Tolley Anne: Member Vacancy — Epsom Electoral District—Hon John BanksText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Member Vacancy — Epsom Electoral District—Hon John Banks[Sitting date: 18 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18645. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police):I stand in this House to support the motion in front of us today—which we might have all forgotten after that tirade—that we do not have a by-election in the Epsom electorate. Following the court judgment and of course the resignation of the Hon John Banks from this House that makes eminent sense because if the normal processes were followed we could expect to see a by-election held in Epsom probably in early August some time around 2 or 3 August.I believe there are three good reasons why we should not be doing that. First of all that by-election would have to be held on the old boundaries. As we all know the boundaries have changed and that would be very confusing to the electors. Secondly it would be less than 2 months out from a general election and of course the House would have risen so you would be electing someone to come when there was nowhere to go and it would all be a bit outrageous. Most important of all it is an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money—almost a million dollars to run a by-election. In fact I think Christchurch East cost about $870000. So the motion in front of us today is the right one and I am sure that this House will have the sense to vote for it.I would like to say that I want to recognise the contribution by the Hon John Banks. He gave almost four decades of service both in local government and in Parliament and of course he was the Minister of Police. I have a special place for him because he had been the Minister of Police for only about a month when we had the Aramoana massacre. Of course people remember that that was by a 33-year-old unemployed man who shot and killed 13 people in the very small township of Aramoana. The first police respondent on the scene who was subsequently shot was of course Sergeant Stewart Guthrie. That was a tragedy for the police force for New Zealand and for that small township of course which would take many many years to recover. I think everyone in this House can appreciate the difficulty of being a Minister at a terrible time like that.I just want to make the point that somebody said earlier that the Hon John Banks had to resign. Of course he did not have to. He could have stayed here right until Parliament rose but he actually chose to do the right thing. He did the honourable thing by resigning and I think that that deserves some recognition. He was a good man and he did good for a lot of people and that needs to be remembered. Our Prime Minister John Key said I think today actually that politics is all about trust. Well Banksie realised that he had lost that trust and he went.There are others in this House who need to take a lesson from him. It is very easy to stand and be all holier than thou but actually you have got to be aware of history. So speaking of trust—and I will come back to David Cunliffe in a minute because at the moment trust and David Cunliffe are interposed and intertwined in people’s minds. I want to talk about another sort of trust. I want to talk about the trust we must have as legislators in our very excellent police here in New Zealand and our very excellent justice system. We are envied by countries around the world for both our police service and our justice system. This National Government this John Key - led Government trusts the police to use their independence wisely. We trust them to do that and to make their decisions independently from any politics and any politicians. We trust them to do that. The police deal with around 140000 prosecution cases every year—140000. So this Government trusts that they have expert advice whether it is in-house or whether they seek that from other places—legal advisers who will give them good advice on cases that might be simple or that might be sensitive or indeed complex cases.Actually the Opposition over there does not have that trust. Andrew Little was very quick off the mark and he publicly called for an independent high-powered inquiry into not just this case but the way that politically charged cases are handled.Hon Members: There is one.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Yes there is. Why did Andrew Little not just say “The Independent Police Conduct Authority should have a look at this and I am going to refer the case to them.” He could have said that but he did not. He said “We want an independent high-powered inquiry into politically charged cases.” You have to ask whether that would then have included David Cunliffe’s illegal tweet on the by-election day in Christchurch. Should that have been investigated by an independent investigator? Would it include perhaps the Labour Party’s illegal use of taxpayers’ money on electioneering with its pledge card? David Parker talked in this House earlier about the abuse of the Electoral Act. That was the major abuse so should there be a high-powered independent inquiry into those sorts of breaches? Would it also include events leading up to the resignation of the Labour MP Darren Hughes? Should that have gone to an independent high-powered inquiry?You tread very carefully when you start making statements about what the police should do and what the police should not do and who should be looking over their shoulders because we have good systems and this Government respects them. It is very clear that the people sitting on those Opposition benches do not because of the very—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but we have members who do not have the floor interjecting on each other which is out of order.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: My point is that members on that side of the House have made very serious allegations about police behaviour and they need to be very careful because—I think someone has already said it in this House—people who throw stones should not be standing in glass houses. Andrew Little went on to say that those charged with upholding the integrity of the electoral system need to be willing to account where necessary and to prove that they were independent of Ministers but clearly that is not needed when it concerns Labour MPs.Speaking again of trust Jacinda Ardern then got involved. She not only questioned the processes used by police; she questioned their decision making and the decisions they had reached. She worked with the police union trying to link police decisions with funding. Of course the police’s response to that was “We can however say that suggestions that resourcing issues meant police did not seek a Crown Law opinion are absolute nonsense.” It is the police saying that not me: “absolute nonsense”. It did not stop her; she went on. But I have to say why would the police trust either of those two MPs or in fact David Parker?Really for the whole Labour Opposition sitting across the House here to interfere with the police independent prosecutorial role—because its members have already suggested that the police got it wrong that they know better than the police and therefore we need an independent high-level investigation into any of those politically charged events. Just because an MP is being investigated or a politician is being investigated it does not mean that other politicians should get involved in the process. This Government believes in the police. They have the duty of care and they have to take the responsibility.If politics is all about trust and I think that was a very very good saying from the Prime Minister this morning then today’s revelations show that really we cannot trust—nobody can trust—this Labour Opposition. David Cunliffe either told a lie or did not actually care enough about a constituent. This was a constituent who came to him for help. It is unbelievable to me that David Cunliffe who has been in Parliament since 1999 does not have a record in his office of the constituents for whom he advocates. We know he advocates because Sue Moroney earlier on talked about how he had advocated—Hon Member: Have you got all your records going back 15 years?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: You can dance on the head of a pin but I have heard members in this House accuse various people of advocating on behalf of constituents. In fact a Minister lost his job when all he did was write a letter. That quite clearly was not advocating but he fell on his sword because he knew he had lost trust. So be careful again about—