Cullen Michael: Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Cullen Michael: Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4827] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 The Maori Affairs Committee went very carefully into that issue. Issues of conflict of interest were not the only issues dealt with under the heading of personal circumstances. There may well be other issues that might come into play. Mr Franks’ argument is actually a very strange one. What he is really saying is: “if in some way a mistake has been made in an appointment.” and I think that that is actually drawing things far too far. Members should remember that the initial appointment is to the tribunal. What we are talking about in this context is a panel for a particular case. It is very important not to confuse those two things. A person may be a perfectly proper person to be appointed to the tribunal but circumstances might emerge for whatever reason which means that he or she is not the most suitable person to be on the panel for that particular case. 
Stephen Franks 
: What would be an example? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I could take an extreme example—that is if the person was going to be overseas for the next 6 months and there is some urgency about the case being dealt with. 
Stephen Franks 
: Then they’ll concede. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No they might not concede. That is the point. Mr Franks is assuming that for some reason everybody will act perfectly reasonably. If I were to base my management of the House on that then I would have to point out that the ACT party nearly always acts unreasonably in terms of House procedures. I have yet to get ever anything reasonable through the consent of the ACT party in terms of sensible procedures in this House. We are going to finish the business that the Government wants to do before 6 o’clock tomorrow and I offered if we did that to have question time and ACT was the only party that turned it down. We will end up doing exactly what we wanted to do anyway and the Opposition has denied itself question time—and the National Party was very keen to have question time. It was only ACT that turned it down. Mr Franks an ACT member has said that he assumes everybody acts reasonably in all reasonable circumstances. I have to say that he and his party members are not models of that kind of behaviour on anything that I have seen around this place. They are classic examples of cutting off their noses to spite their faces. 
The notion that circumstances might arise where anybody would see it as reasonable to stand aside is to ignore the fact that one does need a reserve power in these cases to ensure that the case is properly dealt with and that is applying to the panel. We have said that if somebody is going to be removed then it should not be subject simply to the opinion of the chairperson about those circumstances; it should be capable of being tested objectively that the removal is for reasonable cause which is why we have proposed the amendment to remove the words “in the opinion of the Chairperson”. It turns the test from a subjective to an objective test. 
Regarding the amendment moved by United Future the point there as I understand it is that the removal is simply about being on a panel; it has nothing to do with removal from the tribunal. The matters that the member referred to relate to membership of the tribunal not membership of a panel. I think that to some extent he is jumping at shadows by being concerned that the ability to remove from a panel is not clear in the bill as it stands. The advice I have is that that power is clear and is implicit in the replacement powers referred to in the bill itself. I think that issue has been gone over fairly clearly and everybody is reasonably happy with that situation.