Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:668;Page:15431] 
6. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Women’s Affairs 
: What are her priorities in the women’s affairs portfolio? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Acting Minister of Women’s Affairs) 
: 
 The priorities of the Government are set out in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs statement of intent 2010-13. Obviously they are my priorities as well. The three key priorities are first women participating in leadership; second reducing the impact of violence against women; and third all women being fully engaged in the economy. 
Sue Moroney 
: Does she stand by her statement of 14 August 2003 that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is a “historic sexist relic and should have been scrapped”? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Ministers are not accountable as Minister for anything they might have said previously. That is a longstanding tradition. What I will do in fairness because I do not want to deprive the member of her supplementary question is to invite the member to reword the question. 
Sue Moroney 
: Thank you. Does she agree with National Party MP Georgina te Heuheu when she said on 14 August 2003 that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is a “historic sexist relic and should have been scrapped”? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: In all fairness Mr Speaker I do not remember saying that. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member was not being asked whether she Georgina te Heuheu could remember. She was being asked whether she as Minister agrees with what was being quoted. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister I think is at liberty to question the alleged quote because with supplementary questions there is no validation process. Members are at liberty to ask about a supposed quotation but it is not unreasonable that a Minister might dispute it. This is not the last day of Parliament’s sitting; there are various opportunities to pursue things further. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Would it assist the House if I tabled the document showing the quote that I just used? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is the member seeking leave to table a document? 
Sue Moroney 
: Yes. I seek leave. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What is the document? 
Sue Moroney 
: The document is entitled “Sexist relic should be scrapped—” 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not the document. I am asking what the document is. 
Sue Moroney 
: The document is an article from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 dated 14 August— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No we are not going to table articles from the  
New Zealand Herald 
. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Your ruling on the tabling of newspapers has been observed because your motivation for it was that they are freely available to members. In this case there are two points that might make you consider that differently. One is that the newspaper is from 2003 and even a disorganised member will have thrown out his or her newspapers from that year. The second is that the newspaper validates the quote my colleague is using in respect of the member who quite genuinely by the look of the Minister is perplexed about whether she said that. Tabling the article will be of assistance to this House in this particular case. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member makes a perfectly reasonable point of order. I accept that it is a reasonably old newspaper article but it does not assist this particular line of questioning because the Minister has had no opportunity to check whether what is alleged in that newspaper article is what the member might have said or anything like that. I believe the more reasonable approach is not to try to score points of order through tabling press statements. But there is another question time tomorrow and questions on the Order Paper can be validated. There are ways to pursue things that are much more reasonable and appropriate than trying to score points of order by way of tabling press articles. 
Sue Moroney 
: Does she think that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is a historic sexist relic and should be scrapped? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Mr Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to be able to hear the Minister. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Wherever that quote comes from I say the ministry may have been a relic back then in 2003 when Labour was in Government but it is certainly not a relic now. It is an action-packed ministry. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Who will be the first Government member to leave the Chamber? Who will volunteer? It was obvious that I was on my feet while all that interjection was going on. Opinion questions are allowed. The question asked whether the Minister agreed with a statement. Under the circumstances I think I have been pretty fair in how I have handled this question but to answer the question like that is not reasonable. The question asked whether the Minister agreed with the statement. The Minister is perfectly at liberty to answer a little closer than that to the question that was asked. Under the circumstances because I think there was a lot of transgression there and the Government benches ignored the fact that I was on my feet I invite Sue Moroney to repeat her question. 
Sue Moroney 
: Does she— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With all due respect when the Minister answered that question she said that notwithstanding the statement and where it might have come from that could have been the case back then but is not now. That is not an unreasonable answer. It is actually an answer. There might have been some extraneous matter there that she will be pulled up on but essentially that question was answered. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If I misheard I accept that I could be wrong. I accept that if that was the answer it was a fair answer. If the Minister is indicating to me that she gave that answer I accept that it is indeed an answer. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The extraneous matter that the Leader of the House referred to in his recounting to you of the Acting Minister’s answer was the insult to Labour which you ruled—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order is being heard and it is reasonable. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The quote has been contested and my colleague has modified the quote to make it more acceptable to the Minister. Rather than get up and giving us her opinion or saying yes she agreed or no she did not agree she used it as a launching pad to attack the Opposition. She did not make a defence or rejection of her comments—whatever it might be. I think that was the critical point that was not relayed to you by Mr Brownlee when he attempted to present the answer that Mrs te Heuheu had given. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I accept the member’s point of order and let me say that as Speaker I have not handled this well. Let me take the blame for that and let things lie there. I suspect the member has further supplementary questions should she wish to ask them and I will listen very carefully to questions and answers. I apologise to the House. I do not believe that I handled that situation as well as I should have and I apologise for that. 
Sue Moroney 
: Has she been told by the Prime Minister that she will retain the portfolio only until she succeeds in disbanding the ministry so that it will become the latest casualty in the Government’s Public Service cuts? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We have a very unusual situation here. If I heard the question correctly the member asked whether the Minister agreed with the Prime Minister. 
Hon Members 
: “Has she been told …”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: “Has she been told by the Prime Minister …?”. There should not be outrageous allegations in a question; the Standing Orders are very clear on that. This is not very tidy. I ask the member to please rephrase the question without making an allegation in the question that has no substance to it. This is not just a matter of the Speakers’ rulings; this is a matter of the Standing Orders. If members are not clear on the Standing Orders they should refer to Standing Order 371 on page 113. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Obviously I would accept your ruling if this was an outrageous allegation. But this allegation—and I know that we have not tabled it but we have now had time to look at it—emanates from a point of view expressed by— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. The member is now debating the issue. I just ask the member to repeat the question in a less provocative way. 
Sue Moroney 
: Has she been advised that she will retain the portfolio only until she succeeds in disbanding the ministry so that it will become the latest casualty in the Government’s Public Service cuts? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: No.