The Privileges Committee has considered a question of privilege concerning a member’s denial that he made a particular statement in debate, and recommends that Tākuta Ferris be required to apologise for deliberately misleading the House.
The irony is he was accusing other MPs of being liars, but in fact the record has shown Ferris himself lied.
We asked Mr Ferris to provide written comment about the question of privilege, which he has done. We then invited Mr Ferris to a hearing of evidence to elucidate some of those comments. Mr Ferris declined our invitation.
Off memory it is rare for an MP to decline to appear before the Privileges Committee to explain their version of events, and allow questioning.
Making an inaccurate statement in the House is likely to involve a single temporal moment in the charged atmosphere of the debating chamber, and it is appropriate that inadvertent misleading without intent should not be judged too harshly. Denying that a misleading statement was made may be quite different—it may involve a sustained course of action and judgement, rather than a single moment.
This is a key difference.
We reiterate that the House operates on the basis that members are assumed to behave truthfully and honourably. The House must be able to rely on the truthfulness of its members in order to operate. In deliberately misleading the House, Mr Ferris has impeded the House in its ability to do so. For this reason, we find that Mr Ferris committed a contempt.
Note that the Privileges Committee has nine members – National (3), Labour (2), ACT 1, NZ First 1, Greens 1 and TPM 1. The report doesn’t have a minority view, so presumably the decision was unanimous or by consensus.
Will he now apologise?
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
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