Mr SPEAKERYesterday a question to the Minister of Māori Affairs was lodged and accepted. The question related to the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Subsequently the Minister of Māori Affairs advised the Clerk’s Office that he had no responsibility for the review. The question was reworked to ensure that it related to the Minister’s area of responsibility—advice he had received from Te Puni Kōkiri about the membership of the review group. In the House supplementary questions were asked that related to reports the Minister had received about the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
I have reviewed the Hansard and, on reflection, those questions were out of order. Where a question asks about reports received, those reports must relate to a matter for which the Minister has responsibility. The Minister had advised the Clerk that he had no responsibility for the review. Had I immediately ruled those questions out of order, many of the subsequent points of order could have been dealt with much more expediently, and, in fact, may not have even been necessary. I apologise to the House for not dealing with those supplementary questions at the time. However, I intend to follow the practice of previous Speakers in taking a wide view of ministerial responsibility. Unless on the face of it there is no ministerial responsibility, I propose to allow supplementary questions; I will not take the initiative in ruling them out. It will be, as Speaker Burke ruled in 1987, incumbent on the Minister to challenge the validity of such questions.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Speaking to your ruling, I want to raise a related matter arising out of it. As you stated, the Minister of Māori Affairs informed the Clerk’s Office that he did not have ministerial responsibility for the Foreshore and Seabed Act, the review thereof, or information contained in any report on the review thereof. I think that raises an interesting issue. Does this mean that it is sufficient for the Minister to inform the Clerk’s Office that he or she has no responsibility for a matter for that to be determinative, or in the end is it a matter for you—because the Clerk’s Office is acting on your behalf in accepting or rejecting questions—to consider? Clearly, Ministers will otherwise find it very easy to avoid questions by simply saying that it is not their responsibility, even though it patently may well be.
The related issue is particularly the case in terms of the Ministry of Māori Affairs and the other so-called “population ministries”. These ministries have a very wide policy brief. They cover all matters of Government policy relating particularly to the population group with which they deal. So for Māori Affairs, Te Puni Kōkiri will report to its Minister on matters with any particular relevance to Māori. The Minister will be expected within Cabinet—or in the Cabinet committee, in this case—to advance views on behalf of that population group in the general discussion. It seems to me that it will be very hard to consider that the Foreshore and Seabed Act does not, in one way or another, have particular relevance for Māori. It would be hard to imagine a general piece of legislation that is more closely related to the interests of Māori than that particular Act, because it relates to the issue of how to deal with customary rights claims. Despite one portion of the Act, the reality is that almost certainly only Māori can make an assertion of customary rights claims in the foreshore and seabed area. It seems to me that we are now in the position where the Minister of Māori Affairs has a very narrow brief in terms of his accountability to Parliament, and we will find it almost impossible to hold him to account. He may find this satisfactory, but I doubt that the general public will find it satisfactory.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) Link to this
The points raised by the shadow Leader of the House are valid inasmuch as the Minister of Māori Affairs does have a very wide brief. However, it is not uncommon for different aspects of any particular ministry to be wound up inside some form of Government consideration outside of that particular Minister’s purview. That is quite normal. I note that in the last Parliament questions relating to the foreshore and seabed were not accepted by the Minister of Māori Affairs but, rather, were referred to the Attorney-General, who, at the time, was Dr Michael Cullen. It is not unusual for Governments to make those choices, and given that answers given need to be consistent with the public good and interest, it surely is for the Government to decide who the best Minister is to represent the Government’s position on a particular issue. All Ministers receive a lot of general advice about matters in other ministries that may overlap their own portfolio responsibilities, yet no one would assume that they have the total responsibility for answering for the Government on those particular issues.
I do not intend to take more time on this issue today, because matters will be dealt with as they arise. All I have done is pay the House the courtesy of explaining why a difficulty arose yesterday, so that, in the future, should that situation arise, I do not out of the blue rule out of order a member’s question about reports in an area where a Minister has no responsibility. I simply wanted to pay members the courtesy of alerting them to the fact that where the Minister has no responsibility, I should not allow questions relating to reports. In the future, I shall not allow those questions. I am purely today extending the House that courtesy.
I have made it clear that I will take a wide interpretation, as has been the practice in the past, but I make the point that the Speaker does not allocate ministerial responsibilities; the Government does. The Speaker cannot be the judge during question time of whether a Minister has responsibility in a particular area, and that is why it is important that the Speaker does not try to do it. The Speaker cannot determine for every Minister what all his or her responsibilities are, and, at the end of the day, the Ministers in the Government have to advise us if they do not have responsibility in the area. But, as was pointed out yesterday, where a Minister has advised that he or she has no responsibility, then questions are out of order if they seek to ask about reports in an area where the Minister has no responsibility.
I do not intend to pursue this matter further today. It will, obviously, come up as the business of the House goes on. I am merely today extending to the House the courtesy of showing how I intend to treat such situations in the future.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I draw to your attention the important factual matter in relation to this. Mr Brownlee has repeated the statement he made yesterday. In fact—
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In considering your responsibility as Speaker to determine whether a question on the matter of the foreshore and seabed is in order, you might care to take into account, for example, Hansard, Volume 616, at pages 11820 and 11870, and at least eight other references in the 2002-05 Parliament, where questions on the foreshore and seabed matter were put to, and answered by, the Minister of Māori Affairs.