Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise as deputy chair of the Privileges Committee to support the motion and to attach myself to the comments of the chair in respect of recent activity by the committee which is I think appropriate. But I do so with a sense of sadness that on this occasion on a very important matter of privilege—that is not to mislead and then to quickly correct—we have an example of where standards have fallen well below that which we and the public should expect of its elected officials. As Mr Parker said there was no real dissent by the committee in the end and the committee understood that there would be an appropriately high bar for the finding of contempt. But as is mentioned in the report on page 13 Although some of us find parts of her evidence unconvincing"—I would suggest that that perhaps understates the incredulity that members had about Minister Tinetti's evidence. And certainly I and my colleague Gerry Brownlee both former Ministers and who know how ministerial offices run found some of that evidence barely credible for reasons which I'll elaborate on presently. But in reaching its conclusions the committee must rely on the honourability of its members if they come before Privileges and it's incumbent on us to actually believe the testimony before it. But that's not to say that it should be accepted without question. And if various pieces of information that are before it are in conflict with each other it behoves the committee to drill deeper. It was for that reason that I sought to have the Minister recalled and indeed a couple of staff to appear before us to help us understand the evidence. I was disappointed that didn't occur albeit that the Minister was asked for further written answers to questions and it wasn't agreed to on the basis that that was somehow inappropriate and without precedence that staff would appear. Now that's not accurate and I'm indebted to former member the Hon Sir Jim McLay who wrote an article many years ago about the new processes for the Privileges Committee and I quote from that article: "Once seized of a matter the committee meets at the earliest opportunity to formulate the charge to decide who shall be heard as witnesses and in what order and to direct the Clerk to advise parties and the witnesses of these matters." He did go and cite a complaint against former member Duncan MacIntyre where indeed non-MP witnesses were called. So it's by no means without precedence. Now in order for the committee to reach a finding that Minister Tinetti did not deliberately mislead the House it had to accept that three things were true. Firstly that between January 2023 and 21 February 2023 when her staff were in regular contact with the Ministry of Education and in contact with the Office of the Prime Minister including the Deputy Chief of Staff and a senior adviser she had no knowledge of that activity going on. That I found rather difficult. The evidence before the committee was a series of emails between the Minister's office and the ministry: "Please find attached an information update. We are keen to work with you to agree a release date." That was from the ministry and that was on 26 January. On 9 February: "FYI. The Minister's office are looking to potentially release the term 3 attendance data early next week. Something we can chat about at our meeting later today." And then on 14 February: "Mōrena. Do we have a sense of when the data will be released i.e. this month next week etc.?" The response from the Minister's office is "The plan is to release it after the announcement." It goes on to say "I think it's safe to say the term 3 data will be released by the end of the month." All of this activity was going on in the Minister's office between the Minister's office and the ministry between the Minister's office and the Prime Minister's office and the Minister herself had no knowledge that that was going on. Confident she was on the 22nd to answer Erica Stanford's question: "My staff have no influence over that. My office has no influence." Clearly that was not correct. But the committee had to agree that that was her belief. It also begs the question as to why. If she was so interested in the release of the data in December when the Deputy Secretary of Education came to the select committee and said "I'm really keen to get it out this side of Christmas. So I'm expecting that any day." and the Minister was very interested in the data why the radio silence between December and 21 February when she made no inquiries that a release of attendance data that was going to be released imminently had not in fact been released? However we accept that.The second matter is to accept that when the Minister appeared twice in morning media on 21 February to discuss the Government school attendance data announcement she said the term 3 attendance data would be released that same day but told the committee that she had in fact made that up under pressure from the media—somewhat ironically given that that's exactly when the data was released. And thirdly we had to accept the Minister had an honest belief that she did not need to correct her answer because she believed at the time she gave it that it was correct. Frankly that's an extraordinary position to hold. I quote McGee who says "It is not a contempt to make a genuine mistake and thus tender incorrect information … But it is incumbent on a member or person who has given misleading information on a parliamentary occasion to correct the error at the first opportunity once it is discovered." Parliamentary privilege 101. Every member no matter how inexperienced should know that and certainly every Minister should have that drummed into them when they become Ministers that if they make a mistake they correct it. That is a fundamental corollary to the parliamentary privilege we hold. So it does make me sad actually that that's the standard that we have come to. But the committee faced with that choice of either contemptible and deliberate misleading of Parliament or a high degree of negligence and significant errors of judgment came down on the side of negligence and error. Negligent according to her testimony in her failure to have the barest clue of what on earth was going on in her office between her office and the Prime Minister's office between her office and the Ministry of Education—and her office were donkey deep in influencing the timing of the release of the data. Now we have to accept that she didn't know that despite being so keen to have that data released at the start—it was going to be before Christmas. An error of judgment in by her own words making answers up under pressure from media that by an amazing coincidence just actually happened to be what was going on in her office. And negligent in her failure to understand her obligation to correct an answer in this House when it was quickly pointed out to her immediately on her return to the office that her answer was misleading. Three big errors three strikes and a standard of judgment and behaviour that comfortably falls below that which we should accept and expect and comfortably exceeds the thresholds for the sanctions that should be imposed. Some have said "Yep this is a wet bus ticket." Well it's a pretty big wet bus ticket and nothing the committee could do I think would be as bad as the damage to the Minister's reputation that she herself has imposed by her failure by her gross negligence by her serious errors of judgment. Frankly that's part of a pattern; a pattern of Ministers who don't think the rules apply to them. Well they absolutely do. The public has a right to expect that we treat our privileges seriously that we act with honour that we say what we believe to be the truth and when it's found not to be to quickly correct those misleading statements. That hasn't happened on this occasion and that is an indictment on us all and it's an expectation that we should all have to do better. We owe it to the people who put us here and Jan Tinetti the Minister of Education has seriously let us down on this occasion."