate and I will talk about that a little bit more in subsequent calls on other parts of the bill. Another example would be the Fonterra botulism crisis which has prompted the resurrection of this bill from the bottom of the Order Paper in a sudden burst of enthusiasm from the Government to pass this legislation because it realised it would have been quite useful to have it in place for that particular inquiry. There are many similar inquiries that are undertaken to determine what has caused a particular event.The other type of inquiry is a broader kind of inquiry and that is an inquiry that examines particular issues of national significance makes recommendations and often results in cross-party adoption of those recommendations and major change and steps forward in public policy. Some examples of those would be the Royal Commission on Nuclear Power Generation in New Zealand which was set up in 1976; the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in the early 1990s which resulted in the adoption of our MMP electoral system; and of course the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification about a decade ago. Those kinds of broad public inquiries are very important as well.So this bill provides in Part 1 in the purpose clause for two kinds of inquiries both of which could be established to inquire into any matter of public importance. Itprovides for Government inquiries which are established and led by Ministers and it provides for public inquiries which are established by the Governor-General and are independent of the Government and within the scope of public inquiries can exist royal commissions of inquiry. In practice it is likely that the first type of inquiry the ones that try to get to the bottom of something some particular incident or issue will be largely Government inquiries—those initiated by Ministers and with the terms of reference essentially driven by Ministers. The latter the general inquiries will be the public inquiries. But of course it does depend on the context on the seriousness of the inquiry and on the gravity of the situation. So there is flexibility within the bill for those to be applied flexibly and either could apply in either situation.Part 1 outlines how the remainder of the bill provides for basically the establishment and powers of those inquiries. So it talks about how the inquiries are set up the membership of those inquiries and the powers duties and privileges that the inquiry will hold. It talks about the protection for witnesses and the principles that will govern the inquiry and it talks about the sanctions that the inquiry has available to it if people do not cooperate. All of these powers will be extended identically to both the public inquiries and the Government inquiries that are established under this bill. That is a key difference between this bill and the existing rules. At the moment the equivalent of the Government inquiries that will be enabled under this legislation are ministerial inquiries—those inquiries driven by Ministers. But at present ministerial inquiries have no power to compel witnesses to appear or to provide evidence before the inquiry as we have indeed seen with the example of the Henry inquiry which was before the Privileges Committee this morning.Because of that this is quite a fundamental change that this Government is making—to extend in the future to Government inquiries which will be driven by Ministers the power to compel witnesses to disclose evidence. It is a big change and it is an important one which the Committee should take seriously. It is a big difference between what has existed under the existing legislation and what will exist in the future. As we have seen from the very topical example of the Henry inquiry it is a very salient point as to whether a ministerial inquiry has the ability to compel witnesses to disclose information particularly if it is the source of a journalist’s story if it is a private communication between an MP and another person or if it is indeed privileged information under parliamentary privilege.In my contribution to the second reading debate last night I raised a number of questions about these concerns and I outlined the fact that the Green Party was abstaining on this legislation at the second reading because of concerns about these protections and whether they were adequately protected under the legislation. I am pleased to say that upon closer inspection we are largely reassured here on the Green Party benches that the appropriate protections are in place in the bill. They are not outlined here in Part 1; they are found in Part 3. So when we get up to Part 3 I will speak more about the particular provisions that I think provide the adequate protection that will allow us to support the bill because we are very much in favour of modernising the law governing inquiries.But I want in this contribution on Part 1 to emphasise the importance of the Committee taking seriously the fact that we are now extending to Minister-led Government inquiries the power to compel witnesses to provide evidence. That is a big change and it does have a material impact on the very example that we have all been thinking about today—the Henry inquiry—because if that inquiry was held under the new legislation David Henry would have had more powers to compel evidence from those appearing before him. So then a question of parliamentary privilege arises and that question is whether things like Peter Dunne’s email records Andrea Vance’s swipecard records and the phone records between the two of them are covered by parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary privilege is still protected under this legislation along with all other kinds of legal and professional privilege.If the Privileges Committee rules that those things are privileged information then they will be protected in future inquiries but it is not yet clear that that is the case because it is a live issue before the Privileges Committee. So I think it behoves the Committee of the whole House to have in mind when considering Part 1 and subsequent parts of this bill that we take very seriously the fact that we are giving more power to Government-driven ministerial-led inquiries—which one would like to think would be apolitical but which in reality often are not entirely apolitical. So it is very important that we have that in mind as we consider Part 1 and subsequent parts.In my future calls on subsequent parts of the bill I will outline in more detail why we think the protections are in place to address some of the concerns I raised last night and why we are comfortable now to support this legislation going forward. But I would like the Committee to have in its mind as it continues with the Committee stage the fact that we are making quite a substantial change to the powers of ministerial-led inquiries so that we think carefully about the appropriateness of that.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 1 of this very important piece of legislation the Inquiries Bill and really to continue on from where the last speaker Holly Walker left off which was to note the distinction between what we have now where we have a law relating to commissions of inquiry and inquiries appointed under the authority of the Governor-General and the existing situation with ministerial inquiries which do not have the same status or standing or certainly gravitas perhaps as commissions of inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act. This bill and subclause (3) of clause 3 in particular repeals section 2 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act which confirms that commissions of inquiry under that Act are convened under the auspices of the Governor-General.This bill once enacted will give a similar status to ministerial inquiries to that which currently applies to commissions of inquiry. As Holly Walker has noted that is a big step but I would say that that is a good step. In addition to the many other enactments that provide for various inquiries—standing commissions of inquiry such as the Independent Police Conduct Authority and Acts that allow inquiries to be established—this bill allows at least in relation to those matters of important public interest that arise from time to time and that fall well under a Minister’s bailiwick the Minister to act with some haste to establish an inquiry that has some authority and that can get to the bottom of those matters.There is no question that as the complexity of Government administration grows mistakes do happenmisjudgments happen and catastrophes happen and the public needs to know that if those sorts of circumstances arise then we have the means and the machinery to ensure that an appropriate inquiry can be established the causes of a particular incident or event can be established and the public confidence can be restored. So that change in subclause (3) of clause 3 the repeal of section 2 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908 is a very important one.I might say that it is quite coincidental that the Government introduced new legislation today for incorporated societies. The Incorporated Societies Act is another piece of 1908 legislation that has stood the test of time. There are not many pieces of 1908 legislation that remain on the statute book. The Trade Unions Act—Louise Upston: This is getting a bit bloody desperate.ANDREW LITTLE: —is another one. These are very important pieces of legislation that have stood the test of time—more than 100 years—and yet here we are repealing these important provisions. I think that reflects—and I think Louise Upstonunderstands and agrees with me—that after more than 100 years circumstances change and that it is important to consider modernity and what we need to do to modernise these pieces of legislation.The other point I wanted to comment on was clause 4 “Interpretation” and the definition given to core participant which actually appears in clause 18 which is in Part 3 of the bill but is referred to in clause 4 by reference. I just want to make this point. I think that that is a worthwhile development—to give an inquiry that is set up under the aegis of this legislation once it is passed to allow the inquiry a ministerial inquiry included to establish who the critical people are whom it needs to talk to so that they are given an immediate standing in terms of participation in the inquiry. I think that will enable inquiries once they are called and set up to get under way very quickly and to get the people who need to be involved quickly involved as well. If there are other participants other people who consider that they ought to be called upon of course they can register their interest and the person who is called upon to conduct the inquiry can very quickly make a judgment about whether those other perhaps slightly more peripheral people should be called upon. But in the meantime it is good that we have core participants identified who can be called upon to make submissions and to give evidence to an inquiry.Of course that goes along with the power that is provided for in this bill set out in clause 3—the new power to compel people to participate in an inquiry as required. That would also obviously include core participants. So these are good and important measures when it comes to restoring public confidence in the Government.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the Inquiries Bill. I want to begin just by commending my colleague the Hon Annette King for instigating this bill in 2008—some 5 and a bit years ago. The driving force for that instigation was the frustration that many people felt as has been explained by other contributors in this part of the debate and that many of us felt about the lack of ability of inquiries to really get to the basis of the truth. That is a really important point for the Committee of the whole House to consider because the reason that inquiries are called for whether it is at the instigation of the Governor-General or at the instigation of a Minister is that from the public’s point of view there is some information that we do not have and the public of New Zealand quite rightly expect that information to be made available to them.These are about serious matters. We have had two very serious inquiries over recent times in New Zealand. The first one was in relation to the Pike River tragedy and the Minister in the chair the Hon Simon Bridges is very familiar with the recommendations that flowed from that. I certainly hope that the focus on health and safety particularly in the mining area continues. What a massive tragedy we had to suffer before that focus was given but it is there now. But once again we know that the families on the West Coast are frustrated about the lack of complete information that they have and that is primarily because of the inability of the inquiry because of its terms of reference to get that information for them.In my own town of Christchurch we have had similar situations with inquiries. In the royal commission of inquiry into the collapse of Canterbury buildings we have seen in the example of the collapse of the CTV Building an extraordinary series of faults. People have acted irresponsibly people have acted beyond the scope of their registration and their ability and people have cut corners and lied about things being safe or otherwise and as a result of that series of errors we lost 115 lives in one building. There cannot be a greater call for the right of the public to know what happened in the first instance and the right of people to be confident that Parliament will address the causes of tragedies such as the two I have just outlined so that the public ofNew Zealand—our citizens—can be sure that we know the facts and we address them in order to make sure that such situations can never occur again.That is not the current situation with inquiries. For a variety of reasons there are often frustrations for either the person leading the inquiry—or in my view more important—members of the public who are waiting for the information that is so critical for their ability to understand the situation and perhaps if it is appropriate to move on in their lives. The ability of the terms of reference to be set in a way that satisfies that public interest is not in the current law. In 2008 Annette King recognised that. She got a very good report from the Law Commission and this bill was a result of that. It was reported back to Parliament by what I understand was an excellent Government Administration Committee. It was chaired at the time by David Parker. Our deputy leader Grant Robertson sat on that committee. He has contributed—Hon Trevor Mallard: He was a junior member at the time.Hon RUTH DYSON: He was a junior member of the committee at the time. That is how long ago it was—2009. And here we are some time later 4½ years later—actually 4 years and 9 months later—looking at this with some urgency.I want to go on later in this debate to the reason for the urgency but I just want to briefly allude to it before I move back to the other questions about the scope which are dealt with in the primary purpose of this legislation. The Government has brought this Inquiries Bill back to the House suddenly with such huge pressure for a very serious reason and that is the Fonterra issues of contamination in our exports. I do not think that there is a single member of this House who would not confirm that in relation to potential contamination of any of our export products the safety of consumers particularly when those consumers are children is paramount. So I want to say to the Government that despite its total inability to manage its legislative programme which has left us looking at this bill in August 2013 when it was reported back to the House in 2009 and also the inability of its management this evening demonstrated by an extraordinary proposal by the senior whip on a bill that we all agree with and which is now going to take a little longer than perhaps may have been envisaged because of a lack of willingness to listen to what other people say work out what their concerns were and get the bill progressed I do not want anyone to be in any doubt of my view and the view I think of every member of this House. In relation to the Fonterra issue and the need for a robust inquiry there would not be a single member who does not say that the safety of children and other consumers in relation to our exports is paramount. That is why I certainly support this bill progressing.I heard the member Holly Walker the Green Party member express the Green Party’s original concerns about the potential for overuse of some of the powers given in the bill. I appreciate those concerns and I think they are very valid. I guess our awareness of those sorts of concerns is heightened given that just a little while ago—almost an hour ago—the Government rammed through the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation which in any ordinary time and with a Government that was considerate of the rest of Parliament and indeed of its citizens would have received much more collaboration discussion and thought and received if not the unanimous support the overwhelming support of Parliament because of the nature of the process that would have been put together to address any changes. That is often the sort of work that an inquiry would do. An inquiry can step aside from the politics of the situation examine the circumstances that people have identified as being a problem or an issue that needs examination and make independent recommendations to Parliament. I think it is the responsibility of this Parliament to behave more like that on a lot of issues but particularly in regard to issues of national security. It is exactly the opposite of how the Government behaved this afternoon andthis evening in relation to the passing of the GCSB legislation. So I think the concerns that Holly Walker raised were absolutely correct to be raised and I am really pleased that she has found that the amendments as outlined and further consideration have given her party the ability to support this bill.How the membership of an inquiry panel is set up what powers it has what duties it has and what privileges it has—these are all set out in the changes outlined in Part 1. The ability to call witnesses to require witnesses to attend an inquiry and for the witnesses to testify on oath is a big change. Certainly had that been the situation with the David Henry inquiry into the leaking of theKitteridge report the outcome for Peter Dunne and his ministerial post—and perhaps the outcome in terms of other people who have fallen victim; who have been used as scapegoats actually by the Government in my view—in regard to the leaking of theKitteridge report may have been entirely different. I do think that when you are talking about people who have very little ability to speak in this House in defence of their position and to defend their own personal integrity or where you have people who might lose their Public Service positions and who have no ability for a comeback from that in the future—Wellington is a village; we all know what happens in those situations—it is the responsibility of anyone in a position of power and the National Government certainly is in this regard to maintain a position of absolute integrity and independence from the situation and from the judgment and from the ramifications. That has not been the position in regard to either David Henry or the other people who have been involved in the subsequent fallout.I was stunned actually to hear tonight the stories of the National Party members of the Privileges Committee—that is the Hon Gerry Brownlee the Hon Judith Collins and the Hon Anne Tolley—and the way they turned on David Henry in that Privileges Committee hearing in a way that I am not sure I recall having occurred before in my time in Parliament. I heard of the disrespect the abuse of a powerful position and the total undermining of the fact that that man was appointed to do a specific role and did his job not just to the best of his ability—I do not know him at all but he was appointed by the Prime Minister because of his ability—but also within the mandate of the inquiry that he had. So I think that when we are looking at the way that people run inquiries we have to recognise that until this bill becomes law they are restricted by the mandate by the terms of reference by the scope and by the law of the inquiry that they have been tasked with. I do not think that Mr Henry has been treated by Government members on the Privileges Committee in a way that is appropriate and I do not think that it has been a fair reflection of the role that he was asked to undertake and that he took within the scope of that inquiry.So because we do not have as this bill makes obvious—in Part 1 we change all the rules—the scopes for inquiry and because we currently do not have that ability or the power to call witnesses and to require witnesses to appear on oath we still do not know who leaked theKitteridge report. As a result of the fallout not only has a Minister lost his position but also we have had the amazing exposure of information about the fact that the Prime Minister’s political chief of staff can get access to the phone records and swipe access cards of members of Parliaments and members of the press gallery which tell people—other people who are inquiring into something that might be irrelevant—which parts of the building we have accessed. Many of us might think in response to the naive comments that the Prime Minister has made that if you do not go anywhere that is a bother then you should not have a concern about it. Well I reject that. I reject it because my right to privacy and my right to security as a New Zealand citizen should be reinforced by the Government not undermined by it.We have not had just the example where WayneEagleson from the Prime Minister’s office is able to put pressure on various parts of our parliamentary system to get accessto information about our movements; it is information that we could not get through a normal process of inquiry. I hope those sorts of—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Just come back to—Hon RUTH DYSON: —in Part 1—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No. You will have to do better than that.Hon RUTH DYSON: Clause 3 the purpose of the bill is to extend the ability of inquiries to get this sort of information openly and with accountability and transparency compared with what we have seen done with skulduggery and political pressure in the last little while in New Zealand.I want to finish by just going back to the Fonterra inquiry. Our exports are of fundamental importance in terms of our reputation internationally in terms of our economy and in terms of how we relate to people and nations around the world. That reputation has had a number of dints in recent times and one of the driving forces for this bill coming back to the House now is to ensure that the Fonterra inquiry is able through its enhanced scope and powers to give not just the public and the citizens of New Zealand but those who will shop for and hopefully buy our exports from the shelves in many countries the confidence that we were as concerned about contamination in New Zealand as they were and that we got the full truth about the situation aired that full truth and made sure that what we learnt from that contamination was addressed so that it could not happen in the future. The security of our exports and the safety and security of consumers are of critical importance.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent):I was not going to take a call in the Committee stage of the Inquiries Bill but as it seems everyone else is now in favour of the bill it may be useful for me to take a short call. I have a letter from the Speaker guaranteeing me the same rights and privileges of any MP within this House and I was speaking on that before I was foully given a yellow card earlier this evening—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! The member may not refer to a matter that was in a previous bill. That ruling has been made and done. If the member is going to use this opportunity to redress that I will terminate his speech.BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I was not able to talk in those second and third readings and not able to do anything about that but I will not seek to take more than a proportionate time of this Committee.Last night when the House was considering the second reading of this Inquiries Bill I was in Auckland at a meeting of 300 to 500 people concerning Nathan Guy’s Snapper 1 snapper review. Parliamentary business takes many forms—the swans in Hyde Park as Paul Swain recalled in his valedictory speech and in August 2013 being able to catch a feed of snapper. But this morning arriving back from Auckland I caught up with theHansard from last night and learnt that Holly Walker and Metiria Turei had expressed the concerns that I had.This law change is being passed after languishing on the Order Paper since November 2009 having made absolutely no progress since the Government Administration Committee reported on it. The issues with it have been well canvassed and I do not need to repeat them. I could deliver a dissertation on the benefits of the Government having a well-managed legislation programme instead of a logjam on the Order Paper of sometimes 50—and often 60—Government bills. Then yesterday a substantial revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 330 appeared in the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs having presumably being expedited through Cabinet and departmental processes in the past week or two.I take my purpose and responsibilities as a member of Parliament scrutinising legislation seriously and I do all I can within the resources and the hours available to me. I make the effort to consider my vote on every bill and my vote opposing thesecond reading was based on caution—based on the knowledge that those who legislate in haste often repent at leisure.When I first read this bill I immediately found a spelling error. At first I thought it was self-depreciating humour and it is appropriate that that member the Minister of Energy and Resources is in the chair beside you. I thought it was humour of the stuttering bumbling administration of the Snapper 1 proposals of the Crown minerals bill and other bills that have passed through this House.But I am today still concerned that the revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper a document of some 25 substantive pages has changes to the bill on 15 of those pages—60 percent of the pages have changes. I do not know what devil may lurk in that detail. I was not able to look at every page but I know that some parties have been negotiating with the Government have been looking at the detail and have been making progress. That is their right and their duty and that is good. However I believe that it is good for there to be time available for interested parties to be able to look at proposed changes. What would the Law Commission the Law Society or indeed others think of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper with changes on 60 percent of the pages? We simply do not know because there has not been time.I would draw two matters to your attention. Some time ago the Minister of Justice of the day brought the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 3) to this House. I would like to quote from Doug Graham’sHansard from 29 February 1996 moving the second reading of the bill the equivalent of what is now the first reading after changes to Standing Orders. In moving the bill he said: “It tidies up a printing error that occurred in the Office of the Clerk during the preparation of the assent copy of the Electoral Amendment Bill (No. 2). Members will recall that in passing section 79 of that Act the House agreed that the threshold figure and the definition of national donation in the new section 214f of the Electoral Act would be $10000. Unfortunately when the Clerk’s Office came to prepare the assent copy a zero was omitted from the figure so that it mistakenly became”—CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National):I move that the motion be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am not accepting that—you have not used the right words.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent):So “ … a zero was omitted from the figure so that it mistakenly became $1000.” I remind the House of this not to embarrass but to point out that stuff happens.Then I ask the Minister in the chair the Minister of Energy and Resources to turn his attention to schedule 2 of the revision-tracked Supplementary Order Paper 330 to the Inquiries Bill and the proposed new paragraph (ha)(i) of the definition of “official information” in section 2(1) of the Official Information Act which refers to “anymattter subject to an order”. Yes the word is spelt “mattter” with three “t”s. It is not self-deprecating humour because it has been there since 2009. How can anybody support this bill when there are these obvious mistakes these errors? I suppose this Government in its haste will just turn to Standing Order 312 and rely on the Clerk of the House to correct typographical errors. But that is not good enough and I cannot support this bill.I must say it is interesting that in earlier times in this House this Government was in such a rush that it would deny this member opportunities to speak in first readings second readings—not for 5 minutes not for 4 minutes—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I have cautioned the member. We are on Part 1 and that is what he should be referring to.BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I cannot trust that this bill does not have any more errors in it and therefore I will not be supporting it.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel):I moveThat the question be now put .Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to Part 1 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes119New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes1Independent: Horan.Amendments agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to.Part 2 Establishment and membership of inquiryThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): This is the debate on clauses 6 to 9.Hon Ruth Dyson: Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Are you seeking the call?Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Mr Chairman that has got to be the first time that people have thought that I have spoken too quietly. This is extraordinary. I think that is worth recording inHansard this evening.I am wishing to take a call on Part 2 of the Inquiries Bill. As you have quite rightly pointed out this covers just clauses 6 7 8 and 9 and they are pretty operational in a way but there are just a couple of points that I want to bring to the attention of the Committee. The first in clause 6 relates to the “Types of inquiry”. This was discussed in relation to the purpose of the bill as well but it is obviously relevant to Part 2.The purpose of this legislation is to look at the sorts of inquiries that we are able to set up in New Zealand the scope of them their rights their privileges their ability to call witnesses etc. This part Part 2 goes further into that area. Let me give you an example. It specifies the types of inquiries that can be undertaken under this bill: “Royal commissions established under the authority of the Letters Patent constituting the office of the Governor-General”; “public inquiries which are established ...”; “government inquiries which are established ...”; “The Governor-General may by Order in Council establish a public inquiry for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on any matter of public importance”; and a Minister can just by aGazette notification establish a Government inquiry again for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on any matter of public importance.I know that there are a few jokes about different political parties and about the number of inquiries that some parties might like or the number of royal commissions that other parties might call for but from my perspective I actually think that it is a really important part of our democratic process. That is why this bill and in particular the specificity that is outlined in Part 2 are so important to the operations of our democracy. If people see a situation that happens and feel that it is something bad—it could just be something quite minor but bad or something really really serious and tragic and bad—in a robust democracy they want to know what happened and why.Often that is not possible through our standard parliamentary processes. A select committee for example may institute an inquiry but again we do not have within the select committee process the ability either through expert witnesses or references—orthe ability to call witnesses and require people to come under oath. Select committees may not be the appropriate bodies to get that element of truth. Of course I think that it is still quite unfortunate but it still happens that despite our MMP environment select committee inquiries sometimes become opportunities for political grandstanding. I think that is actually a rather disappointing outcome of an inquiry because they really should be the opportunity for members of different parties to look at a particular issue of concern hear the facts and work together to see if a problem can be resolved or information can be brought to light and shared for the betterment of our citizens.In that first section in Part 2 clause 6 it talks about those different types of inquiries that can be instigated under the Inquiries Bill. Then in the next clause clause 7 it talks about the specific matters to be specified in the instrument establishing the inquiry—so what sort of matters can be discussed and what sort of inquiry would be appropriate. Then the rest of this part is primarily operational. It talks about whether a member of a public inquiry can be removed from that office and under what circumstances and what happens if there is a vacancy if somebody resigns or if for some other reason they cannot continue. I think that this is a really important part of the bill because it does really explain how the purposes in Part 1 are going to be operationalised.I was reflecting on the earlier contribution about why this bill has taken so long. We know the serious and good reason that it has come before the House right at this very time and that is because of the Fonterra issues. I am totally supportive of the light being shone on all aspects of that concern so that we can give ourselves and people overseas buying our products complete confidence about the safety of our exports. But I did wonder what the cause of the delay has been between 2009 and now. I might be a little suspicious. It might just be the political part of my nature unusually coming to the fore but I do think that the reason that the Government has delayed this bill being progressed for so long is that there have been so many issues in the last 5 years of the National-led Government that deserve an inquiry where people in this Parliament people outside of this Parliament and members of the public—voting thinking challenging and respected citizens in our society—have said: how can this happen in our country? Why can we not have an inquiry or more important why is an inquiry not being considered? Any of these forms of inquiries outlined in Part 2 would have been appropriate.One that is a very recent occurrence is the deal that the Government did over Skycity where there are all sorts of unknown elements where there are stories about the deal that the Prime Minister did with Skycity over dinner and where a lot of my constituents I know say to me: “How is that possible? How is it possible that the laws of New Zealand would have been traded away over a dinner—a casual dinner—and next thing we have legislation being pushed through to change our laws in response to a deal?”. In many countries and in comparable situations that action would have triggered an inquiry of some sort. I have to say that I doubt whether it would be a ministerial inquiry.I very much doubt whether the Minister of Internal Affairs—who I think is responsible actually for this very legislation even though last night I know there was some confusion. Nathan Guy was speaking to the bill—Hon Trevor Mallard: He thought he was in charge.Hon RUTH DYSON: He thought he was in charge and then the Hon Trevor Mallard drew to the Committee’s attention the fact that when the bill had been published it was in the name of another Minister the Hon Chris Tremain. So then the Hon Nathan Guy apologised and said: “Well it is in his name so I’ll speak on his behalf.” But then the Chairperson notified the Committee that actually the bill was in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy who had not noticed that.Hon Trevor Mallard: But he still notwithstanding that should have said “on behalf of Chris Tremain”.Hon RUTH DYSON: Well if he should have said “on behalf of Chris Tremain” I think we may need an inquiry into who is responsible for this legislation because I am completely puzzled. I am very confident that it is not the Hon Simon Bridges who is in the chair because if he was in charge of this bill he would know something about it. He would have taken a call. He would have contributed to the debate I am sure because he is not short on coming forward on these matters as I have noticed in other debates in the House.The instance of the Skycity deal where our legislation was basically traded away by the Prime Minister over dinner with representatives of Skycity means there is a convention centre being built in Auckland but it is in exchange for hundreds more pokie machines being allowed in Skycity against our current regulatory regime. In some situations the Deputy Auditor-General actually looked at that issue and said that the contract to build the convention centre was flawed it was not transparent it was not even-handed and it established and demonstrated deficiencies on the part of both Ministers and officials.That is quite serious stuff and in some countries I know that there would be a call and it would be responded to for an independent inquiry. No such inquiry has been triggered by the Government and I think that is a shame. The whole country knows that that was a shonky deal but we do not have a process where that sort of debate can be triggered.So I think in fact that even though this is good and well-considered legislation—legislation instigated by the Hon Annette King and introduced to this House by the Hon Rick Barker which went to a select committee chaired by the Hon David Parker with Grant Robertson as the junior member from Labour on that committee—I would like to hear from one of the members of the then Government Administration Committee or the Minister in charge of the bill whoever he may be. I would like to hear whether any of those members consider that this bill deals adequately with what I see as a deficiency in the public accountability of the Government and the transparency of deals—Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources):I want to take a very brief call because I think as members all across the Chamber have acknowledged the Inquiries Bill is a non-controversial bill. All parties I think have indicated that they are voting for it.I really just want to address the valid concern that the member Ruth Dyson has just raised and address that square on. I probably will not take up all of the time. What the member said was that—and I think the Independent member Brendan Horan also asked questions on this—well OK the original law is from 1908. Even the older members of this House were not in Parliament at that time. I think they remember it from listening to earlier calls. They were not in the House. Of course the history has been relayed. In 2006 the Law Commission had a look reviewed the law and recommended a new law. Of course it is only now that we really get to the final stages. I think an interesting question asked is why it has taken this much time. Well the simple matters are that as the member Ruth Dyson has said of course the whey protein incident and the issues around that—which I think the member has talked eloquently about—absolutely lead to the desirability to expedite this law and to pass it. As the member said I think no one in this House would argue against that.What is also true though and what has not been talked about this evening is that the law was also quite consciously put on hold by the Government from 2010. The reason for that is very simple. I think Ruth Dyson talked about both the Pike River royal commission—obviously an exceptionally serious situation which we still deal with andwhich I as Minister of Labour deal with on a nearly daily basis—and of course also the Canterbury earthquakes royal commission. Again we in this House all understand very well the issues associated with that. As a result of those royal commissions a conscious decision was made by the Government to put this law on hold to enable us to review really the lessons learnt from the chairs and from the members on those commissions so that we—I was hesitating to say the word “learnings”—Hon Trevor Mallard: What changes were made as a result of those?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I can go through them. I am actually not going to. I have notes on those. There were a series of changes—procedural changes. I think even the member the Hon Trevor Mallard would acknowledge changes in Supplementary Order Paper 330 on this part I think it is that are sensible and that are uncontroversial. Of course later on there will also be Supplementary Order Paper 332 from the Hon Trevor Mallard which this side of the Chamber will be supporting. I suppose it is proof that even a broken clock is right twice a day. We will be supporting that—Hon Trevor Mallard: Oh now you’ve just added 12 hours to the debate!Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well it is an oldie but a goody. It is an oldie but a goody. The truth of the matter is that I have explained the time frame for this bill and why we are where we are today. There are some Supplementary Order Papers that I think deal with the findings of the royal commissions and improve this law quite considerably. I just thought it was worthwhile explaining those matters to the Committee.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):Notwithstanding what the Minister of Energy and Resources has just said to the Committee about the reason for the delay of this Inquiries Bill being brought back to the House I do think it is rather ironic and it should be pointed out that this Government has had a constant refrain of deriding Opposition parties that have called for inquiries on various important matters over the last 4½ years. And here we have an Inquiries Bill being brought to the House in rather a rush in order to ensure that an important inquiry can take place. The other point to be made following on from what the Minister said is that it would be quite good to see a list of those lessons that have been learnt from the royal commissions that have been undertaken and that we are seeing included as part of this bill.I have got a couple of points to make tonight on Part 2 “Establishment and membership of inquiry”. I just want to make the point that this bill being brought before the House does actually provide for—and it is important to remember also that it was originally a Labour bill—the establishment of both public and Government inquiries. I want to talk a little bit about some of the principles that can lie behind particularly public inquiries and what that can mean in terms of the evolution of inquiries carried out through this Parliament in New Zealand. There are some very important principles—and the Minister actually just alluded to the amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 332 which has been put forward by my colleague Trevor Mallard and which I am sure will be discussed as we go through this Committee process—around open justice and why that is so important as a principle for allowing the public of New Zealand to get a sense of and build more trust in the Government in the way that inquiries in particular take place.I want to talk a little bit about that principle because I went and did a little bit of work on looking at where that principle came from. It goes back even further than but certainly from 6 July 1189 which was the date that King RichardI’s accession to the throne occurred and also around the time of his father King Henry II whom he succeeded. It is a common law principle that stretches back to the very beginning part of common law. There was an interesting speech given in the UK a couple of years ago around a vision for open justice in the 21st century which I thought I might allude to here.Andrew Little: By Richard I?CLARE CURRAN: Well no it was not Richard I actually; it was a lord—Lord Neuberger. What he talked about was that in the era of television the internet and social media the workings of every institution were exposed to far more public opinion than before and that with greater scrutiny comes the need to adapt and evolve. I think we all know that and we probably all agree with that. The law is no different. His principles around open justice referred to the court process but these principles can also be applied to the inquiry process. I think they are important to note because the perception is—and I certainly think that it applies to Parliament as well—that the law is frequently out of touch with society. The principle of open justice allows the principle that democracy requires that justice not only be done but is seen to be done.There are three points that he made that I think are worth noting. He talks about the importance of communication accessibility and transparency. Judgments should be as short as possible there should be better use of technology in those matters and justice being held in open court should be very carefully considered. I think Trevor Mallard’s amendment actually goes to that last part in particular. When you think about the sorts of inquiries that should have been held in the last 4½ years of this Parliament—of which there are many and I will not dwell on all of them—there is a particular issue that is of interest and has been of interest for several years. Those are the issues of electronic data safety and privacy which do relate to Part 2 and the establishment and membership of the inquiry. There is a member’s bill before this House that proposes to create a special commission of inquiry into all of the privacy breaches that have happened in—Hon Trevor Mallard: Whose name is that in?CLARE CURRAN: Well that actually happens to be in my name Mr Mallard. It is a very serious issue. I think every member in this House would say that this is a serious issue. How we propose to deal with it has been perhaps at odds between the different sides of the House. What I wonder is whether this bill before the Committee today the Inquiries Bill would actually make such an inquiry easier and whether it would provide the ability for the public to have more of an input into whether such an inquiry took place. That inquiry in terms of its membership is proposed to consist of three members who would be appointed as a special commission by the Governor-General on the nomination of a Minister. But I think that it would be interesting to consider how that inquiry would actually fit under the bill that is before the Committee today and whether or not that could actually occur more quickly particularly in regard to the nature of all of the breaches that have happened and that are continuing to happen which are giving New Zealanders such cause for concern.There have been thousands actually. I think we are up to around 150000 New Zealanders who have had documents containing sensitive information about their lives either downloaded by a member of the public or somehow made visible. Those include things like medical invoices documents about children in the care of Child Youth and Family documents around ACC breaches and Inland Revenue Department breaches breaches that have exposed holes in the Ministry of Justice’s website and further breaches from Work and Income. There is just a litany of these breaches that has gone on and on and on.We know that people make mistakes but there is a difference between making individual mistakes and the systemic issues of privacy that do require a further look right across the whole of Government. Unfortunately the current Government’s response to this has been to say that there are no systemic issues.Andrew Little: Buried their heads in the sand.CLARE CURRAN: It has buried its head in the sand. It has said: “Oh no. We’ll deal with it on an individual basis and we’ll just throw a little bit of money here or thereand pretend that we’ve done something about it.” What an inquiry would achieve as is proposed to be achieved in the Fonterra inquiry is that it would actually look right across to see what the issues are and what are the underlying systemic issues that can be improved upon. So under the current law which is where this bill has come from Ministers have two alternatives: the commission of inquiry which could take too long or a ministerial inquiry. This third alternative sets up a Government inquiry to carry out an investigation in any way seen as appropriate and is in the current circumstances important but what is probably more important is that it is something that has actually sat on the books for such a long time. There has been a myriad of reasons as to why there should be other inquiries taking place. Unfortunately many of those inquiries have not taken place and the issues are sitting there as issues that the public remain extremely concerned about. We believe that anything that casts sunlight on—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Three to pick from eh? Oh I will have to go for seniority. So in that case I want to call the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Thank you Mr Chairman—Iain Lees-Galloway: Andrew Little is higher-ranked than Trevor Mallard is.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well that was an indication of someone who does not want to speak in the House for the rest of the year. Do not bother bringing a question to our procedures committee. I wonder whether the member wants to withdraw and apologise now. You know I might move a bit slowly on occasions but like an elephant I do not forget.My view is that Part 2 is a relatively simple part of the Inquiries Bill. It has been improved by Chris Tremain and his work—and I do want to welcome the new Minister in the chair Mr Borrows to the chair. I do not want to inquire as to what he has done wrong. I mean everyone else who has been involved in this—Mr Tremain has local government problems and is likely to have an inquiry as to his behaviour in the Hawke’s Bay. We have got Mr Guy whose lack of ability to run a ministry and the problems with Fonterra are going to be the subject of another inquiry. We have had Simon Bridges who will no doubt eventually be embarrassed into setting up an inquiry into the forestry industry.But I actually thought that of all the Ministers the Minister currently in the chair was in the clear and maybe that is why he is in the chair. Maybe he is in the chair because the Government has been so embarrassed by all the Ministers that it has had involved that it is getting in a clean Minister and he is one of the few who can do that.I think there have been some language changes in this part but I think probably the most important difference is in the new clause 7 of the bill set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 which replaces the old clause 7 of the bill. Thesubstantive change is the ability to set up an inquiry with an inquirer—with a person who is going to be either the sole inquirer or the chair of the inquiry or even have other members as well—before the terms of reference are done. That is the essential change in here. I think it is a logical change. I think that on occasions people will want to get some things under way but not the hearing of the evidence. It does not allow for evidence to be heard but it means that there can be some more substantive consultation with those people who are going to be involved in the inquiry around the terms of reference and the details therein. So it is logical.I also think and I do not want to by any means criticise my colleague Grant Robertson but I think that over a period of 4 years the language has improved. It is easier—Grant Robertson: My language has improved over 4 years.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well my language has probably deteriorated. But the language of the bill has improved. It is easier to follow it is easier to read and it flows more logically and for that I am sure we thank officials rather than Ministers.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National):I moveThat the question be now put .CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):It is a great pleasure standing to speak on Part 2 of the Inquiries Bill. As others have talked about the bill’s long gestation I do not really intend to cover that but I intend to look particularly at the matters contained in Part 2 “Establishment and membership of inquiry”. That includes the type of inquiry the matters to be specified in the instrument establishing the inquiry and then various matters to do with the removal and vacancies of membership.It interests me because I have to say that I have had very little experience of parliamentary inquiries that what this part says is that there will be three kinds of inquiry: a royal commission established under the authorities of the letters patent; public inquiries which are established by Order in Council—the bill states that “The Governor-General may by Order in Council establish a public inquiry …”—and Government inquiries which would be established by a Minister by notice in theGazette . One of the things that I am quite interested in and I am sure that many others in this Chamber who have much more experience with inquiries would be able to tell me is the difference between the last two: a public inquiry established by the Governor-General by Order in Council and a Government inquiry established by notice in theGazette by a Minister.But in both cases those latter two—a public inquiry and a Government inquiry—are established “for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on any matter of public importance.” We all know that there are many matters of public importance that the public of New Zealand would be very interested in having inquiries into because the behaviour of this Government has been little short of shonky it has been underhand and it has been failing to take account of the views of New Zealanders. We have had many pieces of rushed legislation and many matters have been ignored.That leads me to look at whether a public inquiry established by the Governor-General by Order in Council or a Government inquiry established by notice inGazette by a Minister would be important in relation to a matter that I think is of great public importance. That is the issue of fringe lenders those people who prey on vulnerable New Zealanders and their families. I want to say why I think that is a matter of public importance. I think it is a matter of public importance because we have an issue that every member of this Committee knows is a problem. We all know there is a problem with fringe lenders. We all know that there are predatory lenders preying on vulnerable New Zealanders and their families. We all know there is a problem. The community knows there is a problem. The issue has been a live one.There was a review commenced in 2007 which continued with the change of Government but was then delayed by that new Government and put on the back-burner because another piece of legislation was seen as more important. That other piece of legislation the Consumer Law Reform Bill still languishes on the Order Paper. Meanwhile every day in this country more and more people are being hurt by predatory lenders. This is why I think that either a public inquiry or a Government inquiry is needed here. We are seeing people in spiralling cycles of debt we are seeing families lose property we are seeing people under enormous financial stress and this is all something that the Government could and should have done something about. This is why it is a matter of great public importance.The Government not only delayed the review that the last Labour Government set up and deprioritised legislative reform but also then went into the last election cynically saying that it was going to get tough on loan sharks. In November 2011 Simon Powersaid: “We’re getting tough on loan sharks.” There was a constant stream of National Party backbenchers referring to that in their speeches after that election. Not a single thing has been done to get tough on loan sharks as yet—not a single thing. That is an outrage and surely must be a matter that should be inquired into through either a public inquiry or a Government inquiry.Let me tell you that budget services throughout New Zealand are saying that the overwhelming majority of people they see—in the 90 percents—are burdened by high-interest debt. They are saying that the level of debt of those people is more significant now. They are saying that the complexity of those cases is much more difficult for them to deal with yet nothing is being done. There must be an inquiry into why the Government is allowing some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders to get into this spiral of financial hardship and debt. It is just unbelievable that a party could allow that to happen.DARIEN FENTON (Labour):I am happy to take a call on Part 3 of the Inquiries Bill. I know that my colleague is looking at me over there—Tim Macindoe: Part 2.DARIEN FENTON: Oh sorry we are on Part 2. I am very happy to talk about Part 2 which is about the establishment and membership of an inquiry.Tim Macindoe: Part 3’s fine by us.DARIEN FENTON: That is right. It is a very very important part and it talks about the kinds of inquiries that will be established and the matters to be specified in the instrument establishing an inquiry. I want to talk in particular about the types of inquiries that we could have under Part 2. I am sorry that the Minister of Labour Simon Bridges is no longer in the chair because I want to talk about—Hon Ruth Dyson: No don’t say that about Chester.DARIEN FENTON: No look I am really really happy that Chester is in the chair. He is a very competent—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!DARIEN FENTON: —Minister. Yes all right. Well I am getting to that.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The full name of the member.DARIEN FENTON: Oh the full name.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Chester Borrows or the honourable Minister.DARIEN FENTON: Chester Borrows. OK the Hon Chester Borrows. I am very happy that he is in the chair but it would have been better if the Hon Simon Bridges had been there because what I wanted to talk about was the potential for an inquiry that could be established under Part 2 into safety in the forestry industry. Labour the industry—the forestry owners the forestry contractors and in fact everybody in the industry—and everyone who is associated with the industry such as the families and others have been calling for an inquiry into the industry which could be established under Part 2. It seems to me that under Part 2 would fit very very nicely a forestry inquiry for the family members of workers who have been killed in the forestry industry not only in the last few years but in this year in particular. I think we are now up to six workers killed in the forestry industry. There could be an inquiry established that would be very fitting under Part 2.I am very keen to hear from the Minister in the chair about why that particular inquiry cannot be established under Part 2 of this bill and why we have everybody in the entire industry—the workers the forest owners and the forestry contractors—calling now for an inquiry into an industry that has obviously got some problems. Sure the Minister of Labour has continued to say that he has set up a code of practice and thatthat has got all the answers. He says that he has all the answers but obviously in this industry there is a systemic problem that needs to have an inquiry.I think that it is very good to have a discussion about the potential of inquiries. I know that my colleagues have talked about a range of other inquiries. Carol Beaumont has talked about inquiries into loan sharks and I know that my colleague sitting here next to me Iain Lees-Galloway would like to talk about other inquiries. An inquiry into the forestry industry would seem to me to be a priority. In fact right now the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has a petition in front of it calling for an inquiry. Who has that call come from? It has come from the family members of those who have been killed in the forestry industry over the last few years. We are up to as I said before six people killed in the forestry industry this year. That is one a month and something like 28 over the last 5 years so it really is a serious issue.I think what people are struggling with understanding is why there is so much resistance from the Minister of Labour to an inquiry into the forestry industry and forestry safety when you have everybody saying that it needs to happen. The petition I referred to earlier is on behalf of Caroline Callow who is the mother of a worker who was killed in the forestry industry. Families have lost loved ones and they have written to the select committee and told their stories about what it has been like for them to lose a son a husband or a partner in terrible accidents in the forestry industry. It seems to me that since Part 3 requires that inquiries “must act independently impartially and fairly” it would be absolutely fitting for this Parliament to be thinking about an inquiry into forestry.Let us talk about the forestry industry and what an inquiry might uncover. Forestry in New Zealand is twice as dangerous as in Australia and up to seven times as dangerous as in the UK. What is happening here? The industry is fragmented. There are nine major forest owners who use up to 300 contractors. All of this information could be uncovered under Part 2 of this Inquiries Bill. It is a really important sector Mr Chair and I know that you want me to go back to Part 2—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is not an inquiry about forestry.DARIEN FENTON: Well it is actually. Part 2 does give the opportunity to talk about exactly what the establishment and membership of an inquiry could be so let us talk about that. Let us talk about the establishment of an inquiry into forestry. Who would that involve? Well it would obviously involve the Forestry Industry Contractors Association and the Forest Owners Association. They are saying already that they think there should be an inquiry. It would involve the Council of Trade Unions. The families have also been calling for an inquiry. The only outstanding parties at the moment are the Government and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s often the case.DARIEN FENTON: —it is often the case; that is true—or the Department of Labour as it used to be called. They were in denial about this but I think the people who would be involved in that inquiry are pretty clear. All we are waiting for really is for Simon Bridges the Minister of Labour to accept that it is time for an inquiry into this industry.Part 2 would fit extremely well in terms of the establishment and membership of an inquiry. It also talks about the matters to be specified in the establishment of the inquiry. In fact there is plenty of evidence around what the matters may be. For example clause 7(2) states: “The matters are—(a) the matter of public importance that is the subject of the inquiry;”. What other matter of public importance could there be other than that six people have lost their lives this year? Have we not learnt anything? Well according to this bill apparently we have learnt something from the Pike River Mine commission of inquiry and that was about 29 workers losing their lives.The bill then goes on to talk about not only matters of public importance but who is going to be appointed to be members of the inquiry and the events or matters that are relevant to the inquiry and so on. The good thing about this piece of legislation is that it actually makes it easier for the Minister of Labour to set this up. It takes away the excuse that he has had so far which is that there does not need to be an inquiry because he has got all the answers and that he has set up an approved code of practice which is just a rewrite of something that Max Bradford did in 1999.If the Government was serious about this Inquiries Bill which of course we support because we want to see more inquiries it would say that safety in the forestry industry is an appropriate inquiry to be held under Part 2 of the Inquiries Bill. I hope that we will see with the passing of this bill that the Minister of Labour will be a little bit more open to the idea. I do not understand what his reservations have been. I do not understand what the problem is about opening something up and saying “What’s the problem because we clearly have a problem with people dying in the forestry industry?”. What is the problem with actually opening it up and asking people for the answers or asking people to give evidence and information? But he seems to have a problem with that because he thinks he has all the answers.However as I said I think Part 2 is a very very good platform for the establishment and membership of an inquiry into safety in the forestry industry which people are calling for which everyone is calling for—the families the forestry industry the owners the contractors the public and so on. It is time—The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to Part 2 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Part 3 Duties powers immunities and privilegesDENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First will support the Inquiries Bill which updates the law concerning inquiries because we feel the new amendments are certainly needed. But one concern we have relates to reporting. Clause 12(2) states “The final report of an inquiry must set out—(a) the findings of the inquiry; and (b) any recommendations of the inquiry.” but it does not provide for the reasons for the findings and the recommendations. Probably that is implicit so I have not sought to make any amendment to that but it would have been preferable if you are going to say those other two things that the reasons for the findings and recommendations must be stated as well. However I am satisfied really that it would be implicit and would be included. I could not imagine a report that did not have reasons for findings and recommendations as well as the findings and recommendations themselves. So that is OK.I note that clause 13(1) provides specifically for an inquiry having the power to request the appointment of counsel to assist it but in doing so it must consider effectiveness efficiency and fairness amongst other things. This will allow for legal assistance to inquiries but it must be justified by these provisions and would not be automatic. I have some concern that inquiries may feel unduly constrained by this but I do not think they should be because the amendment to clause 13(2) as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 says: “The Solicitor-General must if requested to do so appoint counsel to assist an inquiry but in doing so must—(a) have regard to the matters specified in subsection (1)” including those that I have referred to. I think that this is as it should be a good balance between the right of the inquiry to have legal assistance but really only if it is justified in those terms.Under clause 14 witnesses can be required to give evidence in both public and Government inquiries and so they should. Under the amendment to clause 14 as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 the inquiry is required to comply with the principles of natural justice especially if an inquiry proposes to make a finding that is adverse to any person. If it does do that it must make that person aware and give the person an opportunity to respond to the matters that the inquiry intends to raise about that person. That is also as it should be. The power to require the giving of evidence as is necessary I think is properly balanced by natural justice requirements.Clause 15 “Power to impose restrictions on access to inquiry” is a very important provision that we ought to pay particular attention to. Before making an order the inquiry must consider the risk of prejudice to public confidence. On the other hand under subclause (2) it must consider “(b) the need for the inquiry to ascertain the facts properly; and (c) the extent to which public proceedings may prejudice security defence or the economic interests of New Zealand;”. I think that is a good balance too. But I do think that it is proper for New Zealand First to support Trevor Mallard’s typescript amendment to add a new subclause subclause (2)(aa) of clause 15 that says “the benefits of observing the principle of open justice;”. I think that is particularly apt when you consider that these days there is a great public expectation in favour of transparency. I think that amendment would ensure that those public expectations are met.I turn to clause 19 and legal assistance for participants. It can be recommended of the legal aid agency “that funding be granted for the purpose of providing legal assistance to 1 or more specified persons—(a) who wish or who are required to appear before the inquiry; or (b) who have an interest in the inquiry.” New Zealand First is particularly pleased to see this but our concern is with subclause (3) which says: “If a recommendation is made under subsection (1) the chief executive may” grant legal aid. We think this should be “must”. We think it is the inquiry that should have the discretion not the legal aid agency.It is unclear to me whether the legal aid income and capital thresholds for legal aid would apply if the legal aid agency has a discretion in this way because of the use of the word “may” instead of the word “must”. I think that is one of the things that will challenge the thinking of the agency. Perhaps it is dealt with in the legal aid agency legislation but I doubt it. If that is the case legal aid could be declined perhaps for that reason. This is a concern to us and something that perhaps the Government might want to have a look at. It might be so even if a person is summoned to appear before the inquiry. Such people should have a right to legal aid despite capital and income thresholds because those thresholds are severe and I do not think it would be fair for persons to have to bear the cost of their own legal representation if they are just within what we would normally regard as ordinary income and capital wealth rather than those who would have to comply with the legal aid thresholds.So with those I think quite significant reservations New Zealand First will support the bill which overall is a good one but we regret that we think there are still one or two little glitches in it which we would like to see improved.HOLLY WALKER (Green):I am pleased to take a call on Part 3 of the Inquiries Bill. In my contribution earlier I mentioned that there were some assurances that the Green Party had sought since my contribution in the second reading last night. In this part I want to focus on those and talk about those because in my contribution to the second reading last night I outlined a number of concerns that the Green Party held with clauses in this part of the bill mainly clauses 21 and 23 which are about the powers to obtain information for inquiries under the new legislation and the disclosure of evidence. Just to remind the Committee those powers are quite extensive. Underclause 21 an “inquiry may as it thinks appropriate for the purposes of the inquiry—(a) require any person to—(i) produce any documents or things in that person’s possession or control or copies of those documents …” and under clause 23 an “inquiry—(a) may on its own initiative or on the application of another person order any person to disclose to any person participating in the inquiry any specified document information or thing that the person has produced before the inquiry;”. So those are quite extensive compulsion powers and they are new because they will now apply to Government inquiries as well as commissions of inquiry.Last night we abstained at the second reading because we had a number of concerns about this. We were concerned that on a face-value reading at least the powers in those clauses could have required for example journalists to disclose their sources or MPs to disclose their private communications with their constituents. I outlined these concerns to the House last night. I think we had in the House quite a helpful response from the Hon David Parker who made the link between this legislation and the Evidence Act via clause 28 which gives witnesses and other participants in inquiries the same protections as would apply to civil proceedings under the Evidence Act. That was a helpful contribution from the Hon David Parker. But the privileges alone that he listed in his contribution last night were not enough to allay the concerns that we had.So I took a closer look at the Evidence Act this morning and I did find it reassuring regarding the two specific concerns about the protection of journalists’ sources and the protection of MPs’ communications with their constituents because the part of the Evidence Act that applies in this situation to this bill includes section 68 of the Evidence Act. Section 68 of the Evidence Act explicitly makes clear that a journalist cannot be compelled to disclose the identity of their sources in any civil proceeding. Because this bill treats an inquiry in the same way as a civil proceeding would be treated that gives a clear indication that journalists’ sources would be protected and would not be compelled to be disclosed by an inquiry under this legislation. That was the first assurance that we sought and we are reassured by that.Similarly section 69 of the Evidence Act which also applies via clause 28 of this bill provides protections for confidential communications not to be disclosed including the protection of particular relationships and including protection for the free flow of information. Our reading of clause 69 of the Evidence Act is that this would also cover MPs’ communications with their constituents. That is very important because although in the Green Party we absolutely support greater transparency both in the conduct of inquiries like public and Government inquiries but also more generally in terms of the coverage of the Official Information Act which we believe should apply to the Parliamentary Service it is very important that confidential communications with constituents are protected in both scenarios so that people can contact MPs with the confidence that the information they share with us will not be disclosed publicly. So we are again reassured by the application of section 69 of the Evidence Act that these concerns are adequately dealt with under this legislation as well.The other area of concern that I canvassed last night in the second reading relates to parliamentary privilege. We in the Green Party had a question about what would happen if the Henry inquiry into the leak of theKitteridge report into the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was held under the new legislation. What would have happened in that situation? Under the current law ministerial inquiries have no power to compel witnesses to appear before them or to disclose evidence but under the new law the equivalent new Government inquiries will have those quite extensive powers outlined in clauses 21 and 23. So we have to be quite careful in teasing out what this means in practice to make sure we are not inadvertently inappropriately extending powers that could impinge on parliamentary privilege. We were concerned about thepotential misuse of that power in ministerial-driven inquiries to compel the disclosure of information like email records like phone records and swipe card records. After all clearly in the case of the Henry inquiry some compulsion was felt by the Parliamentary Service to disclose that information even though there was no power of that inquiry to compel the disclosure of that information. So our concern was that if that is what happens in a situation when the inquiry had no power to compel that disclosure what would happen in an equivalent inquiry if that power did exist? We were quite concerned that that could involve the compulsion of the disclosure of information that is subject to parliamentary privilege.This does come down indeed to the question of whether such communications are protected by parliamentary privilege. If they are they would be protected under this bill because along with all the other kinds of privileges that are protected under clause 28 parliamentary privilege is protected. So the nub of this question really is whether those communications we saw in the Henry inquiry are protected by parliamentary privilege. It is our view in the Green Party that they are and that is why my co-leader Dr Russel Norman indeed wrote to the Speaker inviting him to consider that matter and that has resulted in these matters being referred to the Privileges Committee. Clearly they are now the subject of a live inquiry by that committee the hearings for which took place today. Ultimately the Privileges Committee will rule on whether privilege applies in these particular types of situations. It is our view that it does but that is a matter for the Privileges Committee to decide.Indeed we may eventually see parliamentary privilege legislation coming before the House in order to clarify these matters. In our view it is very important that these matters of privilege are clarified. We do still have a concern that if those matters of privilege are not clarified the powers of compulsion granted under this legislation could be applied inappropriately by ministerial inquiries and we could see encroachment by the executive into the territory of the legislature in terms of breaching parliamentary privilege. But we are satisfied that according to the letter of this law parliamentary privilege is protected under this legislation and what we have to ensure is that it is adequately understood and respected by ministerial and Government inquiries in future and is not encroached on in the way it was in the Henry inquiry.I want to also acknowledge and thank MinisterTremain’s office. It turns out he is in charge of the bill and I want to thank him for the response he gave us—Grant Robertson: Today.HOLLY WALKER: —indeed today—on these matters which confirm this interpretation of the sections of the Evidence Act on the matters of parliamentary privilege. I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that the Green Party will be able to support the legislation. We will no longer abstain but it is good that we have had the opportunity to put these concerns on the record and have them considered by the Committee of the whole House because they are very important. They do go to the heart of principles about democracy and although it is needed—the current legislation needs to be modernised and has been on the Order Paper for a long time—we are concerned that this legislation is being rushed through quite quickly in the space of this week. So it is important that the Committee takes the time to consider these matters seriously and I thank those members who have taken our contribution seriously and responded to it both in the second reading and the Committee stage. I think it makes for better lawmaking and hopefully in the end a better understanding of how these important matters of privilege and confidentiality will apply under the new Inquiries Act.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):It is a pleasure again just to make some comments on Part 3 of the Inquiries Bill. I just want to draw attention to some clauses in this partbecause I think the provisions in this part are really the meat of this legislation and they could stand us in very good stead in what could be some very important inquiries some of which have already been alluded to this evening.I note in clause 10 the principles that any inquiry must abide by in conducting itself and I was interested to note the words that the members must act “independently impartially and fairly.” The last time we heard those words was actually in a speech by Richard Nixon after he had just sacked JohnEhrlichman and John Dean his White House counsel to set up an inquiry into the conduct of certain matters to do with Watergate. But there we go—that was an inquiry that had all sorts of ramifications not the least of which were for Richard Nixon himself.I want to draw attention to clause 11 which limits the scope of an inquiry. It is very important that inquiries of the nature contemplated by this bill as indeed with commissions of inquiry are about getting to the facts of the matter so that there can be an improved understanding about the cause of an event or events and so that public confidence can be restored if indeed public confidence has been shaken as a result of an event or an incident. The bill makes it very clear that an inquiry convened under the aegis of this legislation is not to determine civil criminal or disciplinary liability so that people who are participating in it and certainly people giving evidence in it cannot be held to be criminally or civilly liable or made to face any particular disciplinary action. It does not mean of course that recommendations cannot be made that further action be taken by other bodies. But it is very important to note that an inquiry itself cannot have a civil criminal or other disciplinary effect.The next clause I want to draw attention to is clause 14 and that is the natural justice clause. The original bill as drafted had a clause 17. That has gone and the natural justice provisions appear in subclause (2) of clause 14 and also in subclause (2A). That is very important too and that is simply to ensure that if any adverse finding is likely to come out of an inquiry those against whom those adverse findings may be made will have an opportunity to respond or to comment before those are published.Clause 15 is very important. This is about whether or not an inquiry during its conduct can close itself to the public or suppress evidence. I think that Trevor Mallard’s Supplementary Order Paper 332 is apposite. It starts with a presumption that inquiry hearings will be open but it provides a protection if it is felt that the interests of individuals may be compromised if it goes public. I note in that regard that when an inquiry is considering whether or not to suppress information or keep its hearing private one of the factors it must consider is whether or not it would interfere with the administration of justice including any person’s right to a fair trial.I draw attention to all those matters because the Government has an opportunity—in fact I actually think it now has a duty—to open a full inquiry after tonight’s broadcast on TV3 which concluded only 15 minutes ago about the latest revelations on Teina Pora and on Malcolm Rewa. The Government has the opportunity to open a full-blown inquiry. It can do it and under the principles of this bill when it is enacted it will be able to do it without compromising any criminal procedure or indeed civil or other disciplinary procedure. But the case for inquiring into that matter is now compelling and it must happen. I am sure there will be plenty of comment on that in the days to follow because the revelation tonight is an absolute bombshell—that the police knew the identity of Malcolm Rewa as a rapist after the first rape in what was a series over 7 years. The police knew it. It is time for an inquiry and this Government is derelict in its duty if it does not have one.I want to make one final point and that is about legal assistance. I note that the legal assistance provisions allow what is described as the relevant department to grant legalassistance. That is not the Ministry of Justice. It is either the Department of Internal Affairs or any other department that is administering the inquiry and that gives—The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to Part 3 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to clause 15 be agreed to:insert in subclause (2) the following paragraph after “criteria”:(aa)the benefits of observing the principle of open justice; andAmendment agreed to.Part 3 as amended agreed to.Part 4 Sanctions and miscellaneous mattersThe question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to Part 4 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 4 as amended agreed to.Schedule 1The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to schedule 1 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.Schedule 2The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 330 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to schedule 2 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Can I just seek clarification. Are we doing clauses 1 and 2 of the Inquiries Bill together or are we doing them separately?The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): You can do both together but there will be two separate votes.Hon RUTH DYSON: I am happy to seek leave that clauses 1 and 2 be taken as one debate but with two separate votes.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh that was pretty speedy progress in a resolution. I would recommend that to other members of the Committee who tried putting procedural motions before the Committee earlier this evening. Mr Chairman ordinarily you do not miss a thing that goes on this House. You are one of the most careful followers of procedures. I just want to draw to your attention that a little earlier very recently in the Committee I tried to get a call on Part 3 and you missed it. So that is the second timethis evening by two separate members who have been sitting in the Chair. The first one asked me to speak a little louder which caused great amusement not only to me but—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Maybe the member should get two calls this time.Hon RUTH DYSON: —other members of the Committee but then you missed my call altogether so I take particular note of that.There were actually some specific queries that I had in relation to Part 3. I am disappointed that I was not able to raise them. They related to things that I am actually genuinely interested in and I think other members of the Committee are in regard to the way that the inquiries will be amended under this legislation—obviously the Inquiries Act 2008—which will come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. Those are the two clauses we are discussing at the moment.In respect of the previous debate on Part 3 which I was not able to participate in clause 12 refers to the reporting requirements of different inquiries—a public inquiry which is reported to the Governor-General compared with a Government inquiry. Then clause 12(3) states: “The final report of a public inquiry must be presented by the appropriate Minister to the House of Representatives as soon as practicable after the inquiry has reported”. I was going to ask a question to the Minister in the chair the Hon Chester Borrows even though he is not the Minister in charge of the bill. I know that he is quite fussy about responding to questions in the Committee. It is a trait of his that I particularly enjoy. I was going to ask him actually when the Government inquiries have to report to the public. So if the Minister for Courts would not mind passing that on to the relevant Minister and if he could refer to it in his third reading speech and answer my question which the Chairman did not allow me an opportunity to ask then I would really appreciate it.The other comment that I want to make is that I was really concerned about an earlier contribution from the New Zealand First member Denis O’Rourke in relation to clause 19(3) where he talked about the chief executive of the legal aid authority being able to determine whether an inquiry set up under this Inquiries Bill was able to get legal aid funding. My understanding of what the member Denis O’Rourke said was that the legal aid agency rather than the inquiry itself would make the determination. I had some discussions with colleagues about that because I was concerned about that alerting that the member had drawn to the attention of the Committee of the whole House.My understanding is that in that clause it is actually the chief executive of the department who is responsible for the inquiry under this bill. So it is either the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs or if an inquiry set up under this bill was for example the inquiry that my colleague Darien Fenton was referring to an inquiry into health and safety in the forestry regime well it may well come under the Labour Group within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment or at the end of the year it would come under the chief executive or the chair of the board of the new health and safety agency. I think that the member Denis O’Rourke was not correct in his interpretation.There is another thing that I think would be useful for the Minister in the chair to refer to the Minister responsible for the bill. I still feel a bit of a need for an inquiry into the particular question of who the Minister responsible for this bill is. Is it the Hon Chris Tremain or is it the Hon Nathan Guy?Either way I think that between the two of them they should be very satisfied that the particular amendments put up by members tonight from both sides of the Chamber from the Government side and from the Opposition side have been supported. I am pretty sure that the amendments have passed without exception. That is a good indication of careful consideration of the bill. My colleague Trevor Mallard put in anamendment that I actually wished had been considered under the earlier legislation that we were discussing the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation because his amendment inserted a subclause about the benefits of observing the principle of open justice. Well we would have supported that in the GCSB legislation but I do not suppose that the Government members would have.Just going back to the clauses that we are debating at the moment we know that the legislation is unamended. This is the bill to amend the Commissions of Inquiry Act. It is the Inquiries Bill so the primary Act will be the Inquiries Act 2008. This bill before the Committee now was introduced in 2008 by the Hon Rick Barker under a previous Government. It has been a long time coming to this point. Fortunately the commencement date which is the other part that we are voting on—the Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent—cannot come soon enough.Clause 1 agreed to.Clause 2 agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I will report this bill with amendment.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would just like to draw your attention to a discrepancy or an apparent discrepancy between the clocks that are currently in here. I know that members have been carefully timing their speeches for 9.55 p.m. which is the time when you have to report progress. But I note that it says 9.55 p.m. now on the clock that you are looking at but the one that I am looking at says 9.54 p.m. I would invite—Grant Robertson: From my angle it actually is 9.54 p.m. there.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Is it? Do you think so? Fifty-four 55 56? I think it is probably appropriate to have an inquiry. I am sure that when it does get to 9.55 p.m. you will interrupt my point of order in order to report progress because that would be your obligation under the rules. The question is whether you are looking at the clock just in front of you or the one up there or the one over here.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. I will report this bill with amendment.House resumed.The Chairperson reported the Inquiries Bill with amendment no progress on the Resource Management Reform Bill and no progress on the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill.Report adopted.