Chauvel Charles: General Debate 
Chauvel Charles: General Debate 
[Volume:678;Page:1396] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Earlier in question time I sought to ask the Attorney-General some questions about his satisfaction level with the conduct of the matter that is now known as the teapot tapes. Sadly from our country’s chief law officer we heard significant evasion on answers to the questions that are of high public interest. It was a real shame that he declined to give the House his view on the matter in question because what the public now want to know is why public resources were devoted to that investigation over the time of the election campaign. It has been a total waste of time and a distraction right from the start.  
John Key and his complaint caused three police officers to investigate to raid media organisations and all this on a supposed matter of great principle. The great principle was that a media stunt staged between John Key and John Banks simply went wrong. And there was no expectation of privacy. All the experts agree on this. No possible expectation of privacy in the circumstances yet the Prime Minister chose to invoke the coercive powers of the police not just against individual citizens although that is bad enough but against the news media the fourth estate during an election campaign. That is the sinister and chilling element of the entire matter and it is chilling— 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Chilling! Ha! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well Government Ministers think it is a joke that the media should not be able to do their job because of intimidation from the Prime Minister. All I can say to them is that it is interesting when the Prime Minister is away because they look more and more like the one-man band they are on that side of the Table and I hope we see John Key taking a lot more overseas travel just to show up what a hot mess we see on the other side rather than the sort of competent Government with high standards that the people were promised.  
Just remember—and I hope members opposite will remember this—the Prime Minister chose to take those scarce police resources at a time when the burglary clearance rate was falling below 25 percent; and it is still below 25 percent for all the trumpeting that we hear from Mrs Tolley and her colleagues about law and order. Only 25 out of 100 ordinary people who suffer burglary in their homes get a remedy. They are unlikely to see the crime solved because of inter alia the fact that the Prime Minister feels he can just call the police out and have his petty and private complaints about a media stunt gone wrong with John Banks investigated and subject to coercive powers. It is not good enough.  
Now the Prime Minister says “Well I’ve turned the other cheek.” What changed John Key’s mind? He says it was the letter from the cameraman concerned Mr Ambrose but that letter says the same thing that Mr Ambrose has been saying right from the start that he had no intention of recording the sequel to the media stunt between Messrs Banks and Key. His tape recorder was simply left there inadvertently because of the security situation and the media scrum that ensued when the stunt was called to an end.  
Nobody likes being embarrassed but getting the police involved was a total overreaction and it will have a chilling effect on news media organisations. That will always happen. That will always happen when search warrants are executed on the fourth estate at the behest of the Prime Minister. That is sinister behaviour. It is behaviour that we should all be concerned about if we believe in freedom of expression. John Key might think the police have spare time for this sort of thing but we on this side of the House know that they do not. This has been a total waste of police time and resources that could have been directed to dealing with the real issues of concern that face New Zealanders.  
The saddest thing about the Attorney-General’s evasions in question time today was his refusal to answer the question of whether or not the deal done includes the withdrawal of the costs claim against Mr Ambrose and the civil claim. Taxpayers’ money is at stake the public deserve an answer and despite the Attorney-General’s prevarication they will have one.