Hide Rodney: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
Hide Rodney: Privilege — Television New Zealand—Former Chief Executive Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2581] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I am very conscious that a lot of people have travelled a long way for the next item in front of the House so I will be brief. 
The ACT party fully endorses this report. I will make only four points because most of the points I was going to make have been made already. Firstly this report is no reflection on the staff of Television New Zealand. One thing that is clear to me is that when TVNZ is in the news because of the behaviour of its board and its advisers the board does not seem to care. But of course all the hard-working conscientious staff who care about their workplace do. I think we in this House should be clear that this is a criticism of the board and the governance of TVNZ not of TVNZ as a whole. 
Secondly this is a very serious report. It is the first time that the Privileges Committee has recommended a fine in 103 years. The message should go out loud and clear that State-owned enterprises are accountable to the people of New Zealand. They are accountable to the people of New Zealand through this Parliament. That is the process that operates. In my time on the Finance and Expenditure Committee and other select committees I have been staggered at the idea that State-owned enterprises are totally unaccountable to anyone. The Ministers are busy; they cannot keep up. The cavalier nature with which State-owned enterprises have treated the people of New Zealand in terms of any sense of the accountability they owe has truly shocked me. The Privileges Committee with the support of the House will send a very strong message to each and every State-owned enterprise that it is accountable to the people of New Zealand; it is accountable through Parliament. 
My third point is about the legal advice that TVNZ gets. Attached to the Privileges Committee report is a letter from Mr Noel Vautier who has been general counsel for TVNZ for 16 years. That letter highlights the problem. Mr Vautier wrote that he has worked for TVNZ for 16 years and has never really had anything much to do with the Standing Orders. If somebody is general counsel for an organisation should he or she not have some regard for the rules that apply to the accountability of the organisation? The answer has to be yes. It is clear to me that the TVNZ board and its general counsel have never worried about it. They have treated the people of New Zealand and Parliament with contempt. 
Mr Vautier made the point—and I want to pull up Mr Dunne on this—that maybe Ministers or Parliament could provide some material. Maybe they could but the point is that a high-powered legal counsel does not sit there and say: “I don’t know the rules because no one posted them to me or ran a seminar.” A legal counsel is paid the big bucks and given the big title to go and find out. We have members in this House who do not have the benefit of legal training a university education and those sorts of things. Some of us struggle but we actually make sure we understand the rules under which we operate. Why can TVNZ’s general counsel not do that? What sort of accountability has been running that the general counsel could make such a statement to the Privileges Committee? It is disgraceful that the board and the general counsel of TVNZ could be so dismissive of any accountability that they would not bother even to acquaint themselves with the Standing Orders. And they actually seem quite proud of it! 
Finally my fourth point is that I acknowledge everyone on the Privileges Committee—well not quite all but most and I think everyone knows what I am referring to here. I make special acknowledgment to the chairman Mr Simon Power because he did an outstanding job on a thorny issue. I think he needs to be acknowledged.