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  AGENDA Interviewed by SIMON DALLOW SIMON Nearly two years ago the government introduced the Pecuniary Interests Bill which proposed that all members of parliament should declare their financial interests, this would include identifying debtors and creditors over five thousand dollars, it would also mean disclosing debts of more than five hundred dollars that have been discharged by someone else. The bill met strong opposition particularly from New Zealand First and it's now been deferred until August. Greens Co-Leader Rod Donald is with me now from Christchurch, good morning Mr Donald. ROD Good morning Simon. SIMON Why do you believe the bill is necessary at all? ROD I think it's necessary because members of the public need to know what interests MPs have in companies and property, whether they’ve received free overseas trips, what directorships they hold and it's all about transparency, it helps the public understand why MPs might vote in a particular way or why they might not, why they take certain public stands on issues and it's important just simply for transparency so you can actually challenge an MP if you think they’ve taken a position that perhaps isn't consistent with their party line or whatever, and I mean to give you a specific example at a recent Select Committee hearing the representative from the Automobile Association was making some comments about road transport operators, and Richard Prebble from ACT launched into him and said that you know the truckies are paying more than their fair share of roading costs, Richard didn’t declare that he is a director of Mainfreight. Now I think that’s the sort of thing that should be in the public arena. SIMON So you believe that MPs are being influenced by commercial interests? ROD I'm not saying they are, I'm saying the public should be able to judge that and the best way to do it is through a declaration. Cabinet Ministers have had to do it since 1991, the rest of us the backbench MPs don’t and I think it's time we did, I mean these sort of rules came in in Britain in 1974, every other Westminster democracy have these sorts of rules. SIMON What do you believe the standards of accountability should be then? ROD That becomes an interesting question and at the every least it's something that should be subject to privilege, in other words if an MP hasn’t given an accurate declaration or refuses to declare then it should go to the Privileges Committee, otherwise it is really gonna be up to the court of public opinion, I can't think of a sanction other than that that is going to be meaningful. SIMON New Zealand First in particular has been opposed to the bill, Peter Brown called it a nosey parker bill, why do you think that is? ROD He also in the first reading debate said it was the politics of envy, well I can't fathom that because his leader of course is all for exposing scandals, is all for trying to dig into other people's private lives and surely he should be prepared to be up front about his own interests, it would be entirely consistent for New Zealand First to support this legislation and that’s why I can't see why they're opposing it. SIMON Other parties though have been almost as scathing. Richard Prebble also called it nosey parker legislation and I see in the paper this morning the Herald quotes Rodney Hide as saying it could have chilling effect on who would turn up in parliament, does it just go a step too far? ROD I was gonna say that’s only if you've got something to hide, I would expect ACT to oppose this legislation, it's New Zealand First are the ones I can't fathom, even National back it and for good reason. SIMON But isn't it an obstacle to getting some otherwise successful or potentially successful MPs into parliament. ROD Not at all, if an MP isn't prepared to be upfront about their property ownerships, their directorships, who they get free trips from and other perks then they shouldn’t be in parliament, they don’t deserve to be a representative of the people of New Zealand. SIMON The bill goes a heck of a long way asking for some pretty extraordinary detail though, aren’t MPs entitled to some privacy? ROD And we will have some privacy and there may be some changes that need to be made particularly in relation to your family because that’s where I think it's careful that we don’t cross the line that we don’t bring in our spouses and our children and our parents and other relatives into this, but the problem we face at the moment of course is that the bill's being shelved till after parliament has to rise and I'm determined that we get some rules in place before the end of this term so that the new parliament all the new MPs who come in and the existing ones returning have to complete this declaration, it's if you like part of our conditions of service and need to be in place at the beginning of the term. SIMON You mentioned you didn’t want to cross the line into families and so forth but of course one of the biggest ways of let's say hiding assets is in a family trust so inevitably you would draw then in if you’re seeking to open those. ROD We'd only draw them in to the extent that the bill, or if we go the standing orders route would require you to declare a beneficial interest in a family trust or in the case of myself and our MPs we have our own superannuation fund so we would declare a beneficial interest in that and that’s enough, it's not actually the extent of the investment or the interest that’s important it's the declaration that you have one. SIMON You mentioned that we were out of step with other Westminster based systems, what is the standard overseas? ROD The standard overseas in some places is tighter than New Zealand, in other places it's about the same as what's proposed, but certainly you cross the Tasman and in the state level I think it is by legislation, at the federal level it is by standing orders, Britain even has a commissioner who overseas this which is far tougher than we were planning, Canada has similar legislation. SIMON Why don’t we have a commissioner or an ombudsman? ROD I think it will be enough in the short term to have a role for the Auditor General, I've gotta be careful not to cross the line of Select Committee privilege here but the Auditor General did make some quite strong submissions on this bill and I'm hoping we will adopt some of the points that he has raised. SIMON Let me bring the panel in at the moment any questions you'd like to ask Garth? GARTH Rod I just wonder why wouldn’t you broaden it out, if you look at the Westminster model, look at the British model, it's not just MPs but it is their spouses, it is people who work in their offices and also have an influence on legislation and so on, albeit not quite as much as having a vote, journalists as well in the press gallery have to disclose if they have any outside employment, if they're ratting for somebody or working on the side, so why not make it a little broader so that everybody that’s involved in that process comes under scrutiny? ROD Well I think that would have a chilling effect for journalists cos I know a number of you do contribute to various tip sheets anonymously so perhaps you might like to reflect on that, but I'm happy to get what we can between now and the election and I don’t think we have the sort of situation that they’ve had in Britain cash for question, so the scale of the problem isn't as large and therefore I think the solution doesn’t have to be as broad or as deep. NEVIL Rod I'm amazed at your motivation for this because you’re saying that people act only according to their economic interests, it's something I wouldn’t have thought the Greens would along, so therefore I see this as being a bit mean spirited and possibly hypocritical because you’re really trying to say that there's something wrong with people acting and having views on things like Prebble for example being an director of Mainfreight that’s pretty well known, but why wouldn’t he just have views that are nothing to do with that particular directorship. ROD He's entitled to have those view and I'm not saying MPs are only motivated by their economic interests, all I'm saying is the voting public needs to know this in the same way that the voting public deserves to know where political parties get their funding from, and I mean we have another problem with that, that is to some extent a separate issue but at the moment the electoral law is so loose you could drive a bus through it, you've got parties like ACT that set up their own front trust and they launder donations through that so that big companies don’t have to declare that they’ve made donations to the National Party, that’s something else that has to be fixed. NEVIL So this is really about the rich people following an agenda but the poor people they don’t have one? ROD Not at all, I mean any trade unionist in parliament gets accused of being there as a toady of the union movement, Greens are accused of being there as a front for environmentalists, so I think it's time that all MPs fronted up, declared their interests so that the public can judge for themselves, that’s what this is about, it's about transparency. GARTH I guess where though, you've gotta put your money where your mouth is, where does this go on the tick sheet of things you might consider negotiating if you were looking at a coalition at some point if you get that chance? ROD Well I'm obviously I'm hoping we get to negotiate a coalition but I'm also determined that it will be in place before the election so that’s not going to be an issue, it will be there, Labour introduced the legislation, it backed it in the first place so did the Greens and National, the problem has really been with ACT and New Zealand First, I'm expecting we will get a resolution at the Standing Orders Select Committee before the election. SIMON And there we'll wrap it up, Green Co-Leader Rod Donald thank you very much.
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