Coleman Jonathan: Urgent Debates — Hon Peter Dunne—Report on Investigation of Review of Compliance Leak and Resignation as MinisterText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeColeman Jonathan: Urgent Debates — Hon Peter Dunne—Report on Investigation of Review of Compliance Leak and Resignation as Minister[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:10933. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence):That was a very entertaining speech; the only problem was that none of it was true. Grant Robertson has just put in a very good audition for leader of the Labour Party. I do have to hand it to him. That was a lot better than his leader managed this afternoon. But quite frankly trying to actually put that up as debate when all it amounts to is a scurrilous attack on the Prime Minister—well I hate to say it but I think Grant Robertson is actually better than that and he knows that. What he knows is that the Prime Minister acted quickly. He acted decisively. He called for an investigation and the matter was dealt with very quickly. Sadly a Minister resigned on Friday but in the end David Henry said that he could not take the inquiry any further. I know that those members over there will have read the inquiry and it is spelt out quite clearly there.I would also like to say that no one in this House takes any pleasure in what has happened over the past few days. It is a very sad turn of affairs. Peter Dunne a member who has served here for many many years and is well-known to the House is a man of honour and he cannot explain his behaviour either. What has gone on is I think beyond explanation but sadly a career of service to New Zealand has been brought to an end. I even forgive Mr Dunne for handing me the wrong speech to read on his behalf while he skived off to a school prize-giving one night but that is a long time ago.But Labour cannot have it all ways. You know David Shearer today is calling for greater emphasis on privacy and talking about PRISM. He is very very concerned about the implications of that for New Zealanders’ privacy and privacy is a serious matter. But then in the next breath he is wanting all these emails tabled and released. His naivety I think has been highlighted in theDominion Posteditorial this morning which just shows how naive David Shearer is being in calling for that. But it is even worse than that because actually David Shearer has been conned by Winston Speakers. He has taken the sucker punch—Andrew Williams: “Winston Speakers”? Who’s “Winston Speakers”?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: He has been convinced by Winston Peters—Winston Peters; well Winston Peters thinks he is the Speaker—to put—Hon Maurice Williamson: He thinks he’s the Prime Minister.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well the Speaker thinks Winston Peters is the Prime Minister. He has been convinced by David Shearer to put in a letter to the Privileges Committee and he wants Peter Dunne put under oath and all those emails and his phone calls to be revealed in their full entirety.Well there are some serious implications to that. If you look at the sad case of Phil Goff a member who has been leaking sensitive Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Defence Force documents for a long long time—and I would love to see Mr Goff’s emails and I would love to see his phone logs because I would like to know what conversations he had when he leaked to the media pages from the court of inquiry relating to the death of a New Zealand soldier. I think that if David Shearer was not working to a double standard he would say to Mr Goff: “You know in the interests of this new age of transparency that Labour is calling for please table your phone logs; please table your emails and their contents.” so that we can know where Phil Goff gets his information from. When Phil Goff undermines national security when he undermines the morale of the Defence Force he knows that he is doing the New Zealand Defence Force and the people of New Zealand a great disservice.But there is more coming for Phil Goff because of course about a year ago Phil Goff tabled leaked documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He tabled pages from a Cabinet paper and I want to know who Phil Goff’s source was. I would love to see the content of Phil Goff’s emails and I would love to see his phone logs but of course Phil Goff thinks it is OK for Peter Dunne to be called to account under oath and be made to table his emails—to be made to table the full content—but Phil Goff never will. Of course when David Shearer actually connects his neurons together and gets some synapses firing he will realise that what he is calling for in this House will have very very grave consequences.We heard from Winston Peters today and of course we all know about the 2008 Privileges Committee hearing. Winston Peters was found guilty at that hearing. Would we not love to see the full content of his phone logs? Would we not love to see the content of his emails? I think that would be very very revealing. So David Shearer and Winston Peters should be very wary of what they ask for because if they are going to hold Peter Dunne to one standard they will have to hold Phil Goff—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade leaker who has undermined the morale of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the New Zealand Defence Force—to exactly the same standard and I think it is really going to unravel pretty badly. Someone with the ethics of Phil Goff who will seek out leakers and who will go out there and publish that information would not like to be held accountable.Hon Phil Goff: Just ask any member of the Defence Force who was responsible they’ll say the Minister. They’ll say the Minister let them down.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You can tell by the fact that Phil Goff is raving and shouting that he has lost it here in the House. A raw nerve has been hit because Phil Goff is the biggest leaker in the New Zealand Parliament. Of that there is no doubt.Hon Member: I thought that was Andrew Williams.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well no we are talking information leaks. So I can tell you Phil Goff’s day of accountability is coming. I would love Phil Goff if he believes in transparency to get up in this House and tell us who “Person A” is and tell us who his contact is who leaked the information to him and I think you will find he is very loath to do that. Transparency goes both ways. Ministerial resignations and MP resignations go both ways. So when you are calling for Peter Dunne to be put under oath be prepared for Phil Goff to go under oath as well because you might not like what you find.Hon Phil Goff: Why can’t they come clean on that—did Peter Dunne leak the paper?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You can tell by Phil Goff’s yelling and shouting and raving here and the barrage of completely non-witty interjections that he knows we are on to him and that his day is coming very very soon.Of course there is the police complaint again Phil Goff as well. We greatly await the police complaint—Hon Maurice Williamson: What?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes apparently someone has made a police complaint because Phil Goff leaked those details of the dead soldier to the media. It was a court of inquiry it was a suppressed report—Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think you were in the House when the Minister had to withdraw and apologise for making an allegation that was not true and that I found offensive and he has just done it again. I will ask you again to ask him to withdraw and apologise.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Speaking to the point of order—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will hear the member.Hon Phil Goff: Well you—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. Order!Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mr Deputy Speaker you know that that is a debating point. It is not something he can take offence at. I could say that I take offence at the way he characterises—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I do not believe I was here when the decision the member refers to was made but I think we can be more productive and just move on with the debate.Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Speaker ruled last Thursday that the Minister making that statement had committed a breach of the Standing Orders in making an offensive statement the more so because it is not true. I ask that you do what the Speaker did last week in exactly the same circumstances and require the Minister to withdraw and apologise because I take offence at the untruth that he has just told.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: All right—[Interruption ] Order! All members are honourable members and the member has taken offence. The member will withdraw and apologise and then continue with his speech.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I withdraw and apologise. To get back to the facts what Phil Goff did was he took—Hon Phil Goff: You’ve done it twice now and if you lie again you’ll have to do it again.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has just breached the Standing Orders himself by implying that that member did something that is not acceptable. So the member will now withdraw and apologise.Hon Phil Goff: I withdraw and apologise.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I have got a far thicker skin than Phil Goff. What Phil Goff did—OK so Phil Goff took a suppressed report. The coroner had suppressed this court of inquiry. It was a court of inquiry relating to the death of a New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan. Phil Goff broke that suppression order and he took pages from that inquiry and emailed them to the media and that is now the subject of a police complaint. Not only did he do that but a year ago he took sensitive Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade documents and Cabinet papers and released them publicly. So I want David Shearer to go out and say to Phil Goff: “Phil Goff we want Peter Dunne to table his emails. We want transparency. But to do that so that we don’t looklike hypocrites we need you Phil to table all your emails and to make available your phone records in exactly the same way we are calling for.”So you see when you tie all this together and you go back to thatDominion Posteditorial today what you see is the Prime Minister has acted very very decisively and quickly. Dunne was gone that day. That did not happen in the Clark era. I mean it took years and police investigations—incredible pressure—to get rid of Taito Phillip Field. But John Key a man of high integrity acts in a totally different manner. He acts decisively. If Phil Goff and David Shearer et al. really want to get to the bottom of this in the way they say all they have to do is get their mate Winston Peters to publish the emails that he claims he has. But of course we do not reckon he has them. Once he tables them we will all know what David Shearer thinks he wants us to know. We want to see Phil Goff’s emails and his phone calls but most of all I would love to see the emails relating to David Shearer’s secret bank account because this is a man constantly calling for transparency and we would not want to see hypocrisy in this House.So the summary of it is to be careful what you ask for because it really could backfire. There are no winners in this. I feel sorry for Peter Dunne. He was a man of integrity. I still believe he is. He has had some sort of very unfortunate brain explosion and I do not think it is reflecting very well at all on David Shearer and his ill-judged crazy calls for a total change to accepted parliamentary practice.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.