Hipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 30 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10577. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]5.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to thePrime Minister: In the inquiry being conducted by David Henry into the leaking of the Kitteridge report on the GCSB are Ministers being interviewed on oath; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of thePrime Minister: I am advised that the inquiry commissioned by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite and Government Communications Security Bureau Director Ian Fletcher has not interviewed Ministers under oath. The inquiry is not yet complete and I do not think it is appropriate to get into discussions about the detail of it while it is being conducted in order to preserve its independence. I can inform the member that the Prime Minister’s office and the chief executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet made it clear to all ministerial offices that they are expected to cooperate fully with the inquiry. The terms of reference for the inquiry were publicly released in April and are available to members.Chris Hipkins: Were the Ministers interviewed during the Rebstock inquiry into the leak of foreign affairs documents interviewed under oath; if so why is the same standard not being applied in this case?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is a matter for Mr David Henry who is conducting the inquiry. He has that capacity but I have to say that trying to direct him in how to conduct the inquiry would probably lead to stronger criticism that it is no longer independent. It is an independent inquiry by a senior civil servant who has served not only both Governments but also in the Australian and New Zealand Public Services and it is our view that he is best left to conduct the inquiry according to the procedures he believes will be effective. The report of course will be available to everybody.Chris Hipkins: Will all Ministers who were in receipt of the report prior to its leaking to the media be questioned on oath in the investigation; if not why are some Ministers being interviewed but not others?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is a matter for Mr David Henry. I am quite sure that if the Prime Minister’s office was issuing instructions daily to him about how to conduct the inquiry we would be getting ferociously questioned in here about interfering with it. So either it is independent or it is not. In this case it is independent. It is not how the previous Labour Government did it but it is how we did it. In fact I am sure that anyone being questioned in this inquiry will be held to a very high standard of transparency and honesty.Chris Hipkins: Do the terms of references for the inquiry into the unauthorised release of information relating to the Government Communications Security Bureau compliance review report allow for “the conduct of formal interviews if the inquirer believes these are warranted by the facts …”; if so why has one Minister been interviewed several times but others have not been interviewed at all?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is a matter for Mr David Henry who is conducting the inquiry. As I understand it the inquiry has some time to run and he will have the opportunity to interview whomever he likes and ask any question he likes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has this inquirer not asked the various Ministers and Mr Peter Dunne in particular for their phone records where the evidence is available—Hon Tau Henare: Why don’t you ask him?Rt Hon Winston Peters: —and why not—I am asking the Minister responsible all right? Why are the phone records in which the evidence lies in this case not being asked of Ministers—in particular Mr Peter Dunne?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member cannot actually know how the inquiry is being conducted. It is being conducted by Mr David Henry as an independent inquiry by a senior civil servant. I am sure that he will make whatever inquiries he needs to in order to try to achieve the objective of finding out how the report was leaked.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why would anyone have confidence in an inquiry headed by David Henry who is not taking evidence on oath not keeping an electronic record of witnesses’ answers to questions and not demanding phone records of particular Ministers and whose forensic investigation incompetence was revealed when he jumped ship before the wine-box inquiry? Why would we not believe—[Interruption] Oh no—oh yes he did. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! There may be some controversy in the question but the member has a right to ask it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I will ask it again. Why would anyone have confidence in an inquiry headed by David Henry who is not taking evidence on oath not keeping an electronic record of witnesses’ answers to questions—Hon BILL ENGLISH: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member asked a question I was getting ready to answer it and he popped up to ask it again.Mr SPEAKER: The difficulty I have is the member was halfway through his question. He had not finished. I could not hear because of the level of interjection that was occurring on the National benches. The member will please ask his question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am dying to ask this question. Why would anyone have confidence in an inquiry headed by David Henry who is not taking evidence on oath not keeping an electronic record of witnesses’ answers to questions not demanding phone records and whose forensic incompetence saw him jump ship from the Inland Revenue Department just before the wine-box inquiry was so damning to the Inland Revenue Department? What about this bespeaks an in-house snow job?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I wonder whether we should have an inquiry into how that member seems to know so much about how the inquiry is being conducted.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He cannot turn a question—a very legitimate one—into that sort of answer but I did write to David Henry and I got an answer that said: “I won’t tell you.”Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. Would Bill English on behalf of the Prime Minister please answer the question.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not know how Mr Henry is conducting his inquiry. I am surprised that that member seems to have detailed knowledge of it. I cannot help wondering whether his criticism of the inquiry may be preparing the ground for the fact that he cannot quite prove the allegations he made yesterday and he is now going to blame the inquiry for failing to back him up.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Again all the Minister has to do is answer the question. He did not.Mr SPEAKER: No I believe that the Minister answered the question adequately.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The issue here is about Standing Order 383(2) which says that “The reply to any question must be concise and confined to the subject-matter of the question asked”. Mr Peters was not the subject matter of the question. The Minister’s answer was an attack on Mr Peters and he brought him into it in various ways. If Mr Peters had put himself in the question fair enough but he was not in the question.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member when he returns to his office to look very carefully at the question that was asked. It certainly had a good level of opinion from the member who asked the question.Chris Hipkins: In light of the Minister’s comment just now does he intend to open a further inquiry to ascertain who leaked to the Rt Hon Winston Peters the fact that the Hon Peter Dunne had been interviewed about the leak of the Kitteridge report; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No we will not be opening another inquiry because this one is independent and will report fully. I have noticed though that when there is an inquiry into a leak to the Labour Party it is called a witch-hunt and when there is an inquiry into some other kind of leak they say it is incompetent.Chris Hipkins: Why will he not launch an inquiry into the leak about the inquiry into the leak?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The reason is that I suspect Mr Peters already knows the outcome of the inquiry into the inquiry about the leak.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will just try to get some silence. [Interruption] Order! A point of order has been raised. The member has a right to raise a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Deputy Prime Minister is going to keep drawing me into the inquiry then I am going to short-circuit things by saying all the evidence is in those phone records and your Minister is gone.Mr SPEAKER: I do not believe that is an adequate point of order at all.