11. Question No. 11—FinanceHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Associate Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 11—Finance11. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Associate Minister of Finance: Does he believe his conduct in respect of the proposed exemption for the Te Ārai property development from the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill meets the standards expected of a competent Minister?Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance): Yes and again I note for the benefit of the member that it is the Prime Minister that is responsible for assessing whether my conduct meets the standards expected of a Minister.Hon Amy Adams: Is the following version of events in respect of Te Ārai correct and if not which part is incorrect? Sometime in January shortly after the tangi of Russell Kemp Shane Jones met with John Darby Ric Kayne and iwi. Then sometime after that meeting he discussed an exemption for Te Ārai with Shane Jones and Kelvin Davis—and that neither man made any mention of Ric Kayne or John Darby being involved in the development just mentioning the iwi. Then on 19 March he received official Treasury advice which for the first time informed him of the interests of non-iwi developers in the land and which opposed allowing an exemption for Te Ārai. And then three days later not having taken steps to verify the actual extent of iwi ownership in the land he recommended an exemption for Te Ārai to a Cabinet committee and this was formally approved by Cabinet on 3 April?Hon DAVID PARKER: No and it's inaccurate in a number of ways.Hon Amy Adams: Does he consider it to be an acceptable standard of conduct for a Minister to take a paper to Cabinet recommending land be exempted from the laws of New Zealand due its particular ownership without knowing the details of the ownership of that land?Hon DAVID PARKER: In general terms yes. I have admitted as a matter of detail that it would have been better if we had more information as to the beneficial ownership of some of the lots. I have noted to the House previously however that the golf course the forestry land the sand mine areas of more than five hectares and other areas of sensitive land would not have been affected by the exemption.Hon Amy Adams: Why did he include former Ngāti Manuhiri land in the proposed exemption to the bill that he has repeatedly claimed was only made to protect Treaty settlement assets given that Ngāti Manuhiri no longer own the land and haven't owned it for several years?Hon DAVID PARKER: I've released the Treasury advice to me and the Cabinet paper. It is clear that the motivation for this was the concern about the diminution in value of the iwi assets. There was concern amongst Treasury and other advisers including Te Puni Kōkiri that we not create a precedent that said that there wasn't an article 1 right for the Crown to do as we have done that we emphasise that it was being done in the interests of fairness essentially and that's what we did.Hon Amy Adams: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I just seek to clarify? The Minister referenced then releasing the Treasury advice which hasn't to date been released. Is he in that answer therefore now releasing that information?Hon DAVID PARKER: That information was released yesterday and it's been available to the member since then. Indeed it's been released in its totality and there weren't even redactions made in respect of legal advice for which we could have claimed privilege.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister tell us as to what reports he has seen that say that the people behind the primary question on the Te Ārai exception are Steven Joyce Sir John Key Michelle Boag and Wayne Eagleson who made the submission in the first place?Hon DAVID PARKER: I have seen those reports. It is also true that I made my decision on the basis of the documentary record and my involvement in it and I think that the documents show consistency with the answers that I have given in this House.Hon Amy Adams: Did any member of his ministerial office have any written or oral communication with any member of the lobbying firm Thompson Lewis about the Te Ārai development and whether during or after the time a principle of that firm was engaged as the Prime Minister's chief of staff?Hon DAVID PARKER: The only correspondence that I'm aware of was that there was an unsolicited email which copied submissions at two different stages to my office to my parliamentary email. That email wasn't brought to my attention or responded to by me or anyone else in my office.