New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the Government Administration Committee for its efficient consideration of this bill. The bill makes minor amendments to the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Act and, in the light of this, the committee recommends no changes to the bill. The committee considered and heard one submission on the bill. The sole submitter agreed wholeheartedly with the amendments contained in the bill.

Although some members may be familiar with law reports, I wish to point out the important role law reports play in our legal system. The law of New Zealand is made up of two main sources: firstly, statutes, which are enacted by this House and, secondly, common law, which we inherited from England and which has been added to by decisions of the New Zealand courts. The common law is also known as case law. Case law, together with the 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. This leads to greater certainty and fairness, which are two important principles in New Zealand’s legal system. Law reports provide an important record of case law and precedent. They provide an official record of the key decisions of our courts. They do so in much the same way as the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates—known popularly as Hansard—record the debates of this House. Aside from promoting the fair and equal treatment of citizens, the use of authorised law reports also provides accountability by opening up the judiciary’s decisions to scrutiny. Without a reliable publication of judgments, the validity of case law and precedent is jeopardised.

The New Zealand Law Reports have been published since 1881, and in 1938 their preparation and publication was established on a formal statutory basis. Since then the number of key decisions reported has grown significantly. Until 1971 all reported judgments could be contained in one annual volume. Reports are published initially in several parts, then consolidated into volumes. From 1972 to 1988 two volumes were required annually, then from 2004 three volumes were required. From 2005 four volumes have been required annually. 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 principal source of official law reports.

The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill provides for the inclusion of the Supreme Court decisions into the existing regime of reporting and publishing that is provided for under the Act. Currently, all decisions of the Supreme Court are available on the website of the Ministry of Justice, and that practice will continue. The Council of Law Reporting will take the text of the court’s decisions and add high-quality headnotes and summaries of counsel’s arguments. Given the importance of the Supreme Court’s decisions, those reports will need to be of the highest quality, and the council has agreed to a protocol with the court to allow judges the opportunity to check each report before publication.

Currently, only the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting is able to publish the judgments of higher courts. The bill contains three exceptions to that authority. The bill reaffirms the ability of the New Zealand Law Society to authorise the alternative publication of the judgments of those courts if the council has failed to publish, or to arrange to be published, the decisions of the courts within a reasonable time and for a reasonable cost. The bill also clarifies the ability of the New Zealand 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. The third exception relates to judgments of the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice, following consultation with the Law Society, may authorise the alternative publication of Supreme Court judgments, where appropriate. Again, I would like to thank the Government Administration Committee for its timely consideration of the bill. I commend the bill to the House.

When I reflect on that informative, although somewhat cryptic, address given by the Minister, Rick Barker, one has to reflect on the nature of the Order Paper that we have today. I think it very much reflects the flavour of this Government. It really does not have a big agenda. I do not think we could seriously say that those items are of great moment to the land.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Show me your policy.

By that I mean, for the benefit of the Minister of Justice, the totality of the legislation on the Order Paper. We might say that what the Government has decided to spend the next 3 years doing—and I concede it is a necessary thing to do—is using the opportunity of its lack of majority to repair the legal toolkit and legislation of New Zealand. Some people might well say that that is what Parliament should be doing, and that Parliament should be making sure that our law is complete, up to date, and with surplusages removed, and that the law is corrected. At a fundamental level, I do not think that that is why people send us to Parliament. This legislation is a necessary thing to do, certainly, but in many respects it is adjunctive work.

In Britain and in Australia they have different mechanisms to deal with this kind of legislation. I do not believe that any party in Parliament will be opposing this bill—maybe I am wrong, but I would be surprised. In Britain they would deal with this sort of bill by referring it to what is known as the Main Committee, which is essentially an adjunctive body of the main House of Commons. The bill would be progressed through there, because it is simply a non-controversial repair of the legal toolkit.

I know that the issue has been considered in New Zealand. It was considered by the Standing Orders Committee, and it was suggested that we do a similar procedure to that of Britain, as well. So, for instance, the Government would work out what legislation would essentially be adopted by consensus in Parliament and refer that legislation to a situation where there would be a much lower quorum than exists in the House at the moment, to be dealt with, in essence, on Thursday evenings, outside normal hours. That would be the way we could repair the legal toolkit, and I can think of all sorts of Law Commission reports—indeed, some of them are on this Order Paper—that would fit into that case.

But this Order Paper actually says that this Government has essentially run out of ideas. It has no big, bold initiatives. Government members are now reduced to being the repair and maintenance people of the New Zealand statutes. It is worthy work, but I suggest to the Minister that perhaps it is not really what the voters expect of us in this House.

I want to refer directly to aspects of the bill itself. It is certainly technical. Obviously, Supreme Courts judgments have to be reported. Of course, some of them have already been reported. I noted that the Minister said that the volumes of the New Zealand Law Reports have expanded. Initially there was one volume a year, but it is now four volumes. I make this point, which perhaps the council could consider as the volume grows. Clearly, with a Supreme Court relative to the Privy Council there will be a larger volume of reports. I would expect all those decisions to be reported because of their significance, and I think there may well come a time when the New Zealand Law Reports will have to be split into two sections. One section would deal with the court of originating jurisdiction—in essence, the High Court. So we would have a High Court series of reports, then we would have another series that would essentially be appellate reports, from the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The current system would be broken into its two component parts: the originating jurisdiction of the High Court; then a separate series of reports from the appellate courts. That is the practice in a number of other jurisdictions where the volume has sufficiently increased, and I suggest that that should be the case when there are four or five volumes a year. There are four now and there will be an increased level from the Supreme Court with about 30 decisions a year, realistically.

Quite a number of those decisions are merely right of appeal or leave to appeal decisions, but they are important in their own right. Lawyers, the public, and the ministry need to understand in what circumstances leave to appeal will be granted. I note there is a very interesting article in the New Zealand Law Journal this month, which analyses precisely how the Supreme Court is dealing with issues around leave to appeal.

In the few minutes I have remaining I want to turn to some important constitutional issues, because they deal with the origins of the Supreme Court. [Interruption] The member can read the Mapp Report for important constitutional issues in relation to the Whangamata decision, which my colleague Sandra Goudie did me the favour of putting into Hansard, as to the way Ministers should exercise discretions when courts have made decisions.

The Supreme Court was established essentially by the Government forcing it through, using its majority. Certainly there was consultation through the select committee process, but there was no super majority. There was no real intent to gain the consensus of the House. Crucially, there was no sense of putting it to the public by way of referenda. I appreciate that I am reciting historical facts here, but I want to lead to the next point, and I know that the Attorney-General will be interested in it.

I believe that we have to develop better practices, and by that I mean formalised practices, around issues of appointments to various important constitutional positions. For instance, the Ombudsman, who is an officer of Parliament, is always appointed by a consensual process of all parties. That is a good thing. Similarly that is the case with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, with the Controller and Auditor-General, and now also with the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security must be, by law, a retired High Court judge. So we have, by convention, said that certain important positions, which are constitutional in nature and important checks, should have a consensual approach to their appointments.

I suggest there are other important constitutional appointments. Justices of the Supreme Court are clearly in that category. They are final judges and, in the words of a famous American jurist, they are infallible because they are final. That is very different, I suggest, from the position of High Court judges, who are always subject to review. So in the case of Supreme Court justices—and I would say in the case of appointments to all the superior courts—there ought to be a more formal consultative process, so that those appointments are made with some degree of consensus rather than just by the exercise of the Attorney-General’s Crown prerogative, as currently exists.

I suggest that the position of Governor-General is also in the same model. I am aware that there is the quiet convention of a certain level of consultation. However, it is time for the appointment of a new Governor-General—I know that various colleagues of mine have been running polls, one might say, on that—and I think a more formal process is needed in those kinds of things.

A bill of this nature, although technical, gives one the opportunity to consider and deliberate on how our constitution is evolving, because it is evolving in a significant and fast-paced way, which, frankly, has been done unilaterally to a very large extent. I say to the Government that in the environment of MMP it should think again, and develop more consultative and publicly open processes. I am not talking about the US approach to appointing Supreme Court judges. Clearly, that would not suit our system. But I am saying that we can do better than we are at the moment and that maybe in an MMP Parliament as finely balanced as this one is, this is the time to develop new procedures.

That was the author of the Mapp Report, and that speech was a demonstration as to why it is one report that has a declining circulation. It starts out by indicating that it has some sense of direction with the title Mapp Report, and it winds to a conclusion that should really be attached at the very beginning because the rest of it just does not carry any substance. One would think, after endeavouring to listen to strains of logic that happened to wander into the last speech, that this was a bill of some constitutional importance.

This bill is constitutionally important in only one respect. It brings the decisions of the Supreme Court into the ambit of the official reports—nothing more, nothing less. As the last speaker wound his way around his ruminations of constitutional imperfections in this country, one tended to lose sight of the role of the official reports. It is important that we keep our eye on the ball in this House, and it is particularly important, in relation to a simple bill that brings in the reports of our top court—a court that is performing far better than its critics could ever acknowledge—that that court’s decisions, which are quite formative in the development of our law, be available in the official reports.

The official reports are quite an interesting concept, and all reports, as they are published, involve some editing. If the editing process has a fountainhead of officialdom, then there is some consistency and they can be relied upon. The danger of not including the Supreme Court reports in official publications is that we could get transcripts of the original judgment, précis of the judgment, and other publishers’ versions of the judgment. We may tend to lose the thread of what is important in the reports and their reliability also diminishes.

So this bill is a simple mop-up operation to include reports of Supreme Court judgments in the list of official reports. We do not have to go very much further than the Court of Appeal (Civil) Rules. Rule 42, “Bundle of authorities”, simply states in subclause (3): “If an official report (for example, NZLR, CLR, AC, SCR) of a case is available, that report is to be used for the bundle of authorities.”

Hereafter the New Zealand Law Reports will now include decisions of the Supreme Court, or at least those that are significant—no more and no less. We do not need the Mapp Report to take us all around the country and to ruminate on the state of our constitution. This bill is a simple piece of legislation to bring the Supreme Court into the ambit of the official reports, no more, no less, and this bill should not tarry any further in its progress through the House.

I am sorry that I am unable to please my friend Mr Fairbrother by cutting the debate short at this stage, because there are probably five people in New Zealand who have a deep and abiding interest in law reporting, and, regretfully, I am one of those people. So I want to say something about the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting, which I served on from 1988 to about 1996. It is an interesting body. The Attorney-General is a member. I recall that in 1990, after National won office, Paul East turned up to his first meeting as Attorney-General. I think it was the first time in about 30 years that an Attorney-General had attended a meeting of the Council of Law Reporting, but I do commend to Mr Parker at least one attendance during his term at the meetings of the council. I am sure he will find it a riveting experience.

The Solicitor-General is also a member. A judge of the High Court is ordinarily the chair of the committee, and nominees of the Law Society turn up, as well. In its quiet, unassuming way, the Council of Law Reporting has been doing its job very well over the years. Indeed, the bill seeks to amend the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Act, which is probably one of the oldest pieces of legislation on the statute book at the present time.

As various speakers have said, its primary task is to publish the New Zealand Law Reports, and that is a task that has grown over the years, with the increase in the number of cases before our courts probably reflecting that we have become a more litigious society, and that, regrettably, with the word processor and dictaphones and so on, judgments have become much longer than in the past. The Council of Law Reporting used to authorise the publication of one volume of statutes, and that practice continued until about 1972. Then in 1973 two volumes were published, and there were two volumes until the early 1990s when there were three volumes. I have no doubt that before too long there will probably be a need for a fourth volume, especially, as Dr Mapp says, with the development of the Supreme Court and the increased number of judgments that will come from that third tier of appeal.

A number of distinguished New Zealanders have served as editors of the New Zealand Law Reports over the years. One such person is the late Rt Hon Frank O’Flynn, who, during the time between losing the Kapiti seat in 1975 and taking over Gerald O’Brien’s seat in Island Bay in 1978, served as editor of the law reports. Perhaps Mr O’Flynn was a little too busy at the time, because if one looks, for example, at the 1977 law reports, one will see a very large number of extremely long cases. I think it is fair to say that the law reports got a little behind at that time. Another great New Zealander who served as editor of the law reports for many years and did a great job was the late Maurice O’Brien QC.

As the general policy statement of the bill states, it is extremely important that we have an official series of reports. According to the explanatory note of the bill: “The law reports assist judges, lawyers, and the public in gaining access to key court judgments.” The essence of the New Zealand Law Reports is that there is a selection process, and only the key judgments that help inform the judges, the lawyers, and the public will be published. I know that at one stage when Sir Geoffrey Palmer was Attorney-General, he thought that everything should be reported, but I do not think that would be a particularly wise idea. The essence of selection is extremely important.

While I was on the council, the New Zealand Law Reports were put in electronic form, and there is increasing recourse to access to that form of report. During the time I was on the council, and indeed for most of the period of the history of the Council of Law Reporting, the council has delegated the actual task of preparing the reports to Butterworths, more lately known as LexisNexis.

So with those preliminary views in mind, I turn to the functions of the council. As Mr Fairbrother said, the bill is quite simple legislation, because it seeks to amend section 12 of the substantive Act by permitting the council to take steps to publish reports of decisions of the Supreme Court. So the first point about clause 3—and no objection could be taken to it—is that the council continues to have primary responsibility for publishing the New Zealand Law Reports and for publishing reports of Supreme Court judgments. Any body that is currently publishing Supreme Court judgments without the consent of the Law Society will have to get that consent. I do not think many companies would come within that category. A couple of specialist reports may have occasionally published Supreme Court judgments, and maybe they will have to go back and get ex post facto consent.

Under clause 5, the Law Society can give its consent to other organisations or companies to publish reports on two grounds. The first is if the council has failed to publish or arrange to publish adequate reports within a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. I do not think that will ever be a problem with the council. The second ground is if the Law Society considers it appropriate to grant consent for a particular decision to be published in a particular publication. From time to time the Law Society will give consent for the publication of specialist law reports in special circumstances—for example, the Criminal Reports of New Zealand or the Procedure Reports of New Zealand, which are a specialist set of law reports dealing with procedural judgments of the various courts of New Zealand.

I note with interest section 12(6), inserted by clause 3, which provides that the Chief Justice may after consultation with the Law Society authorise a person other than the council to publish reports of decisions of the Supreme Court. I personally hope that does not happen. I do not think New Zealand needs another set of reports. The critical thing for judges and practitioners is that the New Zealand Law Reports should be up to date and published in a timely fashion. I note what Dr Mapp said—that in some jurisdictions, such as in England, there are specialist reports series for appellate courts. The appeal cases in England, for example, deal with decisions of the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, and the Privy Council. It is too soon to say whether we need a specialist set of appellate reports for the Supreme Court. That will probably be dependent on the amount of cases that it generates. My tentative view is that it will probably not be needed here for a number of years. But I do not know that it would necessarily be a good thing if the Chief Justice started authorising persons or companies other than the council to start publishing reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court.

So, as Mr Fairbrother quite fairly says, this is a simple, mechanical piece of legislation. It is appropriate to note the work that the council has done in a quiet, unobtrusive way over many years, and the importance of the New Zealand Law Reports. The law reports will be enhanced by the addition of decisions of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which has now been going for almost 2 years. The reports that it has dealt with in the 2 years of its existence have been very interesting and very important indeed. So National supports the bill.

Ā, tēnā koe Mr Speaker, ā, tēnā anō tātou o te Whare.

[Greetings to you Mr Speaker and to us as well of the House.]

I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill. First of all I congratulate all those who have spoken on it. I can understand the Minister, in his opening speech, not taking the full time allocated to him. Other than the Minister, all those who have spoken come from the legal profession. Now I can understand why lawyers enjoy speaking, although that never ceases to amaze me. We have here tonight a bill that is little more than a one-page piece of legislation, yet people have taken a long time to speak about their support or otherwise for it. I just signal that New Zealand First will not take the full time allocated to it.

This bill amends the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Act 1938, and it adds the Supreme Court to the list of New Zealand courts in the legislation. I ask this question of the House, particularly in terms of the first sentence of the explanatory note of the bill, which 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.” I know this question would have been an oversight on the part of my whanaunga from the Māori Party, so I will ask it just to jog his memory. Where is the Māori Land Court, and in particular the Māori Appellate Court? If I am to consider what is written here, that particular court is obviously not considered to be a higher court of New Zealand.

However, the bill provides for the publication of reports, and adds the Supreme Court to the list. The Chief Justice can allow alternative publication of Supreme Court decisions after consulting the New Zealand Law Society, and the society can authorise others to publish reports of decisions of the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court, provided that the council has not been timely in the publication of reports or has not published them at a reasonable cost.

In conclusion, I want to ask another question. One cannot presume it will be the case that the reports will be in Māori. I know they will be written in English. But there is no reference to a Māori version, and no assurance has been given that the reports will also be written in Māori, even though Māori is one of the two official languages of this country. Having said that, once again I reaffirm the stance of New Zealand First in supporting the bill, and I do so on its behalf.

Māori have an expression that reminds us—Mr Speaker, can I just put this off for a minute and defer to Simon, and come back in a minute? Raruraru ana taku mīhini.

[My machine has malfunctioned.]

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am happy to accommodate the member, if that is the way he wishes to move. I seek leave accordingly.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection?

💬 Hon Chris Carter: Could you just repeat that please, Mr Speaker?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are just officially doing a change-round for the call.

💬 Simon Power: I can help the Minister. Mr Harawira simply wants the computer to work, and in the interim I will make a contribution while we wait for him to get his notes organised.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no objection.

It is with some regret that I was not a member of the Government Administration Committee when it considered the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill, because the contributions we have heard this evening indicate that members of that committee, and those with a specific interest in the Council of Law Reporting, have indeed taken the opportunity to converse on a range of issues that are significant to, as my colleague Mr Finlayson said, perhaps a limited number of people—including to himself, as I believe he referred.

But on some matters we simply require the House to pass legislation in order that the effectiveness of organisations such as the council can continue to add value to New Zealand’s lawmaking, case law, and common law. As any law student will tell us, picking up for the first time one of the bound documents of the New Zealand Law Reports strikes fear into the heart of those who are studying their first law subject. Grasping one of the New Zealand Law Reports and working one’s way around the different parts to the reports is probably the first step in one’s legal career. Of course, it is the committee’s view that the monopoly for the council to produce those reports is justified, largely because, as Mr Finlayson indicated, a high-quality report has been produced for some time. It would be of little consequence or of little help if a range of different producers of reports were fighting over the same material.

I do wonder, though, about the timing of the passing of the legislation. The Minister of Justice may be able to take another call and help me out here—or I should probably say the Minister for Courts, because it was that Minister who actually made the first contribution. I wonder whether there is some particular time frame within which the legislation must be passed. I say that because when one looks at the Order Paper, one finds a miserly 21 bills on it—in fact, fewer than 21 now that several of them have passed through their third reading tonight. One has to ask the question of whatever happened to the Conservation (Protection of Trout as a Non-commercial Species) Amendment Bill, and why it continues to languish at No. 20 on the Order Paper, when I would have thought that had the trout been in need of real protection, that particular bill would have moved up the Order Paper some considerable way. In fact, I would have thought that the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill could well make way for that particular legislation.

Although not a Government bill, I notice also that the Human Rights (Gender Identity) Amendment Bill has continued to slide into the abyss, and now sits well below the line on members’ day. That is strange, given that we have only three members’ orders of the day sitting above the line. That means that something must have occurred for that bill to be rendered below the line on the members’ list, and it would seem that it is occupying a spot that could be used for another valuable members’ bill to be drawn and debated.

So although, as I said at the start of my speech, I regret that I was not a member of the Government Administration Committee that considered the bill, I am sure that Hone Harawira is ready now to make a contribution that will no doubt clarify some of the issues around the essential need for the bill to pass in such a timely fashion, given the huge number of bills sitting underneath it that could have done with the House’s time, as they concern equally important matters. It will be interesting to see where they move to.

I conclude by saying that it is only right and proper that the new Supreme Court is able to publish its judgments in similar ways to other New Zealand courts, although I do not imagine that the bound version of the New Zealand Law Reports will grow by a huge size, given that full judgments from the Supreme Court are not exactly pouring out at a rate of knots. It will be interesting to see exactly what impact that will have, and whether, in fact, many people around New Zealand will have to have their shelving adjusted.

Māori have an expression that reminds us about matters of reporting, accountability, and even transparency: ehara i te mea, he kotahi tangata nāna i whakaara i te pō—it is not the responsibility of only one person to be alert to danger; everyone shares in that responsibility.

Those issues are at the forefront of our thinking when we look at the bill, as is the importance of reporting major judgments from our higher courts, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Land Valuation Tribunal. I take up the point raised by my colleague Mr Paraone about why the Māori Appellate Court is not included there, or the Māori Land Court. It is not the case of only one person—whether that person be the Chief Justice or the Attorney-General. Justice for all requires that all have access to justice. As I said in my last speech, it is about collective ownership and responsibility. It is a case of our lawmakers being held to account by those who design the law, those who implement the law, and those who bear the brunt of the law.

There are three key points that the Māori Party wants to raise regarding the bill. One is how Māori benefit from the law reports. Some of my mates will think that I am off my rocker to say that there is a strong link between reports of the key judgments of the higher courts of the land and whānau, hapū, and iwi. But looking in the index, one can see the topics Māori and Māori land. Reading further, one will find such topics as alienation, customary Māori rights, jurisdiction of the Māori Appellate Court, succession, and the Treaty of Waitangi. All of those matters are relevant to our ability as a party to defend Māori rights and advance Māori interests for the benefit of all who live in Aoteoroa. These are critical matters for our history and our ongoing advancement, and, as such, we must do everything we can to ensure that the information is accessible, open, and transparent. Our respect for rangatiratanga, our commitment to self-determination, requires that court judgments should be subject to the scrutiny of Māori through being published.

That brings me to my second issue, which is access to quality information. The bill is set up to ensure that the law reports assist judges, lawyers, and the public in gaining access to key court judgments. Gaining access to information should not just be a matter of presenting official reports in specialist or other publications. Gaining access to power, which after all comes from information, must be a bit more creative than simply opening up the reports of decisions of the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Land Valuation Tribunal. Māori have their own alternative publications that include summaries of those reports, and I want to acknowledge here the contribution that the Māori Law Review has played, in being a report of law affecting Māori, since December 1993. And some in this House would say: “If all else fails, try Google.” I am aware that the electronic coverage of New Zealand law reports starts from 1958. I am also aware that there is a very active Māori Internet presence, through new sites such as Ngā Kōrero te Wā, Te Poutatara, Te Karere Ipurangi, and Irirangi.net, the network of Māori radio stations.

But, in truth, Māori do not have easy access to the Internet, because generally Māori do not have computers. Therefore, they are not heavy users of the Internet. So I think that if this House is really committed to democratic representation, to the disclosure of information, and to accountability, maybe we need to think a bit wider than the net that does not actually catch any fish.

Fortunately, there are ways for Māori to be able to access information other than by computer or published decisions. I have to be a bit concerned about the sneaky suspicion of law by stealth, which was touched on in the Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3), with the possibility that judgments could be heard in empty courtrooms. For significant decisions, nothing quite compares with the strength of hearing views face to face, kanohi ki te kanohi—not over the wire, not in specialist law journals, but actually in person. Is that a radical idea? Then, that is what the Māori Party is known for.

The final point I want to raise is simply to reiterate the importance of having open judgments and a formalised procedure to report court decisions accurately. On that point, we have been interested in arguments from other members regarding the development of a statutory monopoly. We believe in decisions being reported in order to uphold the critical values of integrity and fairness, and we have to ask, therefore, about the legitimacy of the Attorney-General chairing the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting, and what effect that might have on blocking any reports of unpopular Supreme Court decisions. We know full well how ministerial interventions can prevent those decisions and reports that Ministers do not like from ever seeing the light of day. We have only to look at the closing the gaps reports that Te Puni Kōkiri produced across the Government sector—which never saw the light of day—to know that bad news does not actually make the news. So we raised the issue about the council’s monopoly over the publication of key judgments from New Zealand’s higher courts. Competition can help ensure the provision of quality information and the holding of law writers to account, so that the unpalatable actually sees the light of day. Having access to quality information means that we do not have to airbrush stories to make them into good news. The Māori Party will support the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill, in the interests of ensuring access to information.

Bill read a second time.