Mallard Trevor:Inquiries Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor:Inquiries Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12717. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon 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.