Hodgson Pete: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — First Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2678] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I rise to speak in favour of the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill which is still in the name of my Labour colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. The bill will lead to a future where private investigators and private security personnel can know that they are part of a better-regulated occupation. It will be an occupation for which one must have a licence which itself will have value. Indeed not having a licence will be costly. It will be an occupation that may develop a code of ethics which is something the Associate Minister of Justice did not mention. It will be an occupation whereby licensed persons might have a level of training and whereby the bad guys face a renewed array of increased sanctions and penalties. 
This bill is clean-up legislation. It modernises earlier legislation that is now 35 years old and it will allow occupations that are covered to be more valued by society because people will know that those occupations are closely monitored. That is something that all good private investigators and all good security guards should welcome. 
I have done a bit of private investigation myself over the years though not ever as a business; only ever in the public interest. Indeed in recent weeks I have by coincidence investigated the Minister. It has been one of the most bizarre rollicking often troubling and sometimes hilarious experiences. As is often the case in private investigations a lot of information is drawn from publicly available sources as it was in this case. One Monday only a couple of months ago the  
Dominion Post  
featured a story about the Minister taking himself off to India in a private capacity— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I cannot see what this has to do with the bill. I ask you to bring back the speaker to the substance of the bill. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We are in a first reading debate. I have not yet heard what the member is saying other than a reference to a Monday. If it proceeds past that then I will intervene. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It certainly will proceed past the Monday for indeed the story I intend to tell—and to draw parallels with the legislation with—goes on for weeks. I will make it quite a short story though. On Monday the  
Dominion Post  
featured a story about the Minister taking himself off to India in a private capacity— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He has now proceeded beyond that point. You said you would intervene; I request that you do so. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes. I want the member to come back to the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. I want the member to confine his comments to the substance of the bill. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Certainly Mr Deputy Speaker. 
I turn the attention of the House to clause 96(b) which gives us some insight into the importance of not giving false information “knowing that it is false or being reckless as to whether it is false.” which is the sort of thing that might arise with the story that has occurred as a result of my own private investigations into the Minister. 
The Minister took himself off to India in a private capacity in part to line up some student aviation pilots from India to train at the Southern Institute of Technology— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This member is completely ignoring your ruling and basically flying in the face of the instruction you have just given. Are you going to allow it to continue? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am interested to hear what the member has to say. He is referring to a private investigation. This bill is about private investigation. I will intervene if I find the discussion to be outside the scope of the bill. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Furthermore the  
Dominion Post  
pointed out that the Minister was at that time a substantial shareholder in a company that wanted to start a joint venture with the same Southern Institute of Technology for the purpose of that training. What was not in the public arena that morning but became available to the public that afternoon was that he had not told the Prime Minister about it. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to come back to the substance of the bill. The substance of the bill is about private security personnel and private investigators. That is what the substance of the bill is about and I ask the member to confine his comments to those points. That is my ruling. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Certainly Mr Deputy Speaker. 
I draw the attention of the House to clause 39(1)(a) which states that a person who is licensed under this legislation might be “a private investigator employee:” and to clause 39(1)(b) which states that such a person might be “a security technician employee:”—and so it goes through to clause 39(1)(g). The point of those provisions is to ensure that a person is one thing and not another. Unfortunately the Minister on his trip to India went as a private individual but when he got there he said he was a Minister. He went as a private individual— 
Hon Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am going to rule. I ask the member—this is the third time I have asked—to concentrate on what the bill is about. It is about private investigations and private security matters. I ask the member to confine his comments to them. That is the third time I have asked. The member will please confine his comments to the substance of this bill. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: On each occasion I refer back to the substance of the bill and explain by way of an example involving the Minister why legislation of this nature is of consequence. 
Let me do it again: it is not appropriate according to clause 77(e) to be involved in certain activities that might be regarded as misconduct. It is not appropriate under this legislation looking at clause 77(h) to make a “false statement”. My private investigations found that the Minister said he went to India as a private individual but under close examination it turned out that he had used a ministerial passport. So we know that the Minister was acting contrary to the  
Cabinet Manual 
 because he went without declaring he had a personal interest— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is all very cute and clever but once again your ruling is being completely ignored. Is there no sanction against this sort of behaviour or does it just go on? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you for the point of order. The points that the member is making are in the public arena. They have been mentioned and debated in this Chamber before. The member however must relate them back to the substance of the bill. This bill is the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. That topic is the nature of the bill. That is what we are debating in the first reading. The member must refer back to that topic. That is the substance of this bill. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I refer to clause 77(h) which states that it is grounds for possible deregistration to give a false statement. 
I will give an example of what a false statement is. The Minister when he arrived at question time—duly “bollocked” by his Prime Minister who by the way said parenthetically that the Minister was “stupid”—said he was going to divest himself of all his Indian-linked business interests immediately. He said that on Monday. On Tuesday he said to a member of the press gallery that he had already divested himself of all of his personal interests that were India-linked yet a wee piece of private investigation showed this to be a false statement. Indeed by Thursday not only had he not divested himself of one of the companies— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member has had 6 minutes of his 10-minute speech. Although he could mention and he has mentioned points that are in the public arena I will say for the last time that he must draw back to the substance of this debate. The subject is quite clear. That is what we need to be debating and the member has 4 minutes remaining. If he does not confine his comments to the nature of the bill I will be terminating the member’s speech. 
Hon Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am a bit reluctant to intervene in all of this as I have been in the House for only 5 or 6 minutes. In that time you have been required to rule on the content of a very senior member’s contribution to the House on at least six occasions. The matter in my view is no longer one of interpretation of the member’s comments. The matter surely now becomes one of the fact that the member is refusing to listen to or follow direction from the Speaker. That is a far more serious issue. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for his comments. I have given a very clear indication to the member what my expectations are. If he does not confine his comments to the bill then I will terminate his speech. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It must be in order for Mr Hodgson to speak about whether his own activities as a private investigator would be caught by this legislation. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I call the Hon Pete Hodgson if he wishes to continue. He has 4 minutes remaining. I warn the member for the last time to confine his comments to the substance of this bill; otherwise I will terminate his speech. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Let me refer the House— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Now he’s a member of Parliament and also claiming to be a private investigator. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
:—and the “orange roughy” and you Mr Deputy Speaker to clause— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: A member is known by his or her name. To refer to that member by a slang name is not appropriate. I ask the member to apologise. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I happily apologise. 
Let me refer the House to clause 106 (1)(l). That is a regulation-making law allowing for a code of ethics to be promulgated under this legislation. That regulation-making power enables a process by which this occupation or that occupation can develop a code of ethics that then becomes binding on that particular occupation. It is not an unusual regulation-making clause. In fact codes of conduct or codes of ethics are not unusual codes themselves. Many professions have them—indeed Ministers of the Crown have them. The code of ethics by which Ministers of the Crown find themselves bound is not a legal document so much as it is one that is agreed by a process and adopted by convention. It is called the  
Cabinet Manual 
. 
The Minister who introduced this legislation has broken the  
Cabinet Manual 
. That is not my assertion; it is the assertion of his boss—the Prime Minister of the land. It is of interest to me that the Minister would put forward legislation that has a regulation-making power within it to enable a code of conduct to be progressed but that he is not able to follow the code of conduct in recent months himself—not arguably but provably. So the Minister should give some explanation as to why he thinks a code of conduct is terribly important for private investigators but is something that he does not feel so obliged to pay attention to when it applies to him. 
That is the point of my contribution. We have a series of regulation-making powers and a series of changes around licensing. We have a series of assertions about misconduct including the importance of false statements the importance of misleading conduct and the importance of not giving false information knowing that it is false or being reckless as to whether it is false. The Minister who delivered this legislation to the House has managed to break about half a dozen clauses in the legislation that he wants us to swallow. Well I do swallow it. I think it is good legislation; I want to see it passed. I want to see it passed within a period of time that is far shorter than the 11 months that he has set for the select committee to look at it. But I do wonder at the idea of putting up a Minister who has himself broken both the spirit and the word of what is proposed in this legislation in his own life in recent weeks. I wonder whether that reflects the fact that the Minister has been told—no doubt by other people in his caucus—that he has to take his cue from the select committee process and give it 11 months to consider the bill because he does not have any more pulling power than that understandably.