Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This is a really serious topic and a really serious debate. It is actually quite flabbergasting to members on this side of the House who have watched the events of the last month or so since the news about Michael Wood's shares have become public because I think like many members of the public and I suspect—without being too political—like backbench members of the Government I think we've all just been sitting back and saying How did this happen? How did it get to this point?" It is bewildering.Now look people have their own views about Michael Wood. Certainly I'm critical of various elements of his discharge of the transport portfolio but he I think we'd all agree is a conscientious guy and almost pious in his deliberations sometimes. He was about the last person one would have thought would find himself in this situation. But it is as the previous speaker the Minister for Infrastructure said a really serious matter.I think there are three things that have struck us on this side of the House. The first is that there's clearly been a breach of the Cabinet Manual and as the Minister who just sat down said we've had that Cabinet Manual for a long time now. The provisions are well understood and the provisions around the conflicts of interest are well understood. You have to declare them. It's not that you can't as a Minister have a conflict it's just that you have to declare them and then there has to be a plan put in place around how that is managed. Now I've never served as a Cabinet Minister but I've worked in Cabinet Ministers' offices and that's ordinarily taken really seriously. Many Ministers have conflicts around some things and it's just about how those are managed. In this case with Michael Wood it was not managed and in fact it couldn't have been managed because there was no proper declaration and that's the real point.What we've learnt over the last couple of weeks is that the Minister was told 12 times by the Cabinet Office to divest himself of shares in Auckland International Airport and Contact Energy. Those exhortations fell on deaf ears and as we now learnt yesterday there were 16 interactions between the Cabinet Office and his office. It's just baffling to be honest. To be honest I think there are legitimate questions to be asked about the conduct of the Cabinet Office here because it's not at all clear to us or the public exactly what happened between the office and Minister Wood's office and exactly how much information Prime Ministers—plural—learnt: former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and current Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Now again without being too political about it in past regimes or past Governments if a senior Minister or a relatively senior Minister had essentially ignored or actually misled potentially the Cabinet Office—in the last National Government that would have been escalated very quickly to the Prime Minister and action would have been taken. It's not clear that that's actually taken place in this instance. So there's a breach of the Cabinet Manual.The second point—and it's kind of been glossed over a little bit—is the breach of the Standing Orders or possible breach of the Standing Orders which is the pecuniary interests register. Now the registrar Sir Maarten Wevers is conducting an investigation into that but without prejudging that inquiry as that would be inappropriate at first glance it doesn't look good because all MPs in this Parliament—this is separate from the Cabinet Office issue—have to declare their interests. You know it's become widely known but I own 500 shares in Parrotdog Brewery which I participated in as a sign of good faith in their crowd-funding investments a few years ago and I've held on to.Simon Watts: How's that going?CHRIS BISHOP: Oh it's going well. It's a great product Mr Watts. I was going to encourage you to buy some but that would also be inappropriate but it's going well. But most members—well in fact all members are required to declare their interests and it's always interesting when the register comes out to see who's got free clothes and—Chris Penk: Warriors tickets.CHRIS BISHOP: —Warriors tickets in the case of Chris Penk and various forms of liqueur from Taiwan and China and all sorts of other places. So it's always very interesting to have a look at. Actually we sometimes find it a little bit comical and the media sort of immediately focus on the kind of minutiae of it all—you know who owns minor shares in craft breweries and things like that. But it's really important and in fact Parliament has recently recognised it's so important: we've put in place a register for local government as well because it's the same principle which is that people should know what your interests are. Those interests have not been declared so that's the second thing.The third thing is a slightly more esoteric point which is—and it pains me to say it a little bit—there has I think been a degree of contempt for Parliament and the Cabinet Office through this process and a degree of arrogance that I think people find bewildering. To return to where I started people are sitting back and saying "Where does this guy get off thinking that he can just kind of ignore the rules? Do they not apply to Michael Wood?" What is confusing and baffling is that we're yet to get really an adequate explanation. Even in his sort of resignation statement we saw this kind of backhanded way of essentially excusing himself by saying "Oh well I've been so focused on my work I haven't been able to kind of take care of life administration." like that's an excuse. It doesn't make any sense actually. So that's the sort of third thing that he is charged with and I think guilty of. It is the breach of the Cabinet Manual and the breach of the Standing Orders but most importantly it's a sort of basic contempt for the rules that apply to all of us in this Parliament.Why is this important? Because I strongly suspect that there'd be a few members of the public—in fact quite a few in the last few days and weeks—who have been saying "You know law and order is a real issue and the cost of living. I'm trying to pay the mortgage and you guys down in Wellington are focusing on whether or not some guy I don't really know has sold some shares in a company I didn't even know was listed on the stock exchange." Well fair enough and there's a degree to which that is true. The reason it matters is that probity in public life is important. We have the regime for a reason and it's to guard against Ministers and all of us in the Parliament making decisions in a way that would potentially enrich ourselves. I'm not I hasten to add accusing Michael Wood of that. But the rules are there for a reason to guard against that. That's why they're there and that's why they've been upheld by successive administrations and jurisdictions.So the rules are really important. They are part and parcel of our commitment to anti-corruption. We're all very proud in this Parliament of the ranking in the Transparency International annual indexes and we proclaim that we're clean and transparent and that New Zealand is a country governed by the rule of law and where people here and people in the ministry are not guided by personal enrichment or helping their family members. They're the guided by the public interest and by what's right which is improving New Zealand—and that's as it should be. I'm not as I say again accusing Michael Wood of that but the rules to guard against that are there and he unfortunately has breached those rules. So the rules are really important and the Prime Minister's done the right thing by removing him from the ministry because when there are rules that are there for a reason and they're really important rules and there's a breach of them there have to be consequences—there have to be. The right thing has happened here.Just finally in closing there is a suggestion that the rules need changing and yep I think there's some sensible things that the Prime Minister has advocated: things like at the start of Cabinet meetings just having a quick around-the-room around conflict declaration—actually that's no different to what would happen at any board meeting in New Zealand. That's sensible and that's fine. But the real issue here is not that the rules need changing; the issue is the rules have been broken. Actually the system works pretty well when declarations are made and it's not hard to comply. Yep life's complicated. Yep people have got family things and lots of people in this House have got more complicated financial arrangements than me and some others. But it's not actually that hard and it should be the first thing you do as a Minister and as a member of Parliament in the same way that the Speaker always encourages us to get our pecuniary interests register in on time. So do the rules need changing? Maybe but—most importantly—the rules need to be complied with. That's what hasn't happened here and so we welcome the resignation of Michael Wood. Thank you Mr Speaker."