English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:611;Page:8233] 
1. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Has she seen the 17 July 2002 memo from Ruth Wilkie to Dr Mark Prebble regarding his decision to withhold from public release notes to the Prime Minister on the management of potentially contaminated corn seed and in which Ms Wilkie states that “Mary Anne Thompson reported to you and me that the PM was prepared to have these notes released if necessary”; if so did she have a meeting or discussion which would have led Mary Anne Thompson to make such a report? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes I have seen the memo. Dr Thompson has confirmed that no such meeting or discussion with me took place. 
Hon Bill English 
: Did the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Heather Simpson or chief press secretary Mike Munro have any knowledge of which papers were released and which papers were held back and did they discuss this knowledge with her given that they had played a key role in managing the outcome of the TV3 interview on “corngate”? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. At the end of that question there was a “given” that cannot be authenticated. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well let me put it this way. I heard the question. I will ask the Prime Minister to comment. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My understanding is that they played no such role. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister give us any reason that an experienced civil servant with the reputation of Ruth Wilkie would make it up and write a memo with no basis in fact whatsoever about a meeting and a discussion that the Prime Minister says never happened? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I said there was no meeting. Why officials wrote the memos they wrote is up to them to explain to others. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: At the time of the 17 July memo was the Prime Minister under the impression that all the relevant documentation had been released given her earlier comments in that respect and if she was not under that impression when did she become aware for the first time that the full range of documentation had not been released? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: In the course of the campaign when this issue arose I made it clear that I wanted all documentation released. I assumed that that instruction would have been followed. I found out in November it had not been. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I would like to clarify that answer that the Prime Minister has just given to Mr Dunne. Is she asking us to believe that she was not aware that the Ruth Wilkie memo of 17 July—which contradicts the Government’s statements—was not included in the Government dump until November; and even if she does expect us to believe that why was it not then released? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What I am saying is that I had no idea that that department had held back any information until November. My understanding was that memos were then released in response to the request from Mr Price. I have not myself taken a detailed interest in the administration of that but I have always asked for all the information to be released. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the Prime Minister was aware that the threshold test could not be met why did she nevertheless make assurances that it had been met? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What I was being told in memos was that there was no reliable evidence of contamination at all. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why is it that everyone in this matter apart from the Prime Minister seems to be telling lies: Mary-Anne Thompson about a discussion she never had; Ruth Wilkie about a report that never existed; Mark Prebble about a decision that he apparently made on his own and that no one else in the Prime Minister’s department or Prime Minister’s office knew anything about; and given the Prime Minister’s track record of evasion in this House why should we believe everyone else is lying and not her? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Leader of the Opposition cannot suggest that a member of this House is telling a lie. I want him to stand withdraw— 
Hon Bill English 
: For what? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last part of the question. I want him to stand withdraw and apologise if he made that assertion. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify what you are pointing to as unparliamentary. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last phrase. 
Hon Bill English 
: I said the Prime Minister had a track record of evasion in this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I said: “The last phrase.” 
Hon Bill English 
: So that one was OK—the evasion was all right? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It was necessary to make that part of the question but it was not specifically out of order. 
Hon Bill English 
: OK. So which bit was out of order? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last bit which the member knows suggested that she might have been lying. 
Hon Bill English 
: Was it when I said that she was accusing everyone else of lying or just of her lying? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. A member of this House cannot be accused of lying. He will withdraw and apologise for that comment if he made that comment. 
Hon Bill English 
: I am just having a bit of difficulty sorting out which bit is of concern to the House. I think the phrase went something like this—you can correct me if I am wrong—“given the Prime Minister’s track record of evasion in this House why should we believe everyone else was lying and not her?” 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Because that is an assumption that she is. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Bill English 
: I withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister can answer the rest of the question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect it is a very simple question. No one is saying that the Prime Minister is lying but people are simply saying that if everybody else is not lying then it leaves open a huge vacuum as to what the truth is. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have allowed the question. The Prime Minister is going to answer it. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Dr Prebble has confirmed that he did not tell me of his decision. Ms Thompson is on the public record in the  
Dominion Post 
 as saying she denied discussing the notes with Miss Clark. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I ask the Prime Minister again: if she knew that the threshold test had not been met why did she go out before and during the election assuring the public of this country and all and sundry that in fact there was a threshold that was met and there was no concern which was the argument she made at the time? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The argument at the time was that there was no reliable evidence of contamination and that is clearly borne out by officials. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm her contention that on the single biggest issue of the election campaign neither she nor her chief press secretary Mike Munro nor her chief of staff Heather Simpson knew anything about what decision had been made by Mark Prebble—a decision that was so bitterly contested in her department that a mid-level civil servant censured their own chief executive for getting it wrong; and why would we believe that no one in the Prime Minister’s office knew anything about any of that? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Because they were not told.