New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I propose that this bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee for consideration, and that it report back before 31 October 2005. This is not a large bill, it is a relatively small bill, and, in fact, if it were not for one party’s objection, it would have been included in a recent Statutes Amendment Bill. But it is a very important bill, and I refer to a quote during the first reading of the original New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Act in 1938, from a Mr Sexton: “All law is not made in this Chamber … The law of New Zealand was based upon the common law of England originally, and it has been modified during the years by statutes and by case law.” Case law, together with a doctrine of precedent, plays an important role in maintaining the integrity and fairness of New Zealand’s justice system. The application of legal principles set down in past cases to new, similar cases ensures that like cases are decided alike, and leads to greater certainty and fairness—two important principles in the New Zealand legal system.

Law reports are an essential part of case law and precedent. The law reports are the source of case law and precedent and they are where the official decisions of the courts are to be found. Aside from promoting the fair and equal treatment of citizens, the use of authorised law reports also promotes accountability by opening up the judiciary’s decisions to scrutiny. Judicial decisions are required to be accompanied by reasons. These reasons ensure that decisions are reached and determined in a legitimate manner.

The existing Act provides for law reporting in New Zealand to be carried out by the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting. The council currently records the key judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal in the New Zealand Law Reports, which are recognised as New Zealand’s only official law reports. This bill simply provides for the inclusion of the Supreme Court into the existing regime of reporting and publishing that has been provided for under the Act since 1938.

To ensure the continued value and validity of the New Zealand Law Reports, it is essential that they include the key judgments of New Zealand’s final appellate court. One of the purposes of the establishment of the Supreme Court was to improve accessibility of New Zealand’s appellate courts. The natural flow-on from this is to have access to the judgments of this court. The role of the Supreme Court is to oversee all areas of law; however, it will be able to deal only with cases that involve significant issues. Due to the ability of the Supreme Court to delve into legal analysis in greater detail than is possible in the lower courts, it is essential that people have access to its judgments. The decisions of the Supreme Court will provide invaluable guidance to the lower courts as to the application and interpretation of legal principles. Without reliable publication of the judgments, the validity of the case law and precedent is jeopardised.

The bill follows consultation with the Chief Justice, the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting, and the New Zealand Law Society. The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting will have the primary responsibility of reporting the key judgments of the Supreme Court, and these judgments will be included in the official law reports of New Zealand, along with those of the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Currently, only the Council of Law Reporting may publish the judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal, with an exception that the New Zealand Law Society may authorise the alternative publication of these court judgments, if certain conditions are met. The bill will extend the exception to clarify the ability of the Law Society to authorise the publication of judgments of the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court in specialist law reports or other occasional publications. Further exceptions included in the bill give the Chief Justice, following consultation with the Law Society, the ability to authorise the alternative publication of Supreme Court judgments where appropriate.

This bill will enable the Council of Law Reporting to continue producing an authoritative and reliable set of key judgments of New Zealand’s higher courts. I commend the bill to the House.

What foolishness is this? The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill has a report-back date of October 2005, when we all know that Parliament will not be in session in October 2005. It is an impossibility. The last date that this Parliament can sit is September. So what is the serious intent behind this bill? It is not certain that it will be carried forward. This is, on one view of it, an important bill, but the Minister starts off by telling us that it will be reported back after a date when Parliament will simply not be sitting.

I start by commenting that I think it is a sadness when we come to legislation of this type, if we look at the three Ministers responsible for justice issues in this present and dying Government—the Labour Government—we see they are Minister Barker, a trade union official; Minister Goff, a political scientist—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: No, he’s not.

Well, he asserts he is. And there is Minister Cullen, an economics teacher. Some may not judge this to be a bowel-gripping topic. I doubt, in fact, that Minister Barker would include the New Zealand Law Reports as part of his holiday reading—I would be pleasantly surprised if he did—but this legislation is important, because we need in place a consistent system of law reporting as part of the pivotal element of access to justice.

It is, as he has said, a bill that has relatively minor impact; it is all about the reporting of Supreme Court decisions under the rubric of the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting.

It is relevant to reflect just for a moment on what our history of law reporting in New Zealand has been. The current New Zealand Law Reports started in 1881, but, in history, complete sets have been deemed to start in 1861, with a number of prior series. I apologise for reminding the Minister of this because I am sure he studied the history of law reports prior to the New Zealand Law Reports in anticipation of giving his important speech.

But we did have, in the period from 1861 until 1872, the Macassey reports, a publication called the New Zealand Jurist, the New Zealand Jurist Reports (New Series), and the reports running in the 1878 and 1880s period of Ollivier, Bell, and Fitzgerald; then we grandly moved to the New Zealand Law Reports.

I would also like to comment on what might be the essence of a good law report. Of course, as the Minister would know if he ever looked, a law report is in two parts. First, there is a headnote, which is a summary of the facts and the important principles, then the body of the judgment follows. Probably the father of law reports as we know them today was W T S Daniel QC. He wrote a book called the History and Origin of the Law Reports, primarily to deal with the ills that had arisen in the system of law reporting and to produce a more suitable one.

In 1863 in England he proposed a Council of Law Reporting to act gratuitously and be responsible for the appointment of editors and reporters to undertake the management and direction of the printing and sale of reports. His plans were approved on 25 February 1865, so law reports as we know them now can go back to that date when the reporters began their work in Westminster Hall, which was the home of the superior courts, in Lincoln’s Inn Old Hall, and in the Rolls in Chancery Lane.

He made some comments that are probably worth repeating on what the criteria for law reporting are. It should not be the case—and it is not the case in New Zealand—that all cases are reported in the official reports. Some are deemed unworthy of reporting. I would say that many are deemed unworthy of reporting, because they do not hit a series of parameters that, in my view, should be found to exist in every case.

The first rule is that all cases that introduce, or appear to introduce, a new principle or a new rule should be reported—no one would doubt that. Secondly, all cases that materially modify an existing principle or rule should also be reported. In a third category, all cases that settle or materially tend to settle a question upon which the law is doubtful should be reported and, finally, we should report all cases that, for any reason, are peculiarly instructive.

Why someone would offer to be responsible for the reporting of the numerous cases of the various courts is, frankly, beyond me. It involves thousands of hours of reading and of reflecting on what the key points of the case might be or—as Mr Franks and I were taught in law school—on what the ratio decidendi of the case is and what should be more junkily classified as obiter dicta. But it is really important that reports should be accurate, they should contain everything material and useful, and they should be as concise as is consistent with those objectives.

In the bill, reference is made to a new task that the Law Society has been asked to accept, through the new section 12(6), proposed to be inserted into the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Act by clause 3. It provides that the Chief Justice of New Zealand can authorise the alternative publication of decisions of the Supreme Court after consulting the society.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: She by herself.

Why she, by herself, as my friend Dr Mapp says, should have the power to break a monopoly is not at all clear to me, but it is like so many things with this Government that are so unclear. Presumably, the Chief Justice sought to arrogate for herself this power so that she might draw extra remuneration from the already heady pay she receives, so that she could win in this publication role a greater amount of money.

Those are the issues that I sought to deal with. National will support this bill but, of course, it will never be passed, because this bill will never see the light of day in this Parliament. We are actually involved in a complete farce.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek to clarify to the House that I have mistakenly said to the House that we would require the bill to be reported back by October 2005. That is incorrect; I picked up the wrong draft of the speech. There will be no qualification on the report-back time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you for the clarification.

I find the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill very interesting for a number of reasons. First, it is interesting that, in the presumably limited legislative time left to this Parliament, we are actually debating this bill when one can think of a whole host of other issues that the Government might have felt that the people of New Zealand think there needs to be some law change on. I would have thought, for example, that immigration law is full of holes and that the Government might at least be saying to the people that it was alive to those holes and that it would do something about them. But, no, we are debating the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill.

Secondly, the bill is interesting because it does not have an explanation as to why the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting is to be given a power to prohibit the reporting of Supreme Court decisions. I would have thought that a Government that was proud of its creation—the new Supreme Court—would want as much attention as possible paid to the decisions of that Supreme Court. It is baffling to me why anyone would want to create a monopoly, a power to censor and prohibit, and ban the reporting of open justice.

I think one of the traditions we inherited from the British—which was in fact a glory of British justice—was the idea that justice had to be done in the open and seen to be done in the open, so that everyone could make up their own mind on the quality of the decisions. We have lost that. Successive Governments—National and Labour—decided that that was superfluity and that New Zealanders could just trust the Family Court judges, the judges in the Youth Court, and the corrections system. We could just trust the entire anointed of the legal establishment when they decided that name suppression, closing of courts, sealing of records, and the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act would wipe records of what happened.

This Government believes in airbrushing history. I think the Minister who introduced this bill could at the very least have given us some assurance that the agenda behind it was not to enable a Cabinet Minister, or other member of the Government—because we must remember that the Attorney-General chairs the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting—to make sure that undesired reports of Supreme Court decisions are not published. I am quite sure that the Minister will have some perfectly plausible reasons for this monopoly, but why did we not hear them? He could have given us the reassurance that the Attorney-General would never exercise the power that will reside in the council to prohibit reports of Supreme Court decisions, but the Minister chose not to do that.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: Why not?

We do not know why this is being done. I can surmise that it is being done because it has always been like that and because for many years the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting has had the statutory monopoly on reporting on other courts, and maybe the Government is just bringing this court into line. But it is still puzzling because the bill states that Supreme Court decisions may be banned only if they are new series of reports. Oh no, in fact, it has covered that one. New section 12(4)(b), proposed in clause 3, states that Supreme Court reports or any series of reports of decisions, separately or in conjunction with reports of other judicial decisions, can be prohibited if the New Zealand Law Society wants it to be prohibited. Now, that is puzzling, is it not?

So I say to the Minister that the structure of this provision is that no person, firm, or company, other than the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting, may commence the publication of a new series of reports and, after the commencement of this legislation, no person, firm, or company may publish a new series of decisions or continue publication of a series of decisions without the consent of the Law Society. Does that mean someone who has already set up the publication of decisions? Is this aimed at the National Business Review, for example, which has a rather, shall we say, sceptical bent to its reporting of legal matters and the affairs of the legal establishment? Is this provision aimed at the National Business Review or the Independent? What is the purpose of a provision that states expressly that the Law Society can ban existing reports and can stop new ones from being published? We should have heard what the purpose is.

Maybe there is a view that this monopoly is essential to ensure that reports are accurate. If that is the case, why not just make it a power to sanction and to force the publication of corrections? We do not have a situation where people are avidly waiting for the New Zealand Law Reports, and at the moment that a decision is given and misreported, there is rioting in the streets. If the Government wanted to cover that kind of possibility, why was it not being open about it and targeting the news media, who can send out things that are very important and can cause rioting in the streets. Why is this not an ex post power? Why is the bill not structured so that the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting can require the publication of corrections if someone gets it wrong, or it can require that there be appropriate checking, for example, to see that suppression orders have been honoured? There is so much about this bill that requires explanation. There was a very inadequate introduction from the Minister.

After hearing National’s criticism of the bill, I am not sure whether it is saying that it will vote for the bill all the way through, or whether it is simply saying that it will vote for the bill to go to a select committee. It is hard to tell. I am sure that Dr Mapp will enlighten us on that matter.

But, on the precautionary principles so beloved by the Greens, and on the principle of letting one hundred flowers bloom, biodiversity, and all that sort of thing, ACT will have to vote against this bill to signal that we think we should not be setting up monopolies without a very, very clear justification, and we certainly should not be setting up restrictions on publication.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I think the best thing I can do is to recap the concerns that I hope will be addressed by the select committee if this bill gets through and to explain why ACT believes we should vote against it—if only to make a statement that this kind of legislation should not come in with very bland, non-explanatory explanations.

The bill states: “No person … may, without the consent of the New Zealand Law Society, … publish, a new series of reports of decisions of the High Court or Court of Appeal …”. That creates a monopoly for the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting. The bill further states that all of that applies to the decisions of the Supreme Court, and that they cannot be published separately or in conjunction with other reports. It does not explain why that is such a good idea. There may be a view that the decisions of the Supreme Court—or of any court—should be published only with the approval of judges, but that does not fit with the idea of open court. A reporter is able to go into a court and keep the public informed about what is going on.

The bill does not deal with the situation of partial reports, of, perhaps, reports of one judge’s decision, of the leading decision, or of the decision that prevailed. It does not deal with the conditions the Law Society should apply. It does state that the Law Society can grant other publishers the rights if it considers there is not enough competition or if there is delay. But why the monopoly in the first place? Why the prohibition? Why not give powers to require someone to correct if it is thought that the Supreme Court decisions have been wrongly reported? Why not give some reassurance that the Government has given at least perfunctory attention to the principal of free speech, because this bill seems to be a bar to it.

I trust we will get an Attorney-General’s report as to whether this legislation complies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the principles of free speech within it. Sadly, of course, the Attorney-General is the chairman of the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting, so we will get an Attorney-General’s report on a bill that gives the Attorney-General the privilege of blocking reports. It does not really reassure that the Government is taking seriously either openness in the courts or the principles of free speech.

I suspect there are simple explanations for that; I suspect it is just legislative laziness. But these matters should have been addressed in the explanatory note that the Government introduced this bill with.

As my colleague Dr Worth indicated, National is supporting this bill, although we do so with significant reservations. Some of those have been raised by Mr Franks and, indeed, by Mr Worth himself. It is noteworthy that we are at the dog-end of the 47th Parliament. I guess we can tell that we are at the dog-end when the best the Government can do is present to Parliament bills of this nature for consideration. Is this the harbinger of its sense of an agenda for the nation? Does this indicate that it has no ideas at all, anymore? If this is the quality and nature of the bills the Government is presenting, then one would have to say—paraphrasing, I think, Sir Winston Churchill—that it is time it went.

In terms of this bill, it is important to think about what the bill is not, as opposed to what it is. It does not authorise the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting to make the reports. Nowhere does the bill mandate or require the council to make the reports of the Supreme Court. The reason is quite simple—it does not need the authority of Parliament to produce reports. It is a kind of inverse approach, if one likes. The bill stops others from producing reports without the permission of the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting. But it then goes on to state that in a whole series of circumstances other entities can make reports, so long as it is with permission.

We have to ask ourselves, therefore, why this bill is necessary. Why is this Parliament spending up to 2 hours on a first reading debate to say that people cannot report decisions of the Supreme Court? Why on earth would we want to stop them? Why does this Parliament have even the remotest concern about stopping people from reporting the decisions of the Supreme Court, unless authorised by the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting?

Even more extraordinarily, section 12(6), inserted by clause 3, states: “the Chief Justice may, after consultation with the New Zealand Law Society, authorise any person, … to publish … decisions of the Supreme Court.” Does that mean that newspapers will require the Chief Justice’s permission to publish decisions of the Supreme Court? When we think about it, that cannot possibly be true—at least, I certainly hope it is not. Journalists can go along to the court, hear a decision, and report it. I would have thought that that was known as free speech. I would have thought that any rational Government in New Zealand—and at least for this purpose I include the current Government—would think that was axiomatic.

I conclude on the point that this legislation is unnecessary. That is why National supports it with reservations. The most substantial comment I would like to make on this is that the Government had a choice today. It could have put forward this New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill, or it could have used this valuable House time to continue to advance the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. I suggest that the Law Society would have rather more interest in that bill, but the Government chose not to use Parliament’s time to debate it. The Government itself is saying that Parliament has a limited amount of time—not enough time to pass the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. That is what it is saying. It has said that to the nation at large and to the Law Society. Yet it has put this bill into the face of the Law Society. Now it is saying to the Law Society that there is no time for the Committee stage of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill—that it could not possibly be done in the time that Parliament has. I do not think that is true.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: It’s not true.

It is not true. Instead, the Government is saying to the Law Society that, in contrast, it does have time to spend hours and hours of House time dealing with the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill—a bill that, as I have indicated, actually is unnecessary. The council does not need legislative authority to publish the Supreme Court reports, anyway. The bill is merely designed to stop others from doing so without permission—as if that were an important thing to do, in any event.

I say to the Government that it has a warped sense of priorities. It is not willing to deal with issues of importance to the Law Society. That is cavalier treatment, in fact. It will not allow this House to deal with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill—it is denying the House time to debate the Committee stage. My colleague Dr Worth has made it abundantly clear that he is perfectly happy to have a reasoned and reasonable debate on that, but the Government is simply saying no. It is wasting the time of Parliament, which is valuable, by having it deal with legislation that is, like this bill, in a sense unnecessary.

Well, when a Government has reached the stage in the parliamentary year that the best it can do is put forward before the House a bill of this nature for its first reading, then I say to the Government: “Go, you’ve used up your time. You’ve used up the nation’s time. Let’s have an election and get rid of you.”

I will begin by making the Green position clear, which is that we are supporting this bill, just so there is no confusion about that. I would like to address some of the comments made by Mr Franks. I listened with a great deal of interest to his speech before the dinner break, and I think he made a number of interesting and useful points that are actually worth giving some consideration to. I was not quite so interested in his speech after the dinner break, because it was a bit of a stained fag-end of it, but I think he did raise some important points about monopolies and the development of a statutory monopoly.

The Greens are generally opposed to monopolies, which is one of the reasons we express such concern about corporate capitalism, which is all about, of course, creating monopolies. We listened to Mr Franks’ speech with some interest to see whether there were points so important that it would change our view of the bill. But I have to say that, in my view, in relation to judicial decisions and the implications for the wider society, it is important for there be a clearly authorised publication that can accurately report the courts’ decisions. I think really, quite simply, that is what this is about. Both the current status quo and this amendment are simply extending those provisions.

Mr Franks questioned whether this would mean that the standard media would not be able to report on courts. He talked about the National Business Review, I think it was, and its cynical view of the judiciary. Of course, that is fine. People are free to choose whatever propaganda they wish to read. I do not mean that in a derogatory way to the National Business Review. As far as I am concerned all media is propaganda, and people choose which flavour they are going to follow, whether it is the New Zealand Herald, whether it is al-Jazeera, Television One, Scoop, the Dominion Post, Indymedia, or the Guerrilla News Network. People are free to choose their sources of information, and that is quite right. And, of course, literate people in particular will mix it up on the basis that the more varied the sources of information, and the more varied the sources of propaganda, the broader and possibly more accurate picture that they will have.

But I have to say that I would not, personally, rely on any of those publications I have mentioned to give an accurate picture of a judicial decision by the Supreme Court on an issue of public interest and debate that people get passionate about. I would be very interested in their interpretations, their views, and their analyses, but I would not rely on it as an accurate report. I would want to have something that was more reliable. That is why I think that in this area of reporting judicial decisions it is important that there is clearly an authorised publication that people can rely on to accurately report the judicial proceedings. That is not to say that no other media should, or could not, report or comment on those decisions. I do not think that that is what this bill is at all intended to achieve.

If we go to the “General policy statement” in the bill, which is a good indication, it states: “The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting is responsible for producing an official series of reports of the key judgments of the higher courts in New Zealand. The New Zealand Law Reports provide the authoritative set of reports of key judgments of New Zealand’s higher courts—”. It further states: “The law reports assist judges, lawyers, and the public in gaining access to key court judgments.” That is really what this bill is about. It is very simple. We do not need to get too worked up about it, but that is really what it is about. If we go to the actual wording in the bill, clause 3, “Functions of the Council”, talks about the restrictions on publishing a series of reports. It does not say “report”, it says a “series of reports.” I think that is quite important because clearly it is not intending to cover a one-off article, or even, perhaps, a regular article. It is a series of reports. I think that is the key to this whole thing. Now it may be that we need to explore what that means. Is that sufficiently defined to ensure that it cannot capture the kinds of reporting that we would not want it to do?

I think that we can resolve these questions. It is really about simply extending the provisions that already exist in law in relation to the higher courts to our Supreme Court. I am very pleased that it does that, because the decisions of the Supreme Court are, of course, extremely important. This is our highest appellate court, so it is important that its decisions are publicly available in a way that people can rely on. And, of course, it is good because those decisions of the Supreme Court are of a very high quality and of an enormous precedent value.

I have to say that one of the things I am extremely proud of during my time in this House is the opportunity to support the establishment of the Supreme Court. I think it was a major progression for New Zealand. It was an excellent step. It was something that was not before its time, at all, and I am very proud that the Green Party played a key role in the passage of that legislation. I think the Supreme Court has already shown itself to be both independent and rigorous in its findings. The whole country noted with some irony that the first case heard by the court was the case brought by the Hon Richard Prebble and the ACT party. That was a cause of some humour around the country. Another key decision in that court has been in relation to Ahmed Zaoui. That decision demonstrated that this country upholds the rule of law and basic human rights.

So I am pleased that the Supreme Court has, by the decisions it has made, proved the virtue of the position of those of us who supported its establishment. I am very proud of the Green Party’s support for that, and I am pleased to see this bill, which will now provide for the authoritative publication and reporting of its decisions.

I stand on behalf of United Future to take a very brief call on the first reading of this bill. We are happy to support this first reading. We believe that any issues of concern are well able to be addressed at the select committee, and we look forward to being part of that process.

I wish to speak on this bill, and reiterate, as the Minister has done, that the existing Act for law reporting in New Zealand to be carried out by the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting is limited. The council currently reports the key judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which are recognised as New Zealand’s only official law reports. This bill will simply provide for the inclusion of the Supreme Court into the existing regime.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: No it doesn’t. Read the bill.

Mr Mapp has had his turn at speaking, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Indeed.

Publishing has been provided for under the Act since 1938.

To ensure the continued value and validity of New Zealand law reports it is essential that they include the key judgments of New Zealand’s final appellate court. The decisions of the Supreme Court will provide invaluable guidance to the lower courts as to the application and interpretation of legal principles. Without reliable publication of the judgments, the validity of case law and precedent is jeopardised and, as has been mentioned before by a previous speaker, there is the matter of access. This bill will enable the Council of Law Reporting to continue producing an authoritative and reliable set of key judgments of New Zealand’s higher courts.

The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill is not the hugest bill to come across our desks. It has a mere 3 clauses and some subclauses, and it is very difficult to think why it is getting such precedence at this stage when some other bills, such as the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill, need to come through the House significantly more quickly—as my colleagues Dr Richard Worth and Dr Wayne Mapp have already said.

The previous speaker from the Labour Party, despite her comments that this bill was all about ensuring that all sorts of reporting would be done in relation to the Supreme Court, seemed to have the very strange view that the decisions of the Supreme Court could not be reported without this bill, which, of course, is absolute rubbish. The fact is that anybody can do that, anyway—except once this bill is passed. One of the things I find quite strange about this bill is that it is not particularly empowering; it is all about what cannot be done. It is very disempowering. It goes on to say that the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting has this fantastic position of being able to report on Supreme Court decisions. Well, a lot of people will be saying: “So what?”. A lot of people will be saying: “Well, who else would want to do it, frankly?”.

💬 Hon Member: Who says that?

A lot of people say that. But, apparently, so many other people want to do it that now nobody will be able to unless the New Zealand Law Society says he or she can.

💬 Stephen Franks: What about the website?

Of course, that raises the issue of websites, and also of why other people cannot report on Supreme Court decisions. If anyone happens to look at the website of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, our former highest court, one can see that the Privy Council, very carefully, and obviously, in a very modern way, publishes all its reports on its website. So we do not need to have anybody else doing anything; those judgments are right there on the website available for those of us in New Zealand who want to read some really good decisions in the way that they are phrased, the way that they are succinct, to the point, do not muck around but get on with it—the way we like our decisions, really. Those decisions go straight on to the website; they do not need to have the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting in what amounts to a de facto monopoly situation.

So the bill seems very strange to me. I guess in this country we still have the idea that if we do not legislate for something to happen, then maybe it will not happen. It is a very strange way of looking at things. If the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting feels it is so in need of this bill, then I guess it can have it, but for the life of me I cannot understand why we are saying that the New Zealand Law Society may give its consent for someone else actually to publish the reports. It goes on to talk about the continuation of “the publication of a series of reports of decisions”, and these may be done by only the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting. What about all the people who report as they do now, for instance, on what is happening in the Employment Court, or the Family Court, or whatever? This bill says that they cannot do that without the permission of the New Zealand Law Society.

So, although we in the National Party have decided we will vote for the bill to go to the select committee, I am sure that our representatives on the Justice and Electoral Committee—which I presume it is going to—will be very interested to know why no one else can commence, or continue, the publication of a new series of reports of decisions. I can understand why there must always be an official version of judgments. That could be dealt with now by a website, or by the Supreme Court simply publishing its own reports. After all, as I understand it, the people over in the basement of the Supreme Court are not particularly busy—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: A slim volume.

As Dr Wayne Mapp says, they have a somewhat slim volume at the moment. Thank goodness for Mr Richard Prebble; otherwise, there would probably not be much in it at all. One has to wonder who is actually racing in to try to stop the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting from doing its job. The council could actually do the reporting anyway; it does not need permission to do so. This is a very archaic term. Parliament is spending a huge amount of money—about $1 million, no doubt, to put a bill through to become an Act—to give the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting the right to publish. I find that bizarre. Obviously, we want it to do the job so there is always an official record, but I see no reason at all why we would allow a bill that says nobody else is allowed to publish a series of reports to continue on from the select committee.

If we look back at the history of law reporting, particularly in the English courts, where all sorts of different reports came through—no doubt the lawyers in the House will be able to confirm this for me, and I see Dr Worth nodding his head—we see that we used to have the Elizabethan reports and different things. There is a history of different publications, sometimes for the same cases. But there was the freedom to allow the market to decide that people would have these reports.

This bill seems to be unnecessary. With that, I have to say that National will support it going to a select committee. However, I am sure that Dr Worth and our other representative will look very closely at why we need to have this bill.

I rise to support this bill. It is obvious that tonight in the House I am surrounded by lawyers of some repute, who have come flocking down because this bill has really got them going. These provisions, as I have heard others in the debate tonight mention, could have been in a Statutes Amendment Bill or an omnibus bill, but they happen to be in the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill. I was amazed to hear learned lawyers in the House tonight say that it is not important to have decisions of courts published.

💬 Judith Collins: Don’t misrepresent us.

I am not implying that the previous speaker said that, but it has been mentioned in the House tonight. This bill is very important as it includes the Supreme Court findings in those that are to be published in a set of reports from the law courts. That is a very important fact, and I support this bill going to the select committee.

It was not really the intention of New Zealand First to take a call on this bill. We saw it as being a relatively straightforward bill to go to a select committee, and we will be supporting it going there. But from listening to the Government speakers, I changed my mind. First of all, the Minister told us that the report-back date was to be October 2005, but within a few minutes he stood up and said he had made a mistake, that he had read the first draft of his speech, that the second draft did not contain the report-date of October 2005, and that the report-back date was open. So that gave us the impression that there is a degree of confusion in the Government ranks in terms of this bill.

💬 Steve Chadwick: He amended it.

He amended it, but basically it was quite an amendment to stand up in his opening speech and say that the report-back date was October 2005, then 10 minutes or so later stand up and say that there is no time on the report-back date.

I want to make it quite clear that New Zealand First did not support the Supreme Court concept. We thought that the Privy Council, based in London, served this country exceedingly well over many, many years, and there should have been—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: There should have been a referendum.

—as my colleague has just said, a referendum is needed if we want to change these sorts of things. New Zealanders should have been asked whether they wanted to change from having the Privy Council to having our own Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will cost a lot more, and this is a case of the nanny State thinking it knows a good deal more than the average New Zealander.

💬 Ron Mark: They think that, in Labour.

My colleague, who has some quite close insight into how Labour thinks, is telling me that Labour knows better than everybody, almost all the time. But in many, many cases recent legislation has proven—and the forthcoming election, whenever that is, will prove even more—that New Zealanders resent being taken for granted. They like to have their wishes, to some degree, adhered to. We have heard all the legal arguments from our lawyer colleagues on this side of the House on the merits and some of the concerns about this bill. One of the concerns that has been raised with New Zealand First is whether, when the reports come out, they would ever cover a person who might well be protected by the Clean Slate Bill. Would that leave an opening for employers to say: “I want to look at High Court judgments and Supreme Court judgments to see whether Joe Bloggs”—or whoever it is—“has been had up.”? It is a reasonable question, certainly from a sea captain. I am not a lawyer, like my colleagues. We would like to know whether this legislation will keep this thing opened up and transparent or whether there is some devious move to stop that sort of information from being tabulated and kept on some databasesomewhere.

This is only a two-page bill. New Zealand First sees that it is an issue that should go to a select committee, and we feel we would be unwise to restrict it. On that point New Zealand First will be supporting this bill to a select committee, although we have some concerns.

I stand along with my colleagues on this side of the House to support this bill going to a select committee. I congratulate the Minister in charge of this bill on bringing it to the House. It is a long-awaited bill and I am sure that the legal profession has been waiting some time for it. I heard earlier on—if I am not wrong—that Dr Richard Worth and his colleague Wayne Mapp would ordinarily support a move of this kind, had it not been for National Party policy.

I also feel it necessary to respond to the previous speaker’s comments about the Supreme Court and the Privy Council. He said that the Supreme Court would be a lot more expensive to run than the Privy Council. But I am sure he is aware that the cost of administering the Privy Council is met by British taxpayers—his countrymen. I think that he would not want the British taxpayer to meet the cost of access to our highest court of appeal, and I am sure that he was not being very serious in making those statements.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is quite simply this. When the Hon Rick Barker, who is in charge of this bill and this process, stood to speak at the commencement of this debate, he said the bill had to be reported back by 31 October. I made some comment about that, because certainly this Parliament will not be here on 31 October. He then rose on a point of order to say there was no report-back date. In the short time that has been available, I have not trundled through the Standing Orders to determine what the position might be, but there is not, in fact, a default position, when a Minister says there is no report-back date. So we face an issue here that I think calls for your wise and considered judgment. I raise that issue, with the opportunity of being heard further when you have given some early indication of how you consider these issues.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that issue. It is a procedural one and, accordingly, a valid point of order. The point is that the Minister does not have to adhere to the statement that was made; he was simply incorrect. The 6-month Standing Order limit is the default position.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): A fresh point of order?

Yes, a fresh point of order. The Minister has abandoned the default position by saying there is no report-back date. It is not a question of there being the default report-back date; he has made it very clear that there is to be no report-back date.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I cannot make it any clearer. That is in the Standing Orders. The Minister was incorrect. The default position is 6 months. That is in the Standing Orders. It is for the Business Committee to extend the time if necessary.

Mr Assistant Speaker, before you finally come to a view on that, may I ask you what the relevant Standing Order is. We have this interesting position—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Can I interrupt the member. The Minister was incorrect in his statement. The Standing Orders are quite clear on the issue. Standing Order 289(1) states: “A select committee must finally report to the House on a bill within six months of the bill being referred to …”. Despite the fact that the Minister said there was no report-back date, there is a report-back date, it is within 6 months, and it is the one we will adhere to. It is the one that I take was the intention of the Government. It was its intention that that date apply.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you just clarify, then, exactly what the motion is that we are to vote on? If the motion is to refer the bill to a select committee, then I think that is unexceptionable. If the motion is as the Minister mentioned it, which was to refer the bill to a select committee with no report-back date, impliedly it would be suspending the Standing Order for this bill, and I do not think that was intended. So we simply need to know that the motion is not exactly as the Minister moved it; it is as modified by deleting the words “no report-back date”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Yes. As I said before, the Minister was incorrect. The motion is simply to approve the first reading, and in doing that he covered the fact that he wanted the bill referred to the Government Administration Committee. No doubt, that will be moved by the Minister in due course.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have just been looking at Standing Order 289(1), which, as you quite rightly stated, states a bill must be reported back to the House within 6 months. The issue that has been raised by Dr Worth is not so much whether it is 6 months or the October date; the difficulty is that Parliament will have an election no later than 24 September this year, so it would seem that the Minister has to provide a date inside that date. It cannot be later than that. Of course, if the matter has not been dealt with before the election, there are, obviously, the carry-over procedures. The Minister cannot just provide no date at all. It seems to me that he has to provide a date that is inside 24 September, which is the latest possible date for the existence of the forty-seventh Parliament.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, I do not need any assistance on the point made by Dr Wayne Mapp; I am quite clear on that. I thank him for raising it. It is hardly relevant. Those issues will be a matter for the new Parliament. No Minister is under any obligation to provide a date. If he or she does not provide a date, the relevant Standing Order applies, and that Standing Order is quite clear that the due date is 6 months later.

Except that 6 months is beyond the election.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I have just told the member that that is not relevant. The new Parliament will decide that, in any case. It may not make sense, but it does not mean that it cannot be done—I put it that way. In the view of some it might not make sense, but that, too, is not relevant.

A party vote was called for on the question that the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek clarification on behalf of National. Are we voting for this bill to be referred back to us within the default period of 6 months? Is that a substantive part of the motion?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): That is a Standing Order of the House.

I know we are voting for it to be referred to the Government Administration Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Dr Worth, we are not voting on that matter at all at this point, as you well know. You know what the motion is. What you are referring to was simply an indication from the Minister of his preference for the report-back date of the committee, and he was required to indicate that when he spoke. This motion has nothing to do with that. This motion is that the bill be read a first time.

, on behalf of the Associate Minister of Justice I move, That the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I missed the committee. The preference of the Minister who moved the first reading was the Government Administration Committee.

, on behalf of the Associate Minister of Justice In which case, I move, That the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you. The question—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): You are interrupting me again when I am in the midst of a vote, but I will take your point of order.

I am very much obliged. Is a report-back date proposed by the Minister for the referral of this bill to the Government Administration Committee—which comes to National as a bit of a surprise?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No. The report-back date is something that should be indicated by the Minister moving the first reading motion. We have covered that ground, and we know when the bill will be reported back, which is 6 months hence—that is the outside date.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I recall that when the Associate Minister of Justice made his opening announcement, he not only tabulated a date but also stipulated a select committee. He also outlined the days and weeks that the committee would work. We now know that the date was wrong, and we have heard from the Hon Phil Goff that there is confusion over the committee. Do we take it that we now have to work every hour that God has made, to get this bill through, or has that changed, as well?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that, but I think we are quite clear on where we intend to go. Minister Goff has correctly moved that the bill be referred to a select committee.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Initially, the Hon Phil Goff indicated that the select committee was the Justice and Electoral Committee; then he changed his mind and corrected the motion to make sure it was the Government Administration Committee. I seek clarification from you as to how that process works. Would the Minister of Justice have to seek leave of the House to change the committee that the bill is to go to, given that he indicated initially that it was to go to the Justice and Electoral Committee? Or do we simply change the select committee, based on the Minister’s instruction?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Minister Goff was in error, but he had not finished putting his motion. You may have noticed that I tried to clarify a matter with him, which, indeed, probably assisted him. We have arrived at the correct position where he has put a motion.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.