Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise with somewhat more optimism than the previous speaker my colleague on the Privileges Committee David Seymour. I think we should all be—although saddened by the circumstances that brought us together as a committee on this case—proud that we do live in a democracy where robust debate can happen and that we do have a parliamentary oversight body like the Privileges Committee that did meet and that did have the power to question the Minister of Education orally to request written information meet for hours and hours and have those very fulsome debates about what actually constitutes a breach of a Minister's responsibilities—what the expectations of New Zealanders might be of a member of our executive—and came to a consensus in our decision and in the drafting of the report. Although I must thank the committee clerks of course for that incredible piece of work. We did it quickly though it took hours and hours but we were very aware that both in terms of the public interest and the human interest in terms of the Minister in her office that it was important that the decision be arrived at in a timely manner.So I think we actually should be proud that when something happens that doesn't sit right that when processes in our democracy are not followed that when question time—which is an absolute cornerstone of democratic transparency and accountability for the Government—may have been the theatre for inaccurate or less than accurate information being imparted by a Minister we can respond by a referral to a parliamentary accountability mechanism that sits independently and that undertakes that work as seriously as we did.We received and engaged with jurisprudence from around the world from other Westminster parliamentary systems. We talked about the Boris Johnson case and cases in Australia. Our thinking in the debate turned on the issue of intent. So we agreed and others have said that there was an inaccurate answer given by the Minister that the House was misled—that that is deeply serious and it is an absolute breech in its effect. We also agreed that the delay was undue and that that continued the misleading of this House and that that is serious.But we turned our minds mostly in our debate to the issue of whether the Minister did intend—or as we would say in legal terms whether there was bad faith. We didn't find that—although I know others in this debate have expressed their own doubts that seem to remain. It is the case that we did agree—all of us together—that there was in fact no intentional bad faith by the Minister but that the shortfall was serious. And that is reflected in the strength of the criticism in the report. And it is absolutely I would say in the strongest terms that the Privileges Committee could think to criticise this Minister's shortfall in both ensuring that she had not misled the House and also in ensuring that she had done all she could pursuant to her duty as Minister to correct the record once there was any doubt at all that she may have misled the House.I do want to say that given this process was held in most part publicly and we have a Minister that had to front—that scene was and would have been to anyone facing it incredibly stressful. She did go through that process and she now has to live with the record of this damning report—that she has stood here and apologised to the House that this was by no means sort of an easy route and we did know that what we were deciding although short of contempt was that we had conveyed and the Minister had experienced a serious consequence for her failure and negligence which is I think the word most accurately used here to describe what we found.I do also want to recall that even by the time that the Minister appeared before us she had taken some steps to rectify the processes within her own office. And I think we can all agree that there wasn't an adequate process put in place to avoid this type of breach. And we were satisfied—or at least I was—that that has been put in place to some extent. And I want to also note her deep and genuine contrition about what had happened.So I do want to thank the members of the committee for our shared commitment to arriving at the right outcome—that we decide these standards with the trust of this House and the New Zealand public. And we will as case by case comes before us take the same approach where we will ask ourselves what would let down this House to a degree that contempt will be found. And in this case because the action was a one off we didn't find it to be deliberate or ongoing we didn't find that the Minister was definitively told that she'd done something wrong and that she needed to rectify it—that there was no contempt. But we will—parties across the House both Government and Opposition—come together each time and make that determination again and again. And we thank the Speaker for taking seriously the issue of privilege and referring more cases to us than we have had in probably the past term or this one. The fact that New Zealand has this process that the process did happen that it was robust and that it did result in I think some restoration hopefully of the trust of the public the trust of this Parliament and also changes for the processes in at least one Minister's office is to be celebrated. So I think that is in fact a win. Thank you Mr Speaker.Motion agreed to.