Peters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Regarding Use of Intrusive Powers Within the Parliamentary PrecinctsText is subject to correctionPeters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Interim Report of Privileges Committee Question of Privilege Regarding Use of Intrusive Powers Within the Parliamentary Precincts[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15257. Text is subject to correction.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): This is a very sad and sorry saga. The Prime Minister has acted incompetently and with a cavalier attitude to his responsibilities to get at the embarrassing truth which is that there was a serious leak of a classified document. I want to say from the outset that if the Prime Minister had wanted a proper inquiry he would have first of all picked someone competent to do the job; second provided the powers to do the job properly; and third provided the inquiry with the right terms of reference to complete the job which was to find out who leaked this classified document.A couple of my colleagues have said that at the end of the dual sets of inquiries no one is any the wiser. With respect yes I am because I was the person who said on that day at the Finance and Expenditure Committee “You leaked the document didn’t you Mr Dunne?” and that was the beginning of the end. I did not do it because we were taking a guess or a pot-shot; we knew that he had been the leak—not on one occasion but on five different occasions. It is not difficult to work out because you have got four classified leaks and then you have got one in theDominion Post written by the same journalist which says that the Inland Revenue Department is helping out in theNovopay scandal. If you put that all together you have got to say to yourself “What’s the common factor here?”. Well it was the man who was heading the Inland Revenue Department. You did not have to be a rocket scientist to work it out. Then there were a number of what you might call evidentiary matters that we looked at to come to our conclusion. So at the select committee when that was said to Mr Dunne we knew where we were going.But back to my point—the interim report of the Privileges Committee into the Henry inquiry following theKitteridge report leak is a seriously disturbing read on a number of levels. And anyone who gives a damn about democracy—and New Zealand First does—would be deeply unimpressed by what has been revealed: something is seriously rotten in the State of New Zealand.We have had confirmed what we were saying from the outset that Mr Henry was not qualified in any way shape or form for this inquiry. What is my evidence? Well I was the person who raised way back in the 1990s the absolute abomination that was being foisted upon this country by way of interpretation of form over substance on the matter of tax law and the man heading up the tax department at the time was one David Henry. He did his utmost to discredit us and tried to defend these raids on the New Zealand Treasury and all sorts of illegal activity. Then just before there was a full-scale—as you know—commission of inquiry he jumped ship from the Inland Revenue Department and set off overseas. So that was our reason for saying that. If he could not get even such a fundamentally simple thing like the tax law right why would you repatriate him as the Prime Minister did by giving him a role first of all on the Electoral Commission in this country then make him a Pike River commissioner when his forensic ability to get to the truth is zero and then make him the inquirer on this matter?Sure enough—and I am disappointed to say this as there is nothing so antiseptic as the saying “I told you so.” but we darn well did. We darn well told all of you that this man was incompetent. You can laugh and scoff but the taxpayer paid him a fortune todo an incompetent job. We had confirmed what we were saying from the outset: he was completely inappropriate as an appointment. Of course that is precisely why Mr Key picked him for the job. That is why he picked him for the job. We have now had an inquiry but no answers from Mr Henry—just more mud flung in the public space.He got to the conclusion that it must have been somewhere near the office of Mr Peter Dunne who by the way is finding it so difficult to get off his high horse gracefully. Did you see his press release yesterday? Oh no he was not going to lose this massive long-held century-old right of confidentiality between constituents and an MP—as though that is what happened. No no Mr Dunne you leaked a classified document and in our crimes legislation that is a crime. Just because the police are not prosecuting you does not mean that you are exonerated because they could and it does not mean that it is because they are things of no matter. What was being leaked from that committee was of great importance. The Henry inquiry just left more unanswered questions but one of them was not left: who theleaker was. Theleaker was a serialleaker who leaked five times and has been discovered.It is an indictment on Mr Key and his contempt for the democratic process. Our democracy is not just the right to vote every 3 years. Real democracy is a web of spoken and unspoken rules and conventions that give it genuine meaning and not just the appearance of democracy. To have a proper inquiry have the correct terms of reference so that they can get to the truth give that person the powers to get to the truth and then pick the right person who can be trusted to get to the truth. He did none of those three things. He just did not care. The privacy of media communications is one of those aspects that are vital to a functioning democracy and it is a privilege that must not be abused. The media has a right to be protesting in this case because what happened in respect of this journalist was constitutionally and legally just plain wrong—just plain wrong.But Mr Dunne can find no haven in that complaint because it does not include him. The Privileges Committee makes it clear that there was contempt for this principle not just by Mr Henry but by parliamentary officials. But sadly I think if the report is slightly unfair it is in the fact that these parliamentary officials were being blamed in circumstances of undue illegal pressure. In the end somebody made a mistake. These parliamentary officials are the guardians of democratic practices because if they are not who is? But screaming through the inquiry and what came out with our discussions with these officials was that they had resisted and resisted and resisted and in the end thought: “Well he has got the powers because the Prime Minister says that he has given these powers for the investigation and Ministers must comply.” But of course in the case of Mr Henry what he did was he distinguished between Ministers and people on the select committee and the leader of the United Future party as though that was of any moment whatsoever. It was not but he distinguished between them. He does it on page 2 of his report and he goes straight off track thereafter.As the Green Party has said where was the Speaker when all this was happening right under his nose? Why did he and the Prime Minister not appear before the select committee inquiry? The report talks of errors of judgment by parliamentary staff. That must be understood I say within the context of undue unlawful pressure. And it leaves a sour taste at least in my mouth that Mr Thorn has fallen on his sword has accepted his accountability and has gone and yet the Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet MrKibblewhite offered his resignation but it was not accepted. How many times have I seen this not even complicated exercise in deception? John Key is deeply implicated in this mess too but do not expect any accountability from him.The report of the Privileges Committee is a wake-up call. What this report shows is how the essential props of democracy can be kicked away. And when John Key is around hyper-vigilance is called for. Key and his cronies will trash our democracy like they are trashing—Dr Paul Hutchison: Who wrote this?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I am able to write all this brilliant stuff myself unlike those members over there who have to have the research unit write their speeches. I wrote it all myself. Key and his cronies will trash our democracy like they are trashing so much else in our country. Fortunately next year the public gets its say and the opportunity to teach them a long and enduring lesson.