Parker David; Rurawhe AdrianPRIVILEGEConsideration of Report of Privileges Committee—Time Taken to Correct a Misleading StatementHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I move That the report of the Privileges Committee concerning the time taken by the Minister of Education to correct a misleading statement to the House be noted. Thank you Mr Speaker. May I begin by making a more general reference. I've been in this House now for 20 years and in the period prior to your assuming the Chair I've been Privileges Committee chair for quite a while—and I served on the prior committees for a while. In my opinion there have been too few references to the Privileges Committee so I'm pleased that you as Speaker are taking your responsibilities seriously to make sure that the Standing Orders are adhered to. That doesn't mean to say that all references to the Privileges Committee are of the same standing and I'm not denying the seriousness of this reference but I do think it's good that the reputation of this Parliament is maintained. And one of the ways that we maintain the reputation of this Parliament and the confidence of people in this Parliament is by upholding the Standing Orders.In respect of the reference to the committee on 30 May the Speaker said that a matter of privilege had been raised by him alleging that the Hon Jan Tinetti deliberately misled the House by failing to correct a misleading statement at the earliest opportunity." The Speaker noted that "In a supplementary question on 22 February 2023 the Minister was asked to categorically state that she had played no part in the delay of release of school attendance information. The Minister replied that she already had and that it was a decision for the Ministry of Education. The Minister corrected this answer on 2 May stating 'I subsequently became aware that my office did have input into the timing of the release of the data through email correspondence with officials at the Ministry of Education.'" Returning to the Speaker's reference: "The Minister has stated that she was informed by her staff after question time on 22 February of her staff's correspondence with the Ministry on the release of data. She also stated that she did not know her answer needed to be corrected until she received a letter from [the Speaker] on 1 May after which she corrected it." The Speaker has said "It is an important principle that the House can trust the accuracy of ministerial replies to parliamentary questions. While mistakes are sometimes made which can result in the House receiving an answer containing a misleading statement it is vitally important that as soon as this is discovered the Minister returns to the House to correct their answer at the earliest opportunity" and accordingly the Speaker said "I have considered the matter raised and considered its degree of importance" and then said it was for the Privileges Committee to determine whether delaying correcting the incorrect statement amounted to a contempt and referred it to the select committee. The select committee then heard evidence from the Minister; that evidence was in the main heard in public session. All of the oral evidence from the Hon Jan Tinetti was heard as all privileges complaints are in open session and the media were in attendance. We heard from the Minister for an hour. There were follow-up questions that were put by the committee at the request of members of the committee to clarify some of the answers that had been given by the Hon Jan Tinetti. One of those issues that the committee was interested to inquire further into was whether in fact she was rushed after question time—when she had given her incorrect answer and when she first learned after returning to her office that her office had been engaged with the Ministry as to the date for the release of the information. What happened on the day was that at the end of question time the Minister was on duty and after her period of duty she returned to her office and she spoke with two staff briefly. She was informed that her answer was incorrect and that her office had been involved. One of the pieces of advice she had from a staff member was that that meant she had an answer that she needed to correct and then the other person thought that because she thought the answer was correct when she gave it she didn't need to correct the answer because it wasn't misleading; because it was correct—as she believed the matters to be when she gave it. There was then a period of delay when the Minister did nothing to update the House as to her learning that her answer had been incorrect. She then travelled overseas for a period.There was a letter in respect of an earlier complaint by a member to the Speaker where the Speaker wrote to the Minister and said "Are you sure you don't need to correct this?" And the Minister replied "No I stand by my statement at the time." And again the Minister in her evidence to us defended that statement on the basis that she said that her understanding was that because she believed her answer to be correct at the time she gave it it wasn't misleading because that's what she believed to be the truth when she gave it. Unfortunately for the Minister that's actually not a correct application of the Standing Orders because it's not whether we believe the information to be correct it's actually whether it was and as soon as the Minister learned that the information was incorrect the Minister should have immediately at the first opportunity returned to the House and made that correction. The next decision that we had to take as a committee—having essentially found those facts as I have summarised them I hope fairly—was "How serious is this and is it serious enough to amount to a contempt?" As you'll see the report of the committee was unanimous: we are quite critical of the Minister; we have found her actions to have been negligent. The Minister could have sought advice from the Clerk of the House from senior colleagues—in a number of ways she could have sought further information to clarify her position—which in the view of the committee as soon as she had that information when she returned to her office at least gave her pause for thought to actually take an active step to resolve the issue. Instead the Minister didn't and as a consequence of that the committee unanimously found that the Minister—I think we used the word "should"—should be criticised and be subject to the criticism of the House for that error. Whilst by that time the Minister had corrected her answer in the House she hadn't apologised to the House.Where the committee determined the issue as to whether the behaviour of the member was a contempt—as opposed to something that wasn't a contempt but still worthy of criticism from my perspective; and other members can speak for themselves—that essentially turns upon whether this was deliberate or not. It was sloppy it was wrong but it wasn't deliberate. Upon that basis looking at precedents from earlier Privileges Committees where earlier instances of the House being misled had been considered by Privileges Committees the committee in the end determined that it wasn't necessary to find the Hon Jan Tinetti in contempt of the House but it was appropriate that she apologises to the House which she has since done. Can I thank the members of the committee for the work that they did. I thought that we handled the issue appropriately. I think it is a salutary lesson to Ministers—and to members generally—that the Standing Orders need to be adhered to if this place is to work properly and amongst the most important of those functions is the holding of the Government to account; the Government that spends money and has authority on behalf of the people to do very serious things. One of the most important ways in which Governments are held to account is through question time and therefore when a question is wrong and misleads the House it ought to be corrected at the earliest possible opportunity.SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."