Brownlee Gerry: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
Brownlee Gerry: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
[Volume:614;Page:10562] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The National Party will not be supporting the original motion. Of course we will support the amendment because that makes it sensible. We will not support the original motion because although National established special select committees in the past there was a very clear reason for doing so. That reason was to relieve the workload on subject committees or to consider legislation that did not itself specifically fit a particular select committee. When National was in Government we were most industrious and all of our select committees had lots of work to do all the time. At the moment the minority Labour Government has very little work in front of the select committees so there are lots of opportunities for other committees to pick up these particular types of bills. 
Everyone knows that the bills we know of so far that are to go to this select committee are the foreshore and seabed legislation and the Maori fisheries allocation legislation. I cannot think of any justification for the Maori fisheries allocation bill not to go to the Maori Affairs Committee. Those who are listening to this debate may wonder about the vested interest aspect of doing that. In 1989 a Labour Government passed legislation that allocated the fisheries or part of the fisheries in this country to Maori. In 1992 there was the Sealord settlement. What we are seeing with regard to this current bill is an agreement for Maori to allocate the fisheries among themselves. So there is no vested interest other than perhaps that Maori do not trust the chairman Mahara Okeroa the member for Te Tai Tonga on the basis that Ngai Tahu has quite an interest in getting a sizeable chunk of the fishery. Perhaps that is so but there can be no other reason for that bill not to go to the Maori Affairs Committee. 
Then there is the issue of the foreshore and seabed. Why does that legislation not go to the Primary Production Committee? We know that matter will be tied into the aquaculture legislation that the Government has coming up later in the year so it would be quite reasonable for that committee to look at that legislation. That committee could have been extended so that all parties in the House were represented on it if they chose to be. In any event any member can attend any select committee any time that a committee sits. So the membership of that committee cannot be the reason that the legislation is not to go to that committee. 
We can then look at what the Government is planning by way of personnel on this proposed committee. Apparently the chairman will be Russell Fairbrother. That opens up all sorts of other possibilities. Russell Fairbrother is a very talented lawyer; there is no question about that. Thousands of criminals in this country are going about their daily lives free as birds thanks to Russell Fairbrother. He is to chair this committee and I think that is because he is one of only two members in the Labour Party caucus who do not get a salary over and above that of a back-bencher. But that situation is to be rectified by the creation of a special select committee so that Russell Fairbrother can get the additional salary. 
Everyone knows that the lunchtime conversation for the last 6 months has been about how Russell Fairbrother thinks that he may not come back to Parliament—how he may give up Parliament how he is sick of Parliament and how he is being wasted. We see him at the back of the House asking such incisive questions of the Minister as “Have you seen any reports on X Y and Z?”. Of course the Minister says “That is a good question.” so Russell Fairbrother can sit down and feel that he has done a great day’s work. Obviously the man has become frustrated and decided that perhaps he will not stay in Parliament. If he does not that would open up the Napier seat to the onslaught of the right-of-centre parties which inevitably would mean a change in the political ownership of that seat. So a panicked Helen Clark has asked Michael Cullen whether the Government can create a job for Russell Fairbrother. This evening we are seeing the House having to set up a special select committee and underlying all that is perhaps a “retain the Napier seat” select committee. 
I notice also that this select committee will consider and report to Parliament on “such fisheries”—and here it is—“and other sea-related legislation”. I have perused the very light Order Paper and I could not see many sea-related pieces of legislation. When I racked my brains about the big issues of the day it came to me that the biggest issue of the day for the current Government is the debacle over Auckland transport. Then like a flash I suddenly realised that this will be the committee that will hear the eastern motorway empowering bill which will of course override the Resource Management Act and ride roughshod all over the people in Helen Clark’s electorate who are not very keen on the eastern corridor going through. That will all be done on the basis that since that motorway is going across a seaway naturally it is a sea-related piece of legislation. So the terms of reference for the committee are well understood and well considered. 
The problem with the sorts of special select committees that are set up on this basis is that their terms of reference are completely open. The previous National Government never set up a select committee with such wide terms of reference as this committee has. It is simply not appropriate to do so. Parliament already has 12 standing select committees plus several others that could do much of this work. It can be asked whether the fisheries allocation or the foreshore and seabed issue contains any aspect of compensation—and those issues may do so. Why then would that legislation not be sent to the Finance and Expenditure Committee? We know from our members on that committee that it meets about every second week— 
John Key 
: On a Wednesday. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: It meets every second Wednesday and it never sits past 11 a.m. Essentially the chairman comes in pours his coffee eats his chocolate biscuits dispatches the menial business of the committee—and off the members go. The reason is that not much is being referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee at present. So why would the Government not send the legislation to that committee? Well the problem is that the chairman is an obscure MP from the South Island who will remain nameless. 
But essentially this motion comes back to the issue of trust. We are seeing the Government start to lose trust in its own members. It is losing trust in the Maori Affairs Committee losing trust in the Primary Production Committee losing trust in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and losing faith that it can hold a seat like Napier without creating a new occupation—or a new salary band—for the chairman of this proposed special select committee Russell Fairbrother. When one starts to stack up losses like that one realises there is only one more loss to come—and 2005 cannot come soon enough for us.