Police Minister Ginny Andersen's response to a written question has informed repeated questioning by the Opposition. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Police Minister Ginny Andersen's response to a written question has informed repeated questioning by the Opposition. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Labour has failed in its efforts to stop National MP Mark Mitchell from using a partial quote by Police Minister Ginny Andersen when firing questions at her in the House.
Mitchell, National’s police spokesman, has repeatedly used Question Time to interrogate Andersen on her response to a written question of his, asking whether she thought New Zealanders feel safe - something Andersen made a priority when she became Police Minister earlier this year.
To a similar question in April, Andersen replied: “It is my view that New Zealanders feel safer with a Government on track to deliver 1800 extra police.”
Mitchell has repeatedly used that response to ask Andersen whether she stands by her statement that New Zealanders feel safer.
In the five sitting weeks since May 9, Andersen has been asked the same question eight times, seven by Mitchell and once by Act’s police spokesman Chris Baillie.
In her replies, Andersen stressed that she stood by her full statement - once falling foul of Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe for alleging Mitchell was intentionally leaving out the second part of her statement.
National Party police spokesman Mark Mitchell won't be stopping his line of questioning any time soon. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Yesterday, prior to Mitchell’s sixth attempt during Question Time, Leader of the House Grant Robertson urged Rurawhe to consider the “practice of continually asking questions with partial quotes in them” as he believed it could lead to “significant misunderstanding”.
Rurawhe said the question had been accepted but noted the matter was something the “whole of Parliament needs to consider”, saying the Standing Orders committee was perhaps the best place to do so.
Mitchell again asked the question today, to which Andersen said the question was a “misrepresentation”. Rurawhe ruled that characterisation out of order and Andersen was forced to apologise.
Robertson again argued on Andersen’s behalf, saying she should be able to describe the question in that way as Mitchell’s partial use of Andersen’s statement “misrepresents the statement”.
That prompted National MP and former Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee to reference an earlier ruling that day and say, “I just suggest to Mr Robertson that people like him and me should not try dancing on the head of a pin, and particularly when you get the sort of result that you’re seeing at the moment”.
Rurawhe was quick to reinforce his view that the question was fair, saying Andersen could address the question and its context.
“The breadth to which the Minister does that is entirely up to her.”
Mitchell’s line of questioning was largely informed by a recent Weekend Herald poll of 1000 people that asked if they were more or less concerned about being the victim of a crime today than five years ago.
It found 67 per cent were more concerned, 28 per cent felt about the same and 5 per cent were less concerned. Concern in Auckland was higher than the national average.
Asked before today’s Question Time if he would ever ask a different primary question in the House again, Mitchell said no and cited the Herald poll.
“I’ll keep asking that question until [Andersen] actually stands up and acknowledges that most Kiwis in this country, at the moment, do not feel safer because you cannot fix a problem until you acknowledge that you’ve got one.”
Andersen told the Herald before today’s Question Time that she didn’t mind the repeated questioning.
