What REALLY happened yesterday...

Trevor Mallard seems to be intent on rewriting history on Labour's Red Alert blog, so being the good citizens that we are, here'e the full, unexpurgated version of what occurred in the House yesterday afternoon when Mallard insinuated that John Key had lied to the House - this from Hansard:

Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister for Food Safety) : On my instruction, to reduce business compliance costs the New Zealand Food Safety Authority has removed the requirement that all wine destined for the European Union must be sent to Auckland for testing, and now wine will be able to be tested closer to a winery’s own operations. [Interruption]

Hon John Key: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the member Mr Mallard has been accusing me of being a liar, and I think that is inappropriate in this House.

Mr SPEAKER: On a couple of occasions during question time today I have heard the Hon Trevor Mallard interjecting exactly that. Offence has been taken on this occasion, and I ask the member to withdraw and apologise for it.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Before I do that, Mr Speaker, I make it clear—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Trevor Mallard: I did not make the comment!

Mr SPEAKER: The member will leave the Chamber for the rest of the day.

Hon Trevor Mallard: For not making a comment? For goodness’ sake!

Mr SPEAKER: The member will not dispute the Speaker. [Interruption] And if he is not careful he will be named. [Interruption]

• Hon Trevor Mallard withdrew from the Chamber.

Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that we have to take this issue carefully. I think the issue was that Mr Mallard was trying to communicate to you that he had not used the phrase that the Prime Minister had accused him of making. Mr Mallard said he was happy to withdraw if he had breached parliamentary procedure by using an unparliamentary term, but Mr Mallard did not say the very word that the Prime Minister said he had used. I heard what Mr Mallard said; I am happy to repeat it for you, if that is of use to you. To eject a member and threaten him with being named, when you had directed him to withdraw and apologise for something that he had not said, and when you did not ask him to clarify what he had said, does seem like Mr Mallard has paid a very high penalty.

Mr SPEAKER: The matter is very simple. Today during question time I have listened to the Hon Trevor Mallard interjecting inappropriately on a number of occasions. I have pulled him up on a couple of occasions. The problem at the end was that when I asked him to withdraw and apologise for it because offence had been taken, he started to dispute with the Speaker. I will not tolerate that. The manner in which he did it was the problem; it was not that he had interjected. He could have withdrawn and apologised for that. It is not a difficult thing. The dignity of the House was totally destroyed by the way that the member behaved, and I will not tolerate that in the House. The honourable member will just have to learn to control his anger. It would have been perfectly within my right as the Speaker to have him called back into the House and have him named. I have not done that, because I do not want to do that, but the member will have to learn to behave with a little more decorum. He is a senior member. He has the authority from the Labour Party, it seems, to raise points of order on behalf of the party. The shadow Leader of the House appears to allow him to do that on a number of occasions. If he is going to do that, he has to respect the House and respect the dignity of the House, and not behave in the way that he did just now. He will be out for the rest of this day, and he will learn to behave in a manner befitting the dignity of this House. I did not make that decision lightly. Members will note that I resisted the temptation. In my time in the House, I have seen members named for that kind of behaviour as they left the Chamber. I did not want to do that, because I realised that the member had lost the plot for a moment and he was angry. That is the end of the matter. But I want all members, on all sides of the House, to realise that it does not matter about me as the Speaker; it is the treatment of this House. This House will be treated with its proper dignity.

Hon John Key: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Let me make it quite clear. On numerous occasions Mr Mallard yelled out at me: “Your nose is growing. Your nose is growing.” I think everyone understands what Mr Mallard meant by that. I took offence at it. The reason I took offence is that Mr Hodgson may not like the fact that I have not answered questions in the way that he would want, but I have not done so because I am a liar or have misled New Zealand in any way; I have done so because I do not believe that it is in the public interest to answer those questions in the way that he would want. That is a vastly different proposition. I recognise Opposition members’ dissatisfaction with that, and they are entitled to be dissatisfied, but I am also entitled to answer questions in the way that I perceive to be in the public interest. There was no ambiguity about the implications of the statements that Mr Mallard made. Members will know that I have been in this House for 7 years and I have virtually never asked members to apologise, but I will not put up with Mr Mallard implying very clearly that I am a liar. I am not.

Hon Darren Hughes: I think what the Prime Minister has just offered the House goes directly to the point I have made to you. The Prime Minister took a point of order and accused Mr Mallard of calling him a particular word. Mr Speaker, it was that which made you get to your feet and reprimand Mr Mallard. As you rightly said, he had said that word earlier in question time and without hesitation withdrew it. But the Prime Minister, who brought the issue to your attention by way of a point of order, used a different word from what he has now admitted in his second point of order was actually said. The other point I would make is that you have given a long dissertation about your views on Mr Mallard, using your authority as Chair, in a way that I do not think we have ever seen; it was quite a detailed explanation given by somebody in the Chair. Mr Mallard has been penalised, in this case, for something that the Prime Minister himself, who was the person who complained, now admits was a false accusation about what Mr Mallard had said in the first—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Bill English: Sit down!

Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. And there will be no interjections, even from the Deputy Prime Minister. I have let these points of order go on long enough, because I realise that the House is concerned about the actions I have taken. But I say to the Hon Darren Hughes that anyone who thinks that what the Hon Trevor Mallard said was not an insinuation of lying does not have half the intelligence that I attribute to the Hon Darren Hughes. To insinuate a member is lying is out of order. It has been well—please do not dispute me while I am in the Chair. I have not asked many members to leave this House. But I will not have the dignity of this House insulted by members behaving in the way that the Hon Trevor Mallard has behaved just now. I will not tolerate it. It is up to members to treat this House with dignity. That is the last thing I will say on this matter. We were on question No. 12. I think Colin King has a supplementary question.

The bottom line is this - Mallard threw a major tantrum, which he may now, in the cold hard light of morning be regretting. That's tough. As Lockwood Smith remarked - he needs to learn to control his anger, and he is a senior member of the House. And Hansard did not pick up Mallard's insult to the Speaker as he left the chamber - along the lines of "That's the worst decision you've ever made".

But worse for Mallard, and for the institution of Parliament, he hasn't left it there. He has blogged that "Smith did not allow me to say that I had not made the comments and tossed me out in probably the most blatantly biased decision of the year." - a clear criticism of the integrity of the Speaker. He has continued to pursue this line in the comments thread, and has indicated that Labour members are considering a vote of no confidence in Dr Lockwood Smith.

If Mallard and Labour go down that track they are, in our humble and considered opinion, bigger fools than we gave them credit for being. Mallard came perilously close to being named yesterday, and rather than attacking the Speaker, should apologise to him, and thank him for his patiemce, which must have been stretched to the limit yesterday.