English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:611;Page:8666] 
8.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her statement about the police inquiry into “paintergate” that “I shall have a good deal more to say about that [the inquiry] when they’ve finished their sort of elephant act in the strawberry patch.”; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 No I thought better of it. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why did she attack the Opposition for raising questions about the police when she herself in the course of the “paintergate” inquiry refused to be interviewed by the police refused to answer 25 written questions put to her by the police and threatened to sue the police if they did not get on and do the investigation in the way she wanted? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: This matter was handled by my lawyers at all times. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect that is not and cannot be an acceptable answer. She is being asked as the Prime Minister what the position was. For her to get up and say that the matter has been handled by her lawyers at all times when they are subject to her instructions and are at all times in a client-lawyer or client-solicitor relationship and then sit down excusing herself as somebody commanded by her lawyers may be typical but is not acceptable. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister said she was acting on legal advice. She addressed the question in that way. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. She did not say that she was acting on legal advice but there is a more important point. We now have a situation in which the Prime Minister is trying to introduce another standard into the House whereby she will not have to answer questions if she has taken legal advice on the matter. In any situation where she has taken legal advice she can just get up and say: “Well ask my lawyers.” so she does not have to answer the question. I put the question directly to her about her actions—not about the legal advice or the police but to her about her actions. So the idea that we have to accept her answer that we should just ask the lawyers is unacceptable to the House. If that had to be the case then we would have to ask for the lawyers to come in so that we could ask them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I would like the Prime Minister to clarify that answer a little. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I acted on legal advice. The police after a full investigation determined not to take the matter any further and I agreed that that was where it should end. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Are the House the country and the nation’s lawyers to take it that the police in New Zealand are now being directed by a prime ministerial press statement as to whom they should prosecute and whom they should not prosecute and what in principle is the difference between the Helen Clark regime in New Zealand and that of the police State of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member most certainly should not infer that. I should say that when specifically asked on Monday of last week whether I thought the police should prosecute in the case of Mr Ardern I said I would make no comment whatsoever about what the police should do. I have my own views. I do not intend to air them. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister comment on the example she thinks is given when she behaves in the way I have outlined in the context of “paintergate” when she effectively condoned a dishonesty offence in her own department and when she refused to take action against the members of the Labour research unit who certainly broke the rules around Parliament in the last few days by putting an obscenity on the door of Shane Ardern’s office? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Those researchers have apologised to Mr Ardern as they should. I should say that such episodes are not unique. A National Party researcher once sent out faxes proclaiming the death of Michael Laws and ended up in court and his accomplice is now in the office of the Leader of the Opposition.