Yesterday in parliament I watched question time being used to its best effect. Russell Norman nailed John Key by asking him a series of questions trying to find out why his chief of staff had demanded metadata about Andrea Vance. Not only metadata about her movements around Parliament was handed over to the executive but data about her Fairfax paid phone calls was apparently also requested, collated, handed over to the requester but apparently not read and returned. That sucking noise that Key makes when he is under pressure became more and more prominent as time went by and his answers became less and less convincing. The overwhelming impression I have is that Key was completely on the defensive.
The denials of wrongdoing by Key and others are descending into pathos.
It was said that David Henry asked for Vance’s phone records but he then denied this request occurred. Even though it was apparently never requested it was provided and Henry says that it was returned without being viewed. Peter Dunne has come out however and said that he was asked by Henry for access to his landline telephone records so that they could be compared with Andrea Vance’s records although to be fair Henry has denied refuted this.
To add to the utter confusion speaker David Carter initially denied that Vance’s phone records were handed to Henry but yesterday in an embarassing back down said that the information was actually handed over. There is talk of a shadowy “contractor” who released the data but the question has to be who within Parliamentary Services authorised the release of the information.
If Henry did not see the information then I have this nagging thought that someone else did. Because it seems that someone may have told Winston Peters about what the records contained.
On May 31, 2013 he demanded the release of phone records to pinpoint the source of the leak of the Kitteridge report. He then accused United Future leader Peter Dunne being the leaker.
He said ominously in Parliament that day to Bill English “[a]ll the evidence is in those phone records, and your minister is gone”.
Mr English was then reported as saying that it was entirely up to Mr Henry whether to seek phone records.
“If he thinks phone records will tell him something I’m sure he will go and get them. I’m a bit surprised at the detailed knowledge Mr Peters had about the way Mr Henry is doing his job.”
So who was leaking to Winston Peters and why? And when he was talking about phone records was he talking about Dunne’s records or Vance’s records?
Whatever the answer to these questions are there is no doubt that reporters are genuinely distressed by this development and I am sure this will be reflected in how they report on issues particularly on the GCSB bill. Key will no longer have the luxury of being able to call then knuckleheads.
The matter is deeply disturbing. As said by John Armstrong this morning:
That someone working for Parliamentary Service could consider it okay to release the private phone records of a Press Gallery journalist to an inquiry sanctioned by the Prime Minister truly beggars belief.
It certainly gives new meaning to the word “service” in the bureaucracy which runs the parliamentary complex and looks after MPs’ needs.
It also speaks of something very sick and rotten at the heart of the country’s democracy. Whether the release was motivated by malice or ignorance, it adds up to a fundamental breach of press rights.
This issue highlights what is at stake with the GCSB Bill. I am sure that Andrea Vance has nothing to fear but every justification to hide information from this Government that it has no right to.
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