Dunne Peter: Privilege — Consideration of Reports of Privileges Committee New Zealand Post Limited Disclosure of Select Committee Proceedings 
Dunne Peter: Privilege — Consideration of Reports of Privileges Committee New Zealand Post Limited Disclosure of Select Committee Proceedings 
[Volume:608;Page:5719] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 It is very easy in a significant debate like this to get too embroiled in political tit for tat. There is a very large element of it in this case and there is a danger that that will obscure some of the critical points that are at issue and do need to be considered. I am a member of the Privileges Committee and at the time was also a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. During some of the hearings in question I was the acting chair so I have a range of views as to what was going on. 
I want to say at the outset that I do not regard the behaviour of New Zealand Post Ltd at that time as being in any way acceptable. During the period the chairman was away—and I was standing in for him when we were in the process of examining Dr Armstrong and his senior colleagues—I received a number of telephone calls from Dr Armstrong saying: “Look why do you want us back next week? We’ve got things to do; we’re busy. Can you give us an assurance that it won’t be for more than an hour or so? What sort of questions are we going to be asked anyway?” The point I am making is that at that time New Zealand Post clearly saw the select committee examination—regardless of whether it was the Kroll report or Transend or Spain or anything—as an interference with its normal commercial practice. We as a committee were thought of as a nuisance even taking time to ask them questions. As a consequence—I think as a sense of frustration over its part in this process—the plan of deception which has subsequently led New Zealand Post before the committee— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Why didn’t you say that at the Privileges Committee? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I did actually. Maybe the member was as usual asleep. This is a serious debate and it is not helped by trivial comments of that type. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: You never told us about it. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member who interjects often proves his ineptitude and I am sorry that this is one of those occasions. 
What I am saying is that New Zealand Post did deceive the committee. Certainly the record shows that very clearly but I think the issue is actually a much wider one—[ 
Interruption 
] I beg your pardon? Is this more “insight” from the North Shore? No wonder they laugh at the member. What the record shows is that the issue we are debating is about how effective the State-owned enterprise model is and whether there are inherent flaws within it. Over the years that that model has been in place—long before that member was even a blot on the political landscape—we had issues in the early 1990s regarding the Airways Corporation issues regarding Television New Zealand and now issues regarding New Zealand Post. As the member who preceded me pointed out I suspect that very shortly we are going to have issues regarding the various energy generation companies as well. They all stem from what might well be an inherent flaw in the State-owned enterprise model. On the one hand we set these bodies up to be commercially independent; on the other every time they are challenged they claim commercial sensitivity when asked to respond to parliamentary select committees. When select committees start to probe and push we have things being fobbed off as non-events. 
The whole debate regarding the Kroll report was fascinating. It was actually a draft report but because it had not been formally adopted by the board of New Zealand Post the board seemed to think that it had no official status and could not be acknowledged—even though there was independent evidence before the Finance and Expenditure Committee that such a report was in existence. The attitude that appearing before select committees is merely a performance to be gone through is symptomatic of what has become a trend over the years with State-owned enterprises and similar bodies—and in that category I include the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit and some of the old monitoring agencies that were in place for the health sector. Some years ago when Mr Ryall was chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee I well recall one gentleman taking his seat and saying: “I hope this is not going to take very long. I’ve got a plane to catch in three-quarters of an hour.” It is that sort of contempt that has ended up with this case before the Privileges Committee. 
The reason I was in favour of that case going to the Privileges Committee had less to do with the particulars of the New Zealand Post case and much more to do with the broader issues of how select committees can reasonably hold State-owned enterprises to account—without the excuse being made every time a difficult question is asked that that is “commercially sensitive and you are not entitled to that information”. We have had that experience on many occasions. Whether or not the committee was deceived and deliberately misled by a concerted plan within New Zealand Post or a fiction within the mind of the then chairman is of less relevance than what we do from here on. As has been indicated we already have a situation emerging where it would appear that a number of players in the energy sector have not been giving the full story about shortcomings from the middle of last year onwards and we are going to face that situation again in the future. We used to have a special select committee with accountability for State-owned enterprises. From memory it was abolished in the mid-1990s but maybe we ought to return to that because at the moment it is a little too easy for State-owned enterprises dealing with a specialist committee to flick it off and push it aside. 
One of the issues that arose during the New Zealand Post case was as much as anything about how much time we were dedicating to that organisation—about the fact that we called its officials back. I cannot recall how many times we did that—Mr McCully will know—but I think it was at least on three or four occasions. That became an issue in itself because the performance appraisal we were undertaking was traditionally seen to be perfunctory—“give them an hour or so ask them a few hard questions send them on their way.” That was certainly the culture within which this organisation was used to operating. 
Apart from the political machinations about who did what to whom and when the issue that arises from this report is much more about what are we going to do as a Parliament to ensure greater accountability from our State-owned enterprises in the future. Will we continue with a model that sees these things as owned by the Crown but essentially operating independently of the Crown and how do we draw the line between the two? Do we simply do what some have suggested—that is privatise the lot—or go the other way and bring them back under the Crown’s umbrella as Crown-owned companies? We need to face those issues and we also need to address the more vexed question of how we exact accountability. This is a small country and there is not a huge pool of people available to serve as senior executives or directors of those companies. The familiarity with which certain names keep cropping up indicates how tight that little circle might be and that is another issue that needs to be examined in the light of this case. 
I do not have a particular worry about accepting this report. This particular issue has gone as far as it can go but the broader issue of the relationship of this Parliament and its select committees to State-owned enterprises how that accountability is to be exercised and how those enterprises are to be held to account in these areas is one we all need to devote a great deal more time to. If we do not then the long litany we have had over the last 10 years that I referred to earlier will simply be added to and the New Zealand Post saga will become one more stopping-off point along the way. The real lesson of this report is to make sure we do not get a repetition in the future and that will require action by the Government and this Parliament to ensure that all State-owned enterprises get the message about the correct wayto operate.