Parker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8013. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
6. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Did he or his office receive the 12 November 2009 report from Ministry officials to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet summarising the process with SkyCity for the building of a convention centre; if so did he read it? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 A search of my office records indicates that no a report was not received by my office. 
Hon David Parker 
: Was he aware at the time that the 12 November 2009 report which the Deputy Auditor-General refers to said that Treasury had advised that advice be sought from the Auditor-General to determine the probity of the process with Skycity; if so what did he do about it? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I was made aware from my officials that good process would be required and that is exactly what took place. That is why the expressions of interest process was handled by the Minister for Economic Development’s office. This period of time that the member is talking about—12 November 2009 in that interim period—was all before the expressions of interest process which was in March 2010. This is all covered in part 1 of the Deputy Auditor-General’s report and part 1 of the Deputy Auditor-General’s report has 100 percent tick-off from the Deputy Auditor-General. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was not that; my question was whether around 12 November he was aware that Treasury had advised that advice be sought from the Deputy Auditor-General. The Prime Minister has not addressed that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The difficulty was the answer to the first part of the question to the Prime Minister when he said that he was not aware that this report had even been received in his office. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was my previous question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is my point. Well let us have the question put again to the Prime Minister. It is the easiest way to move forward. 
Hon David Parker 
: Was he aware at that time—i.e. around 12 November 2009—that Treasury had advised that advice be sought from the Auditor-General to determine the probity of the process with Skycity? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I was not aware of that report because my office never got that report. Sometime after that date my officials did advise me that there should be good process in all the things we do and that is what took place from March onwards when there was an expressions of interest process. 
Hon David Parker 
: Did the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet follow up the earlier report with a prior briefing note to him on 2 December 2009 repeating Treasury’s advice; if so why did he ignore the second written warning to ensure that a fair process was run? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: We did not. It was not the second one as I made it clear. We never received the first one in my office. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet did write a note to me as is normal. The note was actually largely about a lot of other things in relation to the convention centre. But yes it indicated good process was important and good process was followed by independent officials. 
Hon David Parker 
: Given that he was intimately involved with arranging the Skycity deal including meetings and dinners and personally he has already conceded he knew that very valuable regulatory concessions like extra pokie machines a longer casino licence or changes to gaming laws were being discussed why did he not ensure that the possibility of valuable regulatory breaks was made known through the requests for proposals to other parties? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: There are a lot of assertions in there and I refute them. The simple bottom line is that there was a proper process run by officials that started in March and that was handled completely away from my office. I was never involved from that point on. In regards to the earlier point—the exploratory phase which is stage one—the Deputy Auditor-General in her report says that is quite normal to be expected and nothing to see there. The Deputy Auditor-General’s report says we have seen no evidence to suggest that the final decision to negotiate with Skycity was influenced by any inappropriate considerations and the simple facts of life are that the Labour Party does not like it any more than the Green Party that there is nothing to see in terms of my involvement.