Robertson Grant: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12434. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]5.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour)to thePrime Minister: Did his inquiry headed by David Henry request phone call logs for contact between AndreaVance and Hon Peter Dunne; if not how does he explain the email sent from the Henry Inquiry to Parliamentary Service at 5.53 pm on Monday 20 May 2013?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Let me start by saying David Henry has made it quite clear in his own press statement that the inquiry he led “never requested the phone records of journalist Ms Andrea Vance”. Secondly with reference to the email the member is asking about I invite him to read it carefully and—here is a novel idea—read it in full because the email sent at 5.53 p.m. on 20 May requests phone logs and then goes on to say: “Please note we do not want the call logs of the two numbers of interest. That is outside the parameters of our Inquiry.” The numbers of interest were Ms Vance’s numbers which would be why when the member tried to hawk this off through Twitter yesterday everybody who got it thought he was the twit.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Grant Robertson: In light of that answer from the Prime Minister can he confirm that the email that he is quoting from says that the Henry inquiry is seeking—[Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much noise particularly from that sector of the House. The member can start his question again.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer can the Prime Minister confirm that the email that he was quoting from seeks information about contact between the listed extensions Peter Dunne’s to and from the numbers of interest Andrea Vance’s and is he saying that “to and from” does not mean contact between Andrea Vance and Peter Dunne?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I know that this can be difficult for some people to grasp but when you make a phone call what happens is that one person rings another person or other people. That involves getting a phone like this one here. You have a number and you ring another number right? And if the other person rings you by the way that is the number that comes in to you. So by definition of course it will show the numbers that for instance Mr Dunne may have made and the numbers that he has received phone calls from but Andrea Vance’s phone records are not part of that and they as Mr Henry quite correctly said do not fall within part of the interest. The phone logs of Andrea Vance were never requested and should not have been received.Grant Robertson: So is the Prime Minister saying that calls from Andrea Vance’s phone are not her phone records?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What I am saying is they are not her phone records; they are Mr Dunne’s records of whom he received a phone call from.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has he in his time as Prime Minister ever involved his staff in seeking through an agency of State that a private citizen’s phone records be accessed despite no issues of national security being involved?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. If the member is asking me in terms of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the SIS and the work that they do there are conditions within their Acts for which their warrants can be established and they must meet those conditions. One of those is national security.Grant Robertson: Who supplied him the email from the inquiry dated 31 May that he used in his answers last week in the House?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: They came from my office in preparation for question time.Grant Robertson: How is it that his office and department were able to locate an email that showed that the inquiry was not looking for phone call logs but missed the one from 11 days earlier where it did ask for phone call logs?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because as was disclosed in the House by Minister Joyce answering on my behalf on Thursday there were 39 emails but my office was not given those 39 emails. It was given the emails that were germane to answering the questionbecause we do our best in question time to answer the questions even if they are dumb questions.Mr SPEAKER: I am just pointing out to the Prime Minister that those sorts of comments are certainly not helpful to the order of the House. I would appreciate it if he would desist.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given that my prior question referred to no national security issues being involved which would rule out the SIS and the GCSB can I ask the Prime Minister again whether he in his time as Prime Minister has ever involved his staff in seeking through an agency of State that a private citizen’s phone records be accessed despite no issues of national security being involved?Mr SPEAKER: That is a question that is very wide of the mark. The Prime Minister answered it the first time. I am going to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to answer it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect the question closed with the statement “despite no issues of national security being involved”. The Prime Minister then answered and said that if the member is referring to the GCSB—and I presume he means the SIS as well—then he would answer in terms of that. I specifically ruled out those two agencies with that statement so now I want to know whether another agency of State has fitted the bill of the question I have now asked the Prime Minister twice.Mr SPEAKER: I appreciate that the question has been asked twice. I am going to ask the Prime Minister to answer it but I point out that it is a question that is very marginal. It is very wide of the original primary question.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because it could be interpreted in so many ways I will need to get some advice so I can give the member an answer to it.Grant Robertson: Why will he not take responsibility for the actions of an inquiry that he set up which is now being described in aDominion Post editorial as having the whiff of a cover-up?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member should keep up. I did last week in the House when the question was asked by Mr Norman.