Mallard Trevor: Standing Orders—Sessional 
Mallard Trevor: Standing Orders—Sessional 
[Volume:669;Page:16423] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I rise to support the Leader of the House on this particular change to the sessional order which will effectively be a change to the Standing Orders on matters relating to the pecuniary and other interests of members. It is fair to say that over time we have made some progress in this area. I think there is an ongoing debate but generally members are favouring transparency more and more in order to avoid doubt. The exercise that we are undertaking here will take some reasonable steps in that regard although it will still not be as clear as some of us would prefer. But it is certainly a step in the right direction. 
As well as the points made by the previous speaker the Hon Gerry Brownlee I would like to emphasise the point on timing. One of the problems with the declarations at the moment is that if people perform an activity and are not paid in the same year it could be up to 18 months after the activity is performed well beyond a general election well beyond the period of conflict before it becomes apparent and this change helps with that. The area where there will be some debate and unhappiness with members is the arrangement with trusts—at both ends of it. It is fair to say that agreement is not unanimous on the question of people who are trustees of trusts in which they do not have beneficial interest. In some cases they would be people who are lawyers who as part of their previous business became trustees. This will require a decision on the part of those members of Parliament who might for example be trustees for family trusts for more distant parts of their family where there is no question of being beneficiaries. People will have to make a choice as to whether they are open and transparent about their role in those family trusts or previous professional trusts or whether they resign as a trustee as a number of us have done in the past with directorships and other arrangements. I think that is fair. 
The other area around trusts will be known to some on this side of the House as the “Bill English clause”. The decision is to take a wider view of beneficial interest so we will take into account not only those who have a fixed beneficial interest but those who have discretionary interests. In the case of the English trust arrangements we saw changes in those arrangements that took the Minister of Finance from being a fixed beneficiary to being a discretionary beneficiary when in fact the actual position did not change at all. It is important and as well as thanking the Privileges Committee of the previous Parliament for referring it I think we should probably thank Mr English for the work he has done to help us clarify our rules in that particular area. 
There is a clear warning to be given to members on the question of vexatious complaints. There is an expectation that members will not complain vexatiously on this question and that is important to make sure that the system has integrity and we do not put the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests of Members of Parliament in a position where she gets caught up in what is essentially a political argument. It is probably inevitable if there is a real complaint that it is political but it should not be an unnecessary political argument or too frequent. The punishment for members who make vexatious complaints is that they are themselves treated as in contempt and therefore a breach of Parliament and that should serve as a warning to people to take this process seriously. 
I thank all members who served on the Privileges Committee. It is fair to say that there was almost no politics in this that different views came from different sides of the House and that members added their various experiences in order to get something that is I think about as good as would be acceptable to the House at this time.