Dunne Peter: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
Dunne Peter: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2579] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 United Future strongly supports the Privileges Committee’s report. In our view this is less a report about a contempt of Parliament committed by Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and much more a report about the supremacy of Parliament. What it really does aside from dealing with the particular issues relating to Mr Fraser is send a signal to all State-owned enterprises Crown-owned companies and the like that their ultimate accountability is to Parliament that their ultimate authority derives from Parliament and that they are responsible in turn to Parliament. 
The practice that has developed over recent years—to which Mr McCully alluded—is one that I am familiar with and in a number of the instances I was chairing the Finance and Expenditure Committee at the time. The first time we had trouble with TVNZ was in the late 1990s. Then along came the New Zealand Post case. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the chairman of both entities was the same person at that stage who had what can only be described as contempt for Parliament. 
But they were not the only instances. I recall a situation where one State-owned enterprise came to a select committee one day to have its annual financial review. Before the chairman sat down he asked the committee: “Is this going to take very long? I’ve got a plane in 45 minutes.” That contemptuous attitude now goes right across the spectrum. 
This Privileges Committee hearing was as much about calling to account those cavalier and arrogant people for their behaviour as it was about the contempt committed by TVNZ in respect of its treatment of Mr Fraser. I welcome the fact that the committee has issued an interim report and has signalled that it intends to do more work on the broader issue because I think that is one of the key questions that we face as we move forward. Otherwise the process of accountability to Parliament by the enterprises that it has created will become even more perfunctory than it has been to date. 
The second point I allude to is that the other group that was on trial through this process was the Privileges Committee itself. It is customary to talk about Parliament’s all-powerful Privileges Committee but there have been too many instances in recent years where the Privileges Committee’s reports have been akin to the proverbial slap on the back of the hand with the wet bus ticket. Many agencies around this town and individuals who have had the experience of appearing before and being upbraided by the committee wear it as a badge of honour. They too were there; they too got slapped over the wrist. This issue was one where the committee needed to be determined to take a stand and to make it clear—as I think Mr McCully said and as I certainly heard Mr Power say at times during the hearings—that it would not on behalf of Parliament be trifled with any longer. That brings us to the issue of the penalty that we are recommending be imposed. 
As has been said it is 103 years since Parliament imposed a fine on any individual or organisation. We briefly canvassed the idea of imprisonment but were advised by the Clerk that in order to imprison someone we actually had to have a cell somewhere on the premises and apparently we do not. Maybe that is something the Parliamentary Service Commission could look at providing in the future. 
More seriously why a fine of $1000? I was the one who proposed that measure my reason was simple and I am pleased that the committee in the main adopted the viewpoint. This was not about punishment in any monetary or punitive sense. This was about sending a signal that we had reached the end of our tether in terms not only of the contemptible behaviour of this organisation TVNZ but of others as well. We wanted to back up that signal with something more than just the customary strong rhetoric that could go away once the dust had settled. 
I found it interesting incidentally and in passing that Bell Gully should write and say basically that it did not check the point through but as that was not material to the case could we please leave Bell Gully’s name out of it because that will affect its reputation. That is an interesting commentary on the way in which the legal profession behaves. I know Mr Finlayson has reason to be aghast at that. Again it is symptomatic I think of the view that a number of agencies have formed about this whole process: the matter is not that serious they do not need to get too worked up about it and if Parliament is to take the matter seriously they do not want their names brought into it because they might be embarrassed. 
Maybe a few of those people have learnt a lesson arising out of this but it is easy to see the issue in terms of being about just Mr Fraser and the board of TVNZ. I suspect the board was badly served by its internal and external legal advice. I suspect the board was operating in an environment where the proverbial old boy network had said that these things come and go and that the board did not need to get too steamed up about them. Maybe now there might be some recognition more broadly afield about the fact that Parliament is baring its teeth. Parliament is showing that it is master not just of its own quaint destiny but of the destiny of those agencies as well and the exercise of accountability takes place accordingly. 
I want to applaud the role the chairman of the Privileges Committee took. I thought bringing the committee together in the way he did was a very skilful exercise of his function. 
I also draw to the attention of the House some comments made by Mr John Key on the radio this morning which I thought absolutely summed up the situation. People may postulate as to what the notion of parliamentary accountability is—who is Parliament that people should be accountable to? Mr Key made the point that every publicly listed company in New Zealand is accountable to its shareholders and goes through shareholders’ meetings which can be quaint anarchic unpleasant experiences sometimes. But none the less directors of those companies have to go through those meetings—and wear the funny hat that Mr Shepherd wears at every meeting he seems to attend. 
We did not do that in the Privileges Committee but it is the same sort of notion. This is the annual accountability exercise of State-owned enterprises and it has to be taken seriously. TVNZ is prime offender No. 1. We have had the instance with New Zealand Post. Over the years many other agencies have pleaded variations on commercial secrecy or of their having had other pressures on time as excuses for not giving answers to Parliament. I hope as a result of this report that the message will go forward that this behaviour will no longer be tolerated. 
I conclude on this point. Mr Swain who gave us the benefit of his experiences as Minister for State Owned Enterprises made at some stage the telling comment that this sort of information about the relationship between State-owned enterprises and select committees and Parliament ought to be handed out in the regular meetings held between the chairs of those agencies and their board members in terms of their learning about the responsibility they undertake. I endorse that view. I hope it is picked up by the present Minister and that he will read the Riot Act to those directors. The only way we will change this culture aside from the strong words and actions of this Parliament is by changing the hearts and minds of those directors so that they recognise they have a responsibility too. 
This is an important debate. I am conscious that an even more important one is to follow and I do not want to tarry any longer but it is necessary to put on the record the strength of feeling across Parliament about this incident. It is seen as an example of the contempt that is repeatedly being committed by many State agencies that think they know better than we do.