Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:620;Page:15533] 
6.  
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: Yes because they are all hard-working and conscientious Ministers. 
Rodney Hide 
: Has the Prime Minister advised her Minister of Finance Michael Cullen that it was totally unacceptable for him to announce a day early that the Governor of the Reserve Bank Alan Bollard would be hiking interest rates; and has she sought an assurance from him that he was not making that statement to this Parliament with inside knowledge? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. The Minister of Finance told the House yesterday that he was not making that statement with inside knowledge. I understand that the Minister of Finance was told by a person on Lambton Quay this morning that he was a man ahead of his time. 
Simon Power 
: Will she confirm to the House that she retains confidence in the Minister of Police when the words she used most recently in the media to describe him were simply “very loyal”; whatever happened to “hard-working and conscientious” as far as the Minister of Police is concerned? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Minister of Police is hard-working conscientious and loyal. The member opposite could learn any one of those three and it would be an improvement on his present position. 
Stephen Franks 
: Who does she think is telling the truth: the Ministry of Justice officials who state unequivocally in the just-released report into the operation of the Sentencing Act 2002 that it was not intended to increase the use of imprisonment and had not increased the rates of imprisonment; or her Minister of Justice and Minister of Corrections who now claim that their current crisis is what they had intended and expected all along even though they made no preparation for it? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member misquotes the Minister of Justice. What the Minister of Justice rightly pointed out was that the projected muster rolls have been exceeded substantially over the last few months. It is a fact of course that passing laws that require longer sentences and tougher parole provisions is likely to lead all else being equal to an increase in prison numbers. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Will she rule out dumping George Hawkins as Minister of Police later this year; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister has already indicated in a public statement that she is not commenting on any supposed reshuffle that may occur later this year. I merely point out on her behalf that the Minister of Police is a hard-working and conscientious Minister who unlike his predecessors opposite can claim to have reduced the crime rate to its lowest level in 20 years and to have increased the clearance rate to its highest level in 20 years. He is in a position to say to any member opposite: “Eat my shorts!”. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Does she consider it acceptable that her Minister for Rural Affairs is even considering two systems of public access to waterways on private land one for Maori and one for others and what advice has she provided him on having separate race-based systems? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Government has been considering a range of advice from officials with a range of options in these matters. The member will have to await the decisions made by the Government. 
Deborah Coddington 
: When did she first become aware that the Minister of Education Trevor Mallard had spent $14.6 million on the Te Mana campaign to raise Maori educational expectations with no measure of how many Maori are staying in school or are enrolled in tertiary education as a result; and does she think it is good enough to spend millions of dollars on a campaign without having any way of measuring its effectiveness? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have the information in front of me to give the exact answer but I assume it was early on in the life of this Government because the programme was approved by the National Party Government without there being the performance measures referred to by the member. 
Heather Roy 
: Has her Minister of Health informed her that the number of patients on active review waiting for operations has increased by over 30000 since she has been Minister of Health and will she deny that thousands of those patients have been cut from the official waiting lists to make the numbers look good? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There did not used to be a process of active review so the statistics become somewhat meaningless. What I can confirm is that waiting times have been reduced. 
Rodney Hide 
: In respect of the Prime Minister having confidence in herself will she confirm whether she will be meeting with the police regarding their investigation into her speeding motorcade; and will she also confirm that her driver prepared a report on the speeding incident as he was required to do? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have information in front of me in that respect but of course I can confirm that the Prime Minister is a hard-working and conscientious Prime Minister. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There are interjections from both sides of the House. 
Rodney Hide 
: Well it is David Cunliffe who is the annoying one every time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am just asking Mr Hide to please come to the point. 
Rodney Hide 
: Well I would if I didn’t get interrupted. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will do it or he will not be having one. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek your guidance Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has not turned up for question time and we have Michael Cullen filling in for her. We asked a supplementary question. Normally when Ministers do not have the information available they undertake to supply it to the member asking the question in the House. I suggest that it would be quite helpful if you would recommend that the Minister standing in for the Prime Minister did so in respect of that last supplementary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. The Minister addressed the question satisfactorily as far as my requirements are concerned.