Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:622;Page:17667] 
1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in her Minister of Police; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There was one interjection that was out of order and the member knows it. 
Dr Don Brash 
: How can she have confidence in the Minister of Police when the December edition of the Police Association magazine reveals that police communication centres have been experiencing serious staffing and technology problems resulting in 20 percent of calls from the public being lost in some centres? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As the member knows those centres are being reviewed. A report is due in March. Submissions were called for by the external panel which is reviewing the call centres and I note that when submissions closed on 10 December the Police Association had not made a submission. 
Rodney Hide 
: Does she accept that it is important not just for her to have confidence in the Minister of Police but for the police themselves to have confidence in that Minister and how can they have confidence in that Minister when five police officers are being pursued relentlessly through the courts simply because they assumed that the Prime Minister did want to get to the rugby on time and could confidence not be restored all around by the Prime Minister just accepting responsibility for the fact that she was in charge? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member knows that it is not appropriate for me to comment on matters that are before the courts. The member also knows that the Police Minister has no jurisdiction over such matters. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It had better be a point of order. That question was certainly addressed. 
Rodney Hide 
: My point of order is this: this case certainly does not apply to the sub judice rules like the Prime Minister explained before. That is incorrect. It is certainly OK for her to comment on this case— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. The member does not even know the Standing Orders and he should take occasion over the adjournment to read them. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Prime Minister have any confidence that the Minister of Police is fulfilling his obligations under her Government’s Health and Safety in Employment Act when police communications centres are so understaffed that some employees have developed urinary tract infections because they are unable to take comfort breaks? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: For all I know that may have been asserted in the material the Police Association is putting into the public arena. The external panel is quite happy to reopen the submission deadline if the Police Association would like to make a submission to that effect. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that it is her intention to sack the Minister of Police in the upcoming reshuffle given recent revelations of failure of the 111 call system strong suggestions that the police have been directed not to go looking for methamphetamine laboratories because they make the crime statistics look bad and generally low morale in the police force; if not just what further revelations are required for her to dismiss the Minister of Police? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I can advise the House that the Minister of Police is substantially more likely to have his job next week than the Leader of the Opposition. 
Ron Mark 
: How can the Prime Minister continue to have confidence in a Minister who cannot answer a simple written question asking him to tell New Zealand First the registration plate numbers of the police cars involved in the high-speed movement from Waimate to Christchurch or is he simply taking a lead from her the Prime Minister who has also refused to tell New Zealand First the registration plate number of the car she was travelling in? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am not commenting on matters before the court and I imagine that the Minister is taking the same view. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would like to know just how the sub judice rule now extends to car registration numbers. This is an extraordinary confinement of the rule to knowledge in this House. All we have asked for is the car registration number. That could be obtained in other ways as well but we have sought it the proper way by merely asking for that information and we have received the reply that that information is sub judice. With respect if the car was being sold at this point in time then the marketplace would be entitled to know what the registration number was and it is not sub judice. So could the Prime Minister please answer the question properly? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me tell the member that I am not here to judge whether the question was answered on the actual answer given. The Prime Minister is entitled to reply like that and she did but that does not mean to say that I am saying the reply was good bad or otherwise. She certainly addressed the question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If that is the case unfortunately “rhubarb” becomes a satisfactory answer in this Parliament. All we are asking the Prime Minister is the registration number of the car that she was travelling in because certain matters relate to that that the public would be interested in. 
 To say that is sub judice and that that is an answer just tells me that we have a contempt here for Parliament and a contempt for parliamentary questions. I know it is an answer but it is an answer on the same basis as “rhubarb” would be. If that is the sub judice rule how did it go from being what it once was—that is if it did not relate directly to the case then it could be mentioned—to being narrow and restrictive when it comes to parliamentary democracy? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The Prime Minister did not say the matter is sub judice— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: She did. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: No she did not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That is the last time today. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: What the Prime Minister said was that she was not commenting on matters before the court. That brings the answer into the category where a Minister declines to answer a question on the grounds of public interest or other matters which the Minister herself has to be the sole judge of. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is right; the Prime Minister did not invoke the Standing Order by asking the Speaker to rule the question out. She gave an answer and she addressed the question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect I point out that the Deputy Prime Minister is not right. In a written answer to my colleague Ron Mark that is precisely what she said and she knows it. I am putting it on the record that she is pleading the sub judice rule—first in a written answer and secondly by inference in her answer in this House today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am talking about an oral question that has been asked in this House and it was addressed. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not entering into this argument any further but if it is a point of order I will be interested. 
Rodney Hide 
: It is. Is this not the point—that the Prime Minister is not prepared to answer and she can do that but she is just invoking the rule that she does not have to answer any particular question. It is not bringing in the sub judice rule; she is just not prepared to answer the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member does not raise a point of order. He is just wasting the time of the House. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that new charges have today been laid against the officers who accompanied her on her high-speed dash across Canterbury in July; if so is she prepared to demonstrate her confidence in the Minister and her police by offering to give evidence at the trials of those officers? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am only aware of what I read on the NZPA news screen and I repeat that I will not be commenting on matters before the court. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is it not a fact that the reason why she will not give us via her Minister of Police in whom she has enormous confidence or herself the answer to the question of the car registration is that the speeds involved created significant damage to the vehicle she was in and even to the windscreen but in all that time she did not notice the speed she was going at all? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have had no advice to the effect of the member’s question at all. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Could the Prime Minister advise us what standards she is following when she is indicating confidence in the Minister of Police? Is it the same standard that she followed when she savagely criticised a National Minister of Police and said he should be sacked over the failure of the police’s centralised computer system—INCIS—or is it a different standard when under her watch her Minister has been in charge of the police’s latest centralised computer system—the Comm Centre—for handling 111 and other calls where 20 percent of calls at many centres are regularly unanswered; and to give her a local example when a call was made from Molesworth Street which Parliament is in the communications centre did not even know where it was and sent the vehicle to the wrong address. Now if she following the same standard why is that Minister still a Minister? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That question is too long. There are three questions the Prime Minister may address two. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My recollection of the INCIS affair is that under a previous Government a rather large amount of public money went up in smoke. That is the first point. The second point is that the accusation in this case appears to be that not enough money is being spent. The third point I would make is the police do not always get everything right but generally they do. With the 111 system there have clearly been problems. That is why there is a review and I invite the Police Association to front up to the review and make a submission.