Peters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee— Draft Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Standing Order 242 requires committees to inform any person of adverse findings and to give him or her the opportunity to make submissions. There is a booklet entitled  
Natural Justice Before Select Committees 
—a Clerk’s booklet—that makes it clear that draft reports are confidential and that was sent to Sir Graham Latimer. 
If members look at the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 article they will see that the article clearly points the reader in certain directions if one is inquiring as to the source of that article. Sir Graham Latimer was about to be severely criticised by the Maori Affairs Committee in respect of his and his colleagues’ handling of funds dedicated to Maori research in respect of forestry in Sir Graham’s capacity as chairman of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. If members read the article they will see firstly that it is pure damage control on the part of Sir Graham Latimer and secondly that it is intended to put the best possible spin on adverse facts that are about to become public. We have to ask ourselves who would be the possible source of the leak. For my money I would say that it is the person who is painted in a far better light than he is entitled to be. If members look at page 5 of the Privileges Committee’s report they will see that Sir Graham Latimer was interviewed via telephone and from memory he took approximately one half-hour—that is 30 minutes. He was called by the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 and told that there were certain matters that needed to be discussed and he took a full 30 minutes for that. 
I cannot disclose the report on the use of funding for Maori research in respect of forestry because the Maori Affairs Committee is yet to report. I cannot disclose that and it concerns me that the Minister of Finance notwithstanding that has acted on one of the recommendations in the report which is yet to be tabled in this House. 
I ask this question: can someone who has been the chairman of the New Zealand Maori Council since the early 1970s be ignorant of the requirements in respect of parliamentary procedure? I do not think so. How could a person be there as long as that attend so many parliamentary select committees and not know what the requirements are particularly since the head of the organisation in question the woman Karen Waterreus chief executive of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust stated on oath that she knew about the  
Natural Justice Before Select Committees 
 booklet. However on oath she could not recall exactly what Jonathan Milne had said to her. She could not state categorically whether Jonathan Milne had told her that he had a copy of the draft report. She told us that he conveyed sufficient information for her to think that he had a copy. 
It is not too hard to speculate as to whence the copy of the report came from. I would put my money on it that the copy came from the person who is seeking to put the best possible spin on adverse facts in respect of his job as head of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. This is a chairman of course who was being paid over $104000 a year—$104000 a year to head that trust. What he did to deserve that sort of money I do not know but it has now been properly reduced down to $25000. That payment of $104000 a year is just one more example of how certain people have in my view abused Maoridom over the last few decades and of how they have crushed any rise in young Maori leadership and done their best to conspire with both Labour and National over many years to pervert the development of Maoridom. 
This issue relates to a Crown Forestry Rental Trust that has an income of $21 million a year of which only $2.5 million goes to the Maori beneficiaries in whose name the money is claimed. All the rest has gone into a pyramid that has been built up and dominated by Sir Graham and in an authoritarian way it has even demanded that all research be done by the people whom the trustees have built up. That is what they have done—that is they have not let the Maori claimants get the money to do the research; they themselves do the research. Members should read the information that was released last year by myself during the pre-election campaign as to just how bad that is. I ask journalists before they rush off to defend Sir Graham Latimer why they do not defend the Maori beneficiary who is being ripped off here to the tune of $16 million a year. That is an abject disgrace. 
Whilst we could not find evidence as to the leak in this case I honestly think that the only possible place for the leak to emanate from is the person who had every reason to put the best possible spin on adverse information that is soon to be released.