Seymour David; Dean JacquiDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Let me start by saying this is a debate that I would rather this committee was not having this Parliament was not hosting and I would much rather not be participating in it. One thing the Minister has said that I think is true is that the existence of this debate does have a revictimising and traumatising effect on people up and down New Zealand and indeed associated with this Parliament as their workplace.Nevertheless I also believe it would be a mistake to assume that the Speaker is not at least partly culpable for the fact that this debate has continued as long as it has and is necessary. I would further add that because somebody has done something laudable to make the workplace safer and reduce violence and bullying in the workplace that does not absolve them automatically of other misdeeds. I think those things as preliminary comments need to be said.There is in my view considerable confusion about what the Speaker's true position is. He has said that on the morning of 22 May 2019 he believed that a rapist was in the building. He's told the Governance and Administration Committee he knew within 24 hours that that was not true. He's apparently maintained the position that it was true and done so in legal proceedings for many months afterwards and in spite of his apology at the select committee and his settlement and payment to the person who was accused or at least the taxpayers' payment tonight he appears—or at least the Minister appears to have repeated the accusation almost acting as judge jury and executioner about what happened in the matter.Now I raise this as a point that I believe is extremely important and I raise it in the context of a really savage attack by a member of this House on a member of the public who was not able to defend themselves just last Parliament. I know that that had some serious effects on that person and I know that that person had to go to some lengths to have the Speaker enter a correction into the parliamentary record. That was the only way under the Standing Orders that they could be defended. With that context I ask: is it true that the Minister has used privilege to effectively decide on the guilt or innocence of a person making the judgment under privilege? Because if it is that raises some quite serious issues for the future of the House. You see this House has enormous privileges. Nobody in this land has higher privileges than this House. We are able to evade defamation law and do all sorts of things that normal citizens could not get away with at law. But there is a quid pro quo for having those privileges: that we must use them very carefully. If it is true that the Minister in the chair who's also personally the Speaker is carrying on a precedent started last year that it's OK to attack people members of the public and actually remove the distinction between this House which makes laws and the courts which interpret them—the comity that is critical to our constitutional arrangements that have evolved over a long period of time—then that on top of the many other miseries and sagas that have got us to this sad debate is actually a very important development.So I would call on the Minister to clarify if that is what he has said tonight that he is effectively using privilege to venture into what is properly the area of jurisdiction of the courts. Now I'm very aware of all the difficulties with complaints about sexual violence in courts. In fact this Parliament is trying to change the sexual violence legislation at the moment. But if there is a problem there it's not an excuse to use parliamentary privilege to act as a kind of pseudo court and I think the Minister needs to clear up exactly what he was trying to do there.Rt Hon Trevor Mallard: I want to thank the—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Rt Hon Trevor Mallard.