Prebble thwarts gag bid

By FRANCESCA MOLD and JOHN ARMSTRONG

New Zealand Post yesterday won a hollow victory against Richard Prebble, by preventing him from revealing outside Parliament confidential details of its new bank but failing to stop him speaking inside.

In an extraordinary afternoon of legal proceedings, the state-owned enterprise secured an interim injunction against the Act leader.

But it also suffered acute embarrassment when a High Court judge asked why it was seeking the injunction when it had happily distributed the material involved in the case to another MP and a host of officials.

Government ministers have blamed leaks of the commercially sensitive business plan to Opposition MPs on former NZ Post board members who were appointed by the National Party.

But it was revealed in court that the report has been far more widely distributed. Copies have gone to NZ Post managers, Treasury officials, the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit and advisers to Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton.

NZ Post is still pursuing a full court hearing tomorrow.

In a double blow, NZ Post's AA-credit rating is likely to be downgraded by Standard & Poor's because of the risks of setting up its banking arm, which was unveiled on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Mr Prebble, who is outraged at NZ Post's attempt to silence an MP, is reserving his right under protection of parliamentary privilege to release further details from the report.

Parliamentary officials could not recall a precedent for someone trying to gag an MP with an injunction.

In the High Court at Wellington yesterday, Justice Warwick Gendall issued the interim injunction ordering Mr Prebble to refrain from releasing information about the bank proposal which was not already in the public domain.

However, the judge said the court would not interfere with what was said or done in Parliament.

By the time the injunction was issued, Mr Prebble had already quoted fresh extracts from the business plan in Parliament.

Speaker Jonathan Hunt had earlier said that while the court was sitting, nothing stopped Mr Prebble using the document in the House.

Speaking during a snap debate, Mr Prebble claimed NZ Post was setting out to destroy second-tier New Zealand-owned institutions.

His copy of the business plan stated that "Newbank" would need to position itself ahead of a "plethora of emerging competitors" such as the TSB in Taranaki, the Public Service Investment Society, the Southland Building Society, AA Financial Services and credit unions. "They are not going out there to hold hands," Mr Prebble said of the "aggressive" business plan.

He also noted that the Greens' support for the proposed bank hinged on its cooperating, and not competing, with community owned financial services.

But Greens' co-leader Rod Donald said the passage quoted was quite predictable in wanting to identify competitors, and his party would not withhold its support.

On staff security, Mr Prebble said the business plan acknowledged "greater exposure to personal risk."

The document also contradicted NZ Post assurances that the bank would create jobs by saying, "Little if any additional staffing will be required in each site ... The projected time demands of 75 minutes per store per day is well within the staffing capacity and would be absorbed without additional resource in most sites."

Mr Prebble said it was no wonder the postal workers' union was concerned, and the plan explained why the bank could offer such cheap fees.

"Mr Anderton is going to get it out of the sweat of the staff."

Justice Gendall said Mr Anderton and National leader Jenny Shipley had already publicly disclosed a great deal of information contained in the business plan.

Answering submissions from NZ Post lawyer Jennifer Sutton, he said NZ Post obviously wanted the document to stay confidential, but had distributed it to a variety of people.

"Mr Anderton used a lot of it in a public arena to enhance the viability and worthwhile of what is in the paper. NZ Post says that's all right but it is not all right for someone else to use and discuss the same information in another way."