Robson Matt: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robson Matt: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9201. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Chairperson of the Privileges Committee) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege relating to an article published in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 purporting to summarise the contents of a draft report of the Maori Affairs Committee on its inquiry into the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. 
Mr Speaker the Privileges Committee has met on this issue which was referred to the committee by you. I give an apology to the House for the delay. The committee was dealing with the other matter that was before us—on the question of citizenship. No tardiness was meant but unfortunately we were not as quick to rule on this issue or to bring down recommendations as we would have liked. 
There are four key recommendations that we have put to the House. One is that the House take no further action on this question of privilege. That is not because there are not serious issues but in terms of the evidence before the committee in terms of what we were able to find based on what was before us we are not of the mind that we are able to take actual action against any particular individuals on the issue. But we have recommendations because out of this hearing came some important issues. 
The second recommendation is to you Mr Speaker and it states that we have asked the Speaker to “refer the issues raised in this report to the chairperson of the Press Gallery to deal with in accordance with the rules of the Gallery and to ensure that members of the Press Gallery are fully aware of the House’s confidentiality rules in respect of select committee reports.” 
Thirdly our recommendation is that select committees “clearly separate their procedures for obtaining responses to allegations made in evidence under Standing Order 223 and the procedures for obtaining responses to adverse findings under Standing Order 242.” The two separations there are these. One is where in the course of deliberation on a particular matter by a select committee there are matters that the committee wishes to put to an individual or an entity because they have adverse statements with regard to that individual or entity—that is one step. The second step is the question once a report is in draft of a need to have comment from individuals or entities that are named in that report—that is a separate step to be taken. In this issue there was a mixing up of issues of adverse allegations with regard to one particular individual—Sir Graham Latimer the chair of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust—and the draft report itself. 
Finally our recommendation is that where the select committee seeks submissions on adverse findings under Standing Order 242 the confidential nature of those findings be made absolutely clear to anybody making such submissions—that is of course confidential until the report is delivered to this House. 
The background to this question was that the Maori Affairs Committee in the last Parliament and in this Parliament was conducting an inquiry into the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. Subsequently on 8 June 2003 in the  
Sunday Star-Times  
a report was published written by a journalist for that paper Mr Jonathan Milne which stated first: “The report is understood to describe his fees—for just over 200 days’ work—as ‘grossly excessive’.” then later in the article: “The report will recommend the government abandon its policy of big comprehensive Maori settlements instead speedily returning forests to local Maori without waiting for wider grievances to be considered.” The wording of that article led the select committee to believe that a copy of the draft report was with that particular journalist. 
 When the Privileges Committee was seized of this matter it saw that first of all two issues existed. One was the question of finding out from individuals whether they had any comments to make on adverse allegations. The second was the question of whether in a draft report there were any issues that should be commented on by any particular individual. I have already stated in the previous part of my speech that those are two issues that we have recommended should be separated out. Unfortunately in this case they were not. 
The Maori Affairs Committee when it wrote to Sir Graham Latimer did not state clearly to him that the matter was confidential. We accept that Sir Graham Latimer is an experienced person in public life. Nevertheless we believe that a select committee should make it very clear so there is no room for doubt to any individuals or entities it writes to what they are allowed to do with the particular document that is sent to them. In this case that was not done and that was very important in terms of the findings of the committee. That is a criticism from the Privileges Committee of how the Maori Affairs Committee dealt with the matter. However we are aware that all of us are able to sit on select committees so we wish this finding to be a generic statement and in terms of the recommendations we have written to all the select committees pointing that out to them. We hope that is a positive outcome from this particular issue and that greater care can then be taken in the future. 
The committee heard from three people two in person and one by letter. By letter we heard from Sir Graham Latimer. There were reasons why Sir Graham could not appear before the committee and we accepted that. We heard in person from the Chief Executive of the Crown Rental Forestry Trust Ms Karen Waterreus and also from the journalist of whom the allegation of a breach of confidentiality was alleged Mr Jonathan Milne. 
Sir Graham Latimer wrote to us: “The Chief Executive informed me the reporter had explained they had advance copy of the Committee’s report. On that basis I agreed to be interviewed to discuss my views on the Maori Affairs Select Committee inquiry … I was interviewed via telephone … [for] approximately one-half hour.” 
When Ms Waterreus the chief executive gave evidence she stated that she was not quite sure what Mr Milne had said to her and Mr Milne in evidence said he did not tell them he had a copy of the draft report. So we had two witnesses who were saying that and Sir Graham Latimer was in the situation if one likes of his evidence being hearsay in any case through Ms Waterreus. So the evidence before us was that we did not have evidence that the draft report was in the hands of the journalist. 
But we do not accept Mr Milne’s argument that the matters were in the public domain; they were clearly within the confidence of the committee. Therefore we have recommended that the press gallery through yourself Mr Speaker consider the effect of rule 23 of the press gallery rules: “No member of the Press Gallery shall—(a) infringe any of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives”. 
The four recommendations I put to members at the beginning of my speech are the four recommendations we are asking the House to accept.