Parker David: General Debate 
Parker David: General Debate 
[Volume:621;Page:16327] 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 The speaker before last Bill English pointed to the integrity of Dr Don Brash. It is interesting that the last leader of the National Party set up the former leader in that way. Let us recall that just a matter of 2 years’ ago Dr Don Brash was taking a salary from the Government of close to half a million dollars per annum whilst he was planning to move across to the National Party as soon as he secured a promise of a good place on the list. The cost to taxpayers of that duplicitous period in his career was— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member will withdraw that remark and apologise. 
DAVID PARKER 
: I withdraw and apologise. The cost to taxpayers— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. This member is making an allegation against Dr Brash that is completely unreasonable. I would ask how many schoolteachers for example there are in the Labour Party who collected salaries up to the time when they were required to file writs prior to the last election or any other election for that matter. How many others were senior civil servants? If the member wants a witch-hunt then we are quite happy to go down that line. The reality is that Parliament at the moment is considering the issues that surround John Tamihere. It is not Parliament that has stood him down; it is the Government. The issues that surround him do not involve taxpayers’ money; they involve trust funds held for some of the poorest New Zealanders being paid out to Mr Tamihere supposedly so that he can come to Parliament and do greater things for them. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member is covering debating material. There have been a lot of attacks on members this afternoon but I remind members they cannot impute dishonesty or corruption. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. There is a matter I would like you to rule on. You ruled quite properly in my opinion that Mr Parker should withdraw and apologise. Following that there was a speech that did not appear to be related to any Standing Order. I am not sure whether it was a point of order. Can we have a ruling from you as to whether that irrelevant contribution which was not on a point of order counts as a National Party speech? 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I reminded the member that what he was saying was a debating issue. However he did raise the matter of attacks on members—that was covered. I had ruled on what the member said so there was actually no point of order. 
DAVID PARKER 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Can I have an assurance that this last 2-minute interruption will not come off my time? 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes. 
DAVID PARKER 
: The cost to the taxpayer was $30000 to $40000 per month. I move to Mr Brownlee. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You cannot expect the House to accept that your having ruled that it is inappropriate for a speaker to speak in derogatory terms about a member or an action of a member that speaker then simply stands up and resumes his speech. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not what I ruled at all. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: My understanding is that your ruling was to do with the word “duplicitous” which is clearly something that has been ruled out in the past. The fact that a current member of Parliament drew a salary in the manner referred to is a matter of record just like it is a matter of record if people want to dig into it that some members of the Labour Party lost 3 months’ pay when they became members of Parliament. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The matter is a debating matter. 
DAVID PARKER 
: On the subject of debate on the relative integrity of front-benchers that member was involved in an assault incident and the person who sits next to him was convicted of contempt of court. The point I would like to make is that we should view the seriousness or otherwise of these incidents based on the evidence. 
A recent occurrence that has been reported back to this Parliament by a select committee indicates why we should wait for the evidence. It relates to the GE corn inquiry. The allegations were based on the book  
Seeds of Distrust: The Story of a GE Cover-up 
. The back pages accuse the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government of having orchestrated a cover-up. The report has now come back. The unanimous conclusions of the committee include and I quote from the report: “We have seen no evidence that Ministers took the scientific decision about whether or not the crop was contaminated with genetically modified seed.” Another unanimous conclusion states: “We have found no evidence in the papers nor in the testimony given by officials and Ministers that the officials were acting under ministerial instruction when they took the decisions they did.” The underlying assertion of ministerial interference was not made out. It is important to wait for the evidence because when the evidence is properly and justly considered sometimes the allegations are not made out. 
In terms of the GE corn inquiry one of the other assertions was that it was known by the Government and that it was proven that the crop was genetically modified. Another unanimous conclusion is that even with the benefit of hindsight it is not proven that it was a GE crop. What is the very narrow criticism compared with the original criticism? Well notwithstanding that the original Crop and Food Research tests that caused the scare were invalid—and there is unanimity that those tests were invalid and should have been disregarded—notwithstanding that 10 other tests were clear and showed negative test results and notwithstanding that by then over 30000 seeds had been tested and cleared compared with the 3200 that are required to be tested now an accusation has been made that a tolerance level was applied by the officials at the time and that they did so in breach of the law. 
Well that is one view of the evidence that has been promoted by National and Green members but it is notable that the independent expert that the committee employed thought otherwise. Dr Nick Smith asked Dr Taylor a scientist with international expertise in biosecurity matters an independent expert whether he believed that a tolerance level had been applied: “Dr Taylor replied that his opinion of the evidence was that Richard Ivess took the decision and that he tolerated the risk inherent in the sampling regime but did not make his decision based on tolerating a level of detected GM contamination.” What was the National Party and Green response to that? They tried to suppress it from the record. The minutes of the committee meeting show exactly that. They were not content to disagree with that finding which would have been their right; they sought to suppress it from the record. That was quite inappropriate. The minutes of the meeting show that course. 
The chair of the meeting then asked Dr Taylor—and I quote from the minutes—whether the record of what Dr Taylor had said was fair and whether he wished to add any words to the motion. Dr Taylor said that the content of it was reasonable as it stood. It was then put forward for inclusion in the minutes and what did the National and Green members do? They voted against it because it did not suit their prejudice.