Mapp Wayne: General Debate 
Mapp Wayne: General Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:17128] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Fancy hearing the lead chorister talking about a secret agenda! For at least 4 years now National has been saying it wants to see competition in the accident compensation scheme. That is hardly a secret; it is truly bizarre for the Minister to suggest that this is some secret agenda. All I can assume is that she needs to get out more and read the newspapers look at television or maybe look at the Internet and then she will actually find out what our policy is. If that member looked at what happened in 1998 she would see that competition brought the accident compensation rates down. Indeed that has been an enduring effect over the last 9 years. It would never have happened but for competition. 
I turn now to an important issue relating to the New Zealand Defence Force. One of the key hallmarks of defence is leadership. Those who have the duty and responsibility to lead have the responsibility to protect those who serve yet we have had the extraordinary situation of a senior decorated officer being brought back to New Zealand nearly 12 months ago and kept in uniform specifically for a court martial just weeks before he completes 38 years of service. What had he actually done wrong? The whole saga stems—as indeed the Minister knows—from claims made by seconded personnel for a housing allowance in New Zealand. The officer was told in fact by senior officers in the Defence Force to make precisely that claim—that it was normal practice. The Prime Minister has had to find that out only this week. That is why National has taken this issue so seriously because we believe that this has been an issue of a failure of leadership. The officer was led to believe he could make the claim then the Defence Force sought to court-martial him precisely on that issue. 
When the Defence Force could not get the officer on the housing allowance it continued to prosecute him even though there are other options available under military law to deal with the issues of cigarettes and tobacco. I understand that responsibility was required for those issues but I have to contrast that situation with the Prime Minister’s numerous transgressions of the law and ask what happens to her. The most she ever gets is a warning or maybe a letter but basically she is never held to account for those transgressions. 
The Chief of Defence Force has ordered an internal inquiry. It is a bit extraordinary really. Senior officers have known about this issue the whole way along so can we really say that an internal court of inquiry is the right process here? Given that it covers the senior ranks of the Defence Force surely an independent inquiry is required. At least I would acknowledge that the Minister may see the need for that. 
The other extraordinary feature of this whole event is that the Minister said on Sunday and indeed repeated in the House today that he knew nothing about this entire event. The Defence Force has only about 12 colonels; one of them was about to be court-martialled. The Minister was not told about that despite answering specific questions from members of Parliament on the specific issue. Those questions were not veiled questions; they were right to the point about the housing allowances in the United Nations of seconded officers. How many seconded officers were actually being court-martialled? The answer is one. Apparently members of the Defence Force took it upon themselves not to tell the Minister about that even though they had answered specific questions on the very points at issue. How is that for a no-surprises policy? I would have to say to members of the Defence Force they will need to account for that failure. National wants to be given clear answers on these issues. We want them to come from the senior officers. They are the ones who are responsible for this issue. We want there to be an independent investigation. Given that the issue is within the realm of the senior officers only an independent investigation can have the powers and the abilities to get to the bottom of it. 
The issue is really quite straightforward: the integrity and ethics of leadership are at stake here. This is not an issue to be lightly washed over and where one person is essentially held to be a scapegoat. There has to be accountability.