Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:613;Page:9929] 
7.  
RODNEY HIDE (ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What action did she take on receiving my letter to her dated 19 March 2002 detailing Mr Ross Lynneberg’s pay dispute dating back to when the New Zealand Government transferred him from the Royal New Zealand Navy to the Royal Navy and does she agree with the Hon Mark Burton’s letter of 26 September 2003 confirming that Mr Lynneberg’s pay was £238-10-0 short while he was held prisoner of war by the Japanese but that he will not be paid the shortfall and that “all options have now been fully explored”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 When the letter was received from Mr Hide staff sought advice from the office of the Minister of Defence. Dr Cullen then responded to the member on my behalf in June 2002 and noted that the Minister of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force were taking the issue up with the British Government. They did that without success. Mr Burton last wrote to Mr Lynneberg in September this year saying that he will personally raise the issue with the British Defence Minister when he is in London. I understand that that meeting will occur this week. Mr Burton will contact Mr Lynneberg when he returns to New Zealand. 
Rodney Hide 
: How does the Prime Minister square her Government’s failure simply to pay Mr Ross Lynneberg the pay that he is owed with her statement to the Returned Services Association’s annual national meeting on 9 June this year that: “As a Government we have put a high priority on seeing that those who serve our country overseas get properly thanked and acknowledged.”; and does she think that Mr Ross Lynneberg has been properly thanked and acknowledged when he has not even been paid what this Government acknowledges he is owed? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What the Minister has acknowledged is that Mr Lynneberg was owed the money by the Royal Navy to which he was seconded—and volunteered to be seconded I understand—in 1941. I understand that the New Zealand Defence Force did meet its pay obligations to Mr Lynneberg at the end of the war. 
Simon Power 
: As the Prime Minister will travel the world to honour veterans and attend ceremonies throughout New Zealand why has it taken so long for this matter to be actioned by the Hon Mark Burton? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: There has been quite a lot of toing and froing on this matter from the time it was first raised with Ministers by Mr Lynneberg. I am satisfied that Mr Burton and his officials have gone to a great deal of trouble to try to track who owed what when and how. 
Ron Mark 
: What kind of message is this Government sending to the men and women of our Defence Force when on the one hand it crows about its massive surpluses and oversees the payment of $42000 to a violent convict in Dunedin yet on the other hand it dismisses most callously pleas for assistance from former soldiers such as Damien Nepata who was severely burned in an accident and George Nepata who is now a tetraplegic and now we find out from World War II veteran and former prisoner of war Ross Lynneberg that he only wants to be paid for the job he did? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The point is that he was in the employment of the British at the time. That is why Mr Burton is quite properly taking up the matter with the Secretary of State for Defence this week. 
Rodney Hide 
: On looking through this file does the Prime Minister realise that when Mr Lynneberg headed off overseas to war on behalf of all New Zealanders the New Zealand Government made a solemn promise to him to top up his pay that the British would provide and that 60 years on this Government is saying that is not its problem and there is nothing doing? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The New Zealand Government did top up the pay. Furthermore I am advised that all the topped-up pay it was responsible for was paid to Mr Lynneberg at the end of the war. 
Rodney Hide 
: In light of the Prime Minister being able to find $60000 for writers that she and her expert literary panel like why can she not just find the $17500—not counting interest—owed to Mr Ross Lynneberg who suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese and who has travelled here today to see this Prime Minister’s response? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member is asking the New Zealand Government to pay the wages owed by another Government. That is the point that has been made consistently. We all feel tremendous sympathy for Mr Lynneberg who was a prisoner of war for 4 years. He was in the employment of the Royal Navy at the time he was captured. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek to put a motion that parliamentarians have a whip-round pay the man the money—$17000—and reclaim it from the British. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member does not need leave for that. He just has to write to every member. 
Peter Brown 
: I will lead the way. I will put in $300. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member does not need leave to do that. I will certainly help. He does not need leave. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have discussed this with my ACT colleagues. Each MP could put in $100—we have each got that in our pockets. Mr Lynneberg is here. He does not want charity actually. He just wants his pay which this Prime Minister is denying him. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is becoming farcical. The member knows that this is not the place to raise that particular issue. Any member is entitled to write to any other member asking for that sort of thing. It is not part of question time. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek leave to table my letter to the Prime Minister dated 19 March 2002. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek leave also to table the letter from the Hon Mark Burton dated 26 September 2003 to Mr Lynneberg— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. 
Rodney Hide 
: —stating yes he is owed the money but he is not going to get paid. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is the last warning for the member. 
Rodney Hide 
: I am sorry Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not care. Please be seated while I am on my feet. The member knows that that is out of order. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am perfectly entitled to explain what is in a letter without you interrupting. It may have escaped your notice that this is a terrible injustice to a serviceman and if I am not allowed to table a letter properly that is a disgrace in this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows the letter is referred to in his question. He asked to table that letter; no one had any objection to it. The member went outside the bounds of what is acceptable. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to draw your mind back to when many of us first came to this Chamber. We received very formal instruction on behalf of the Speaker’s office by senior members of this House as to how we were to behave inside this Chamber and on the processes and procedures we were to follow. One of the courses of instruction we received was on how to table documents. In that course of instruction the Standing Orders were made very clear to us and it was clear that we were to do a number of things: give the title of the document the date where it came from and a brief outline of what was contained in it. My concern is that increasingly over the last few years the impression has been given that the House does not want the contents of certain documents to be aired publicly here on the floor of the Chamber. Right at the point in time when a member of Parliament is about to explain specifically—according to the Standing Orders—what a document is about he is promptly sat on his butt. I would ask you to consider exactly how that has been administered because it does seem a little unfair. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It has not been administered in any different way in all the 37 years I have been in the House. I repeat that all that is necessary is to identify sufficiently the document to be tabled. I judged that we had identified that document. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I warn the member that I have ruled and this had better be a new point of order. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek leave of the House to table the Rt Hon Helen Clark’s speech to the Returned Services Association’s annual national council meeting this week. 
Document laid on the Table of the House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. During that last discussion with Mr Hide Mr Mallard made a statement that is bound to lead to parliamentary disorder. It was an allegation against a member of this House and he should be asked either to back it up or to stand withdraw and apologise. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will ask the member whether he made an unparliamentary comment about another member. If he did so I want him to stand withdraw and apologise. [ 
Interruption 
] I did not exactly hear it. There was a noise and I did not hear the exact statement. I was listening to a point of order. If the member made an unparliamentary statement he is to stand withdraw and apologise. He did not. I accept his word. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Let me tell you what he said without mentioning the member’s name. He said: “Tell X to pay her bills too.” He knows he said that. We all heard him over here on the Opposition benches. You take his word; I do not. I want an apology. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The statement is ambiguous. It is not unparliamentary but the member was out of order for interjecting. I ask him to withdraw for interjecting. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I withdraw.