Low-key Govt reaction to M.P.'s disclosures

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 3

Low-key Govt reaction to M.P.'s disclosures

PETER LUKE,

The Government has continued to largely ignore the Maori nationalist disclosures made on Tuesday by the National member of Parliament for Hobson, Mr Ross Meurant

Members of Cabinet showed almost as little interest in the revelations yesterday, as they had on Tuesday evening, when few professed to have heard the speech, and none would comment on it Yesterday, both the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and the Minister of Police, Mr Tapsell, suggested there were ho grounds > for an inquiry; Mr Lange specifically rejected Mr Meurant’s claim that the Security Intelligence Service had been told not to investigate radical Maori groups. . • The Prime Minister referred to comments made at a Parliamentary Select Committee hearing last week; by the director of the 5.1.5., Mr Lindsay Smith. Mr Smith said that he had not been subjected to any political direction by the present Government, or the previous Administration. “The quite extraordinary statement of Mr Meurant ... I don’t have to deny it, the director has,” said Mr Lange. “It is absolutely incorrect, but I’m not asking

.you to believe me. Pm asking you to believe the director who said so only a week ago.” . . .. Asked if there were grounds for an inquiry, Mr Lange said that “if his allegations have as much substance as the allegation against me, the inquiry should be into Mr Meurant” Mr Tapsell, likewise, suggested that no grounds for an inquiry had been established,, but he; challenged Mr Meurant to repeat his allegations outside the House. Mr Meurant had been protected by Parliamentary privilege on Tuesday, meaning that he could not be sued for defamation. He has refused to repeat his claims or provide further details outside the House, but has said he would do so if an investigation was set up. In a clear, but unstated, reference to Mr Meurant’s speech, Mr Tapsell was asked in Parliament yesterday, about regulations governing the secrecy of police information. Under police regulations, a member of the police force would be subject to disciplinary action, if official police information was disclosed, he

said. • > But Mr Tapsell added that this applied only to serving police officers. “Once a person leaves the police force he is no longer,, subject to the police regulations.”' Mr Tapsell also said that he hoped former police officers would use information acquired from'their police duties in a responsible way. Mr Meurant has said that much of his information came from - his former career in the police. , . >■