Franks Stephen: Third Readings 
Franks Stephen: Third Readings 
[Volume:607;Page:4834] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 The Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) had thorough debate during the Committee stage in a way I have not seen on a 3-page bill in the time I have been here. I believe that I correctly summarise the debate by saying that ACT suggested that there was something a little unusual about the chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal having the power to remove members of panels part way through a hearing on grounds that were at his or her discretion and which might turn on any circumstance that he or she thought was relevant because none was defined. Then all around this Chamber members who had apparently sat on the Maori Affairs Committee were saying: “No that’s not what it says.” After a time it moved. United Future members were saying: “No it doesn’t say that because it doesn’t apply to removal; it only allows the appointment of extras.”—a bizarre interpretation if ever I have heard one. Other members started to have doubts and eventually the Leader of the House Dr Michael Cullen proposed an amendment that would take out what are probably redundant words about the opinion of the chairperson of the tribunal and leave the provision otherwise as it stood. 
The net effect is that of all the judicial bodies in New Zealand I am aware of this would be the only one where a person who had been sitting on that panel could be removed by the chairperson of the panel after perhaps 6 8 or 10 years of familiarity because that chairperson had decided that it was not suitable for that person to render the decision. That is a disgrace to this House to the tribunal and to Maoridom. It is the bigotry of low expectations. Only in relation to Maori would this House be providing that people on an adjudicatory body fulfilling judicial functions could be removed by the chairperson of the panel without any proof of misconduct without any proof of unsuitability indeed without any proof of anything other than the undesirability in the chairperson’s eyes of the decision that was about to be released. 
It is a deep convention in almost every rule-of-law country that judicial independence is protected by security of tenure. In most judicial areas security of tenure means that the pressure to suck up to curry favour is removed by having no provision for reappointment. This tribunal does not have that right. Members do come up for reappointment so there is already potential for Government pressure to procure tribunal decisions that the Government wants. Of course that is not enough. Not only do we have the so-called streamlining that New Zealand First talked about—the streamlining of the tribunal by providing for members to be replaced in a hearing which one would expect if they became sick their family pressures got on top of them or there was something else—but we now also have a position whereby streamlining has turned into sacking. That makes the tribunal the chairperson’s creature. It is a contemptible tribunal. It is an imputation on the mana of every member on it that amongst all the adjudicatory bodies they are the only people who can be sacked halfway through. It is the only body about which I have ever heard the National Party and New Zealand First—both proponents of one law for all—say that that does not apply when it comes to a tribunal that is to adjudicate on Maori claims. When Maori claims are being heard we do not have to have impartial tribunals we do not have to avoid pressure from the Government we can have anyone who is appointed—[ 
Interruption 
]. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would appreciate— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry; I was diverted. I know what the member was going to say. I will now have silence. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The excuse used by United Future for voting for this legislation was that it wanted to rush it through after telling us that the courts would not be able to understand it. Parliament should be embarrassed about that. The only apparent reason is that there is some urgency to finish early. In the course of this debate the Leader of the House who is also the Minister of Finance told us that this urgency would finish early. He said business would be finished well before the time allotted. 
Murray Smith 
: No that is untrue. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Mr Smith you are not the Minister of Finance. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Neither am I. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I was addressing Mr Smith Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can address only the Speaker. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Dr Cullen told this House that we were idiots in effect to be continuing to debate this provision when we could get home early. He said that we should not put it aside in the Committee stage and come back to it with a proper solution because that might mean taking more time of the House and we were going to finish urgency well before the planned time. Apparently United Future thinks that is so urgent that it has to vote for this bill even though it thinks it is damaging and against principle. Dr Cullen admitted that the purpose of this provision was to allow the sacking of members who did not want to go. He could not allow for consent because they might not want to go. If they are not willing and able to recognise a conflict—which was his reason for saying that they needed to be removed—what are they doing on that tribunal? 
There is a procedure in the second schedule to remove members who are unsuitable. It involves the Governor-General as it should to protect the independence of the tribunal and here we had a senior Minister of the Crown saying that they might not consent. We had the National Party and New Zealand First going along with it and only United Future the Greens and ACT saying that we should hang on a minute because there was some deep constitutional issue some question of individuals. The Greens voted for those amendments. 
This provision confirms that the Waitangi Tribunal is not intended to be impartial—it can be a cabal of politically correct inventors of history. The “holocaust” was not just a flash in the pan; “holocaust” hyperbole is what this Government wants the chairperson of the tribunal to be able to perpetuate. This provision is a deliberate attack on the mana of each member of that tribunal. It means that when those members deliver a decision in future they may well be suspected of having buckled to pressure—that if they did not deliver what the chairperson wanted they could get the boot. That is what this Government the National Party and New Zealand First have done to the Waitangi Tribunal. In future if any of us think that a tribunal decision is wrong or a little puzzling we can say that it was because its members were not impartial—that they were biased because they were afraid of losing their positions. That is exactly what this provision has done today. 
We have an example. Dr Michael Bassett—competent expert if anyone was a Minister of the Government that produced the Waitangi Tribunal with a deep understanding of the system—has been subject to a court application to remove him from a panel and he was pressured to go from within that panel. What we have now is a bill that not only legitimises that practice but makes it systematic. In future that can be done discreetly. Instead of having only three appointments to a panel in 9 or 11 years any of those members can go on any panel until the chairperson of the tribunal decides that they are unwelcome or that the line they are taking is not the official line and then removes them. That is not only second rate; it is a kangaroo court.