Judicature Modernisation Bill

Tēnā koe e Te Heamana o Te Komiti o Te Whare nei. It is a pleasure to stand in the Committee stage of the Judicature Modernisation Bill, and I want to turn my attention to one part of the justice Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 197, in particular Part 3, the provisions around judicial review procedures.

First of all, can I acknowledge the Justice and Electoral Committee—in particular, one point made by the Labour Party minority view, and, in particular, the omission from the purposes of clause 3 of any reference to a commitment to parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, judicial independence, and the Treaty of Waitangi. It occurred to me that in looking at judicial review procedures it would be helpful, I believe, for these procedures to have some commitment to those elements, particularly—for me—to the Treaty of Waitangi. We just heard Poto Williams talking about reviewing the principles in her maiden speech. I think that helpful for every Māori electorate MP—indeed, more than Māori MPs and MPs who come to this House and talk about the Treaty of Waitangi. I thought, in looking at the judicial review procedures, how having an overview or a commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi in the purpose of this bill would give more enhancement for the judges carrying out the reviews to have consideration for these parts of the clauses, which are not there.

I decided to have a look at the whole process of judicial reviews, and it goes back a very long way in common law, as I understand it. In 1972 the Judicature Amendment Act 1972 was put in place. This modernisation bill repeals that Act, but it replaces it with a whole new part within the Judicature Modernisation Bill, which is wholly appropriate. It is a very important part of our judicial processes. I know about some more recent cases, particularly in the education system, where decisions that have been made by the Minister have been challenged through these processes. I think it is important that these processes are retained and are maintained, that they are updated and that the language is changed where appropriate. Although some of the language, to me, does not make it any less or more clear, I think it is just the modern language that we use around this.

I think this process is very important, as I say, and needs to be within the bill. The whole bill takes a collection of Acts and modernises them in a way that is appropriate for 2016. Some of these parts of the bill—as I say, this one is from 1972, and others go back a lot longer, over 100 years ago. I stand in support of this part of this bill, but with the note that it would be much better to have consideration for the elements that are not actually there—mainly, for me, the Treaty of Waitangi. Kia ora.

I am pleased to take a call in this Committee stage of the Judicature Modernisation Bill. I do note that this is a significant piece of legislation. It has been a long time in the making, but it also goes all the way back, I guess, to the pillars of our constitution—with the courts. I was surprised to learn, just by way of trivia, that it goes all the way back to the year after the Treaty, when the courts were first established. I found that quite fascinating—those were the first measures that our young colony took: to set up and establish our High Court. The law has been updated significantly only twice since 1841. It was done in the 1880s and then we had the Judicature Act of 1908, which we are now finally modernising through the passage of this bill.

This is quite a sizable piece of a bill, but I have been doing some speed-reading. I do want to actually focus on what I have picked up in Part 1. I do remember—it is a proud moment for anyone who gets admitted to the Bar and becomes a barrister and solicitor. That is quite a proud moment—and I do think back to many years ago when I signed a roll and took the oath, over the road there. It is nice, as a member who has practised and is part of the legal community, as a solicitor in years gone by, that we are updating and modernising our court system. Part 1 deals with putting all of our senior courts into their own Act of Parliament. That is a very sensible way of structuring all of the sequential amendments that are taking part. So Part 1 consolidates all of our senior courts—which are the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court—into one piece of legislation, and it goes into great detail also around the appointment of judges.

That is where I want to pick up. If we look at clause 6A(1), I just have a question for the Minister of Justice, which is in relation to the actual number of judges. In that clause it says that the total number of judges must not exceed 55. I understand that that provision is actually in the current Judicature Act, and it goes back quite a few years. My question is: why is it set at 55? What is the calculation that has come to that magical number? Also, we have set a maximum number but we have not set a minimum number. Why is there not a minimum number of judges at any one time? Why have we not placed a cap on that? I would be interested if the Minister could, perhaps, address that point because I think it is very important.

If, for instance, we have got a population of 4.5 million - odd Kiwis and we have a capped number of only 55 judges, that is not very many judges per head of population. So I would be interested because this number has been carried over—it has not been changed—so I was just wondering why we have not looked at that. I understand that the Law Commission did not address this point, but I think it would be good to know whether there is a formula, whether there is some reason why we have only a statutory capped number.

Another reason why I say that is—my goodness—because I have been somewhat bamboozled by the different types of judges whom we now have in this legislation. In addition to the judges of the courts at each level, we have got additional judges, we have got associate judges, we have got acting judges, and we have got part-time judges—there is such a wide array of judges. We are modernising the law, but I have just been absolutely quite confused by the different types of judges who have now been put into this modern piece of legislation. The reason I say that is that if we look at the number, we have a capped number of 55 High Court judges in Aotearoa New Zealand. We cannot go over that amount, but there are always exceptions that they put into the legislation. I was intrigued to see that the Governor-General can appoint additional judges to the 55, but only in the case where a judge is anticipating retirement or is on leave pending retirement. So that begs the question: why do the judges not just retire? Why do you have to bring in an additional judge in anticipation or while the judge takes leave before retiring? That then exceeds the cap, so then they have had to put in this statutory exception, which exceeds the cap of 55.

It goes further. I think we do need to look at these provisions, because there is an age limit of 70 years; a judge cannot hold office unless they are under 70 years of age—unless they are an acting judge. In that case, they can go on for up to an extra 5 years. Why cap judges’ eligibility at 70 years of age and, yet, say they can continue on as a judge until they are 75 years of age? Why do we not just set the limit at 75? Because in many instances those judges just carry on and they just give themselves a new label, whether it is acting judge, part-time judge, associate judge—or whatever judge. So why do we not just give them a 75-year age limit and leave it at that? Do not give them leave and give them a different title while they are pending retirement. I also want to return to the point. These are very valid points that I am raising. This is very important because this is the High Court of New Zealand. These are senior judges whom we are talking about. These are very valid questions that I would like the Minister to address.

The final point that I would like to make is that we have addressed the point about the age limits. As we know, 70 years of age is also quite relatively young. I know of the two candidates running for the President of the United States of America: both of them are just hitting 70 years of age right now—or there or thereabouts.

💬 Hon Member: Not a good example.

Sure, one might be a bit māuiui at the moment, but they are going for the highest office in the world—the leader of the free world—and they are 70 years of age now. And we are cutting off our judges at 70 years of age. I think consideration should be given to extending that retirement age—yes, right through to the 75-year age limit, which is already allowed in an exceptional circumstance.

This may seem a bit dry and it is very arcane a lot of this stuff—a lot of the subject matter in this bill—but it is very important. If we are modernising, if we are trying to rejuvenate our court system and, in particular, our senior courts—what I find is that lawyers love to consider every conceivable scenario and then they can draft for it and add exceptions to any legal drafting that takes place. That is what I see here. There are a lot of exceptions and different labels for different terms of office, but, at the end of the day, we just want qualified, senior members of our judiciary—the best jurists in the country—to be able to hold those very esteemed offices and responsibilities that they have in those roles. I do believe that some of the provisions in this so-called modernisation Act are may be leading to a bit more confusion. But, then again, I have not gone back to the Judicature Act 1908, so that could be addressed. Thank you.

When I—

💬 Kris Faafoi: This better be good.

I hope it will be good, Mr Faafoi, and I am sure you will be waiting with bated breath to see what happens next. When I rose to speak on this bill for the first time—it was at its second reading—I had to confess to not having read the whole thing. I can now report that I still have not read the whole thing. It will be a bit of a surprise to you, but as tempting as it has been to sit down and try to plough my way all the way through this bill, I have to confess that I have not managed to do that.

It is a vitally important piece of legislation, and I know that when we have got a title like Judicature Modernisation Bill we have a bit of a laugh, because it is a funny word. We are not sure how to pronounce it. But this is a very, very serious bit of legislation—all 1,200 or so pages of it, I think. It is critical to the future of the judicial system in New Zealand.

For a justice system to be just it needs to be accessible to the people who are trying to access it. In this modern age, when we go online to do our banking and we go online to find out almost anything that is going on in the world, it just seems a little bit archaic that our justice system still requires everything to be focused on paper. It still requires everything to be managed in that way. Amongst other things, amongst this great tome of paper here is the provision for all judgments to be put online, where appropriate. Obviously, at times it will not necessarily be appropriate to release them, but it is to ensure that everybody can have access to them. Instead of having to go down and do all that research, going through all the papers, it will be done online. Using technology is going to be paramount, going forward, for a just judicial system.

I think one of the other things that really jumps out at me, which you would think, in this modern day and age, would be happening already but because we have not modernised this—

💬 Kris Faafoi: The judicature.

—the judicature, yes, thank you—already, is the provision for audiovisual links to be able to used. This will be of particular use in remand situations. Obviously, when somebody is on remand they may have to come backwards and forwards, from wherever it is they are being held on remand, to the court for various different appearances—over bail, and at various different stages. What this bill will allow to happen is for those particular hearings to be able to take place via an audiovisual link. Of course, this saves the taxpayer money, amongst other things, and it also improves safety, because every time you transfer someone who is in custody, obviously, there are greater security risks that go with that. We are improving security, we are improving accessibility, and, of course, we are making it more cost-effective as well.

I want to acknowledge the Justice and Electoral Committee of the 50th Parliament, because that is the committee that dealt with this bill, through this system. Obviously it was a very hard-working committee because it did manage to get its way all through this bill, and it has made a number of recommendations. It has made some important clarifications—for example, “to raise the value of personal property of the judgment debtor that would be exempt from seizure to $5,000 for their necessary tools of trade, and $10,000 for their necessary household furniture and effects.” This, of course, makes it consistent with the High Court threshold. That is just one of the things that have been picked up on—there is a whole list that the committee has come up with—but I do want to commend the committee for doing that.

Finally, I do just want to say there have been a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) put forward on this particular bill, and a number of them have been put up by the Opposition. They are not all going to get voted against by this side of the Chamber. SOP 62 in the name of Jacinda Ardern obviously makes a very clear point. It is going to put a new subclause (2) in clause 3(d), which will read that “Nothing in this Act affects New Zealand’s continuing commitment to the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament.” It is absolutely important that we continue to uphold those things and have that inscribed within our modernised Judicature Act. I am really looking forward to the third reading, as we get through this bill.

I want to talk about some of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). I am glad to hear that the Government will now support Supplementary Order Paper 62 to reinstate the declaration concerning the rule of law and sovereignty of Parliament. That is great, but I think the Government should also take a look at some of the other SOPs, as I have.

First of all, Jacinda Ardern’s SOP 61 to delete clause 132—that is the clause relating to the compulsory retirement of judges at the early age of 70, which is completely wrong. That is ageism, and is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Government should be taking more notice of that. It is a waste of valuable human resource to make people retire at the early age of 70. Judges at that age, and beyond, are perfectly capable of carrying out their duties, and they have a huge amount of experience that should not be lost. So that amendment should be supported.

Supplementary Order Paper 217 in the name of Louisa Wall asks us to take into account gender, cultural, and ethnic diversity, and so on, in the appointment of judges. We will be voting against that because we do not understand what the term “take into account” means. We say that the appointment of judges must be entirely on merit, and if anything was to be said about those issues, it should say that appointments must be neutral as regards gender, ethnicity, and all the rest of it. This amendment says the opposite, so it should not be passed. Passing it would be a dangerous thing to do because it could be interpreted as allowing negative issues concerning gender, ethnicity, and so on, to be taken into account. It directs neither negative nor affirmative reasons for that. It is not very well drafted and it is wrong in principle. We will be voting against it.

However, Supplementary Order Paper 216, also in the name of Louisa Wall, talks about judges of the Māori Land Court and says that “advice or recommendations from the Minister for Māori Development” should be taken into account first. We are very happy with that. We will vote for that.

Supplementary Order Paper 66 in the name of David Clendon relates to a register of judges’ pecuniary interests. That was looked after in a member’s bill of Kennedy Graham and was not supported then. I do not think anyone will want to support it now. We had a long and comprehensive process about that, and it did not go anywhere. It is not appropriate to raise it again now, in this bill.

Supplementary Order Paper 63 in the name of Jacinda Ardern would add to clause 3 another purpose requiring consideration of the legal issues especially relating to the Treaty of Waitangi. The purpose that is set out in the amendment is meaningless because it refers to “an understanding of”. What on earth does that mean—an understanding of “important legal matters, including legal matters relating to the Treaty of Waitangi, to be resolved with an understanding of New Zealand conditions, history, and traditions.”? It does not mean a damn thing, as far as I am concerned, and it is not the right sort of thing to put in the bill. We will be voting against it, for those reasons.

Most particularly, I want to refer to Jacinda Ardern’s amendment concerning the publication of District Court judgments, which Minister Adams in her SOP 197 wants to go back to the status quo. I think Jacinda has got it right. We will be supporting her amendment. The reasons given in the Minister’s SOP are simply that “currently, resourcing required to enable publication of all judgments across all courts and especially the District Court would be substantial.” That is the only reason we are given for the Minister wanting to go back to the status quo. That is just a resourcing issue. It is not a reason why we should not put this in the legislation and let the Government get on with it, provide the resources, and let it happen. I have had, as other MPs will have had, a number of contacts from people saying: “Look, I need to get this information. I need to get those District Court judgments, for very good reasons.” The best place to do that is online. Currently it is very hard to do it at all—to get a District Court judgment, especially notes of evidence—so it is high time that the Government did what it said it was going to do, which is to create a modernisation bill. This does not do that. It is the status quo.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. I have two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that I would like to speak to. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my colleague Denis O’Rourke and thank him for his support of one of my SOPs, which I will start with. It is SOP 216, which replaces SOP 202.

I would like to just read from that Supplementary Order Paper, which “amends clause 568 of the Judicature Modernisation Bill, which amends section 7 of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993. Section 7 relates to the appointment of Judges of the Māori Land Court. It enshrines in statute the long-established practice of Judges of the Māori Land Court being appointed on the advice or recommendation of the Minister for Māori Development. In replicating the generic provisions contained in clause 192(3) for appointment of Judges, the Bill would result in a failure to recognise the distinctive nature of the relationship between Māori land, Māori land owners, the Māori Land Court and the Minister for Māori Development. Of note is that Cabinet is merely advised once the decision about the appointment of Judges is made and that we have an opportunity through this legislation to ensure practice and statute are consistent.”

I would like to reference a document that I found through the Crown Law Office website, dated 13 September 2016, and it is titled “Judicial Appointments”. The fourth paragraph says: “The convention is that the Attorney-General mentions appointments at Cabinet after they have been determined. The appointments are not discussed or approved by Cabinet.” I wanted to make the point that this provision of the Minister for Māori Development appointing the Māori Land Court judges is not actually a Cabinet rule or convention. It has become a practice, but there is nowhere in statute or in the Cabinet manual that actually reinforces that practice. I also want to read something else from this communiqué from the Crown Law Office, and it says: “The appointment process followed by the Attorney-General is not prescribed by any statute or regulation.”

In fact, what this Judicature Modernisation Bill does is completely change that. It is going to ensure that the appointment process followed by the Attorney-General is contained in statute, because it will be contained in this piece of legislation. My contention is that if you are going to amend section 7 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, which enshrines in statute the process for appointment, this is the reason and rationale why we should be really explicit, as my Supplementary Order Paper has been, in saying that the Attorney-General must seek advice or recommendation from the Minister for Māori Development for the appointment of Māori Land Court judges.

I am not sure what level of support I have across the Committee, other than from my colleagues, New Zealand First, and also the Green Party. I am hoping that there is enough support for this to go through, because it certainly has support from the Māori Land Court judges themselves and, in fact, the Māori community. Inherent to the appointment, I think, is the mana of the position of the Minister for Māori Development, the mana of those Māori Land Court judges, and the mana of our whenua. So I am hoping that the Government sees this as a reasonable request and amendment to this piece of legislation, and that it will therefore support this Supplementary Order Paper.

The next SOP, SOP 217, that I would like to speak to is the one that Denis O’Rourke has advised that New Zealand First will not be supporting, which is to ensure that the judiciary reflects gender, cultural, and ethnic diversity in appointments. This particular SOP came from the review that the Law Commission did. There is a document called Review of the Judicature Act 1908: Towards a New Courts Act, and it was recommendation 16 from the Law Commission that inspired me to put this Supplementary Order Paper to the Committee. Recommendation 16(b)—I have replicated the words there: “regard must be given to the desirability of the judiciary reflecting gender, cultural and ethnic diversity.”

There are other components of that particular recommendation that I would like to bring to the attention of the Committee—and I chose not to include those in a Supplementary Order Paper because I spoke to judges who have been appointed, and those particular issues are addressed—and they are social awareness of and sensitivity to tikanga Māori. All judges, on appointment, now receive social awareness and sensitivity to tikanga Māori training. They also receive social awareness of and sensitivities to other diverse communities in New Zealand. So I am reassured that the current process of educating our judges to those particular sensitivities is taken care of, but what we cannot move away from—I asked the library to do some statistics about the judiciary regarding their gender, cultural, and ethnic diversity, and I would like to read some of those statistics.

On average—total men and women—29.9 percent of our judiciary are women, and if we look at the international comparison, Canada has 35.4 percent, Australia 33.4 percent, and the US 33 percent. The interesting thing for me, however, is that women actually comprise 47.5 percent of lawyers holding practising certificates. So nearly 50 percent of our lawyers holding practising certificates in New Zealand are women, but we are only 29.9 percent of the judiciary. The interesting thing, if you look at the meta-analysis of those statistics, is that there is a requirement—and this piece of legislation reinforces that—that you have to hold a practising certificate for 7 years or more. Of that 47.5 percent of lawyers holding practising certificates who are women, only 43 percent of them are actually eligible to become judges.

So what we see in the profession is, I guess, the historical professionalisation of men in the profession, because 80.8 percent of men have been in the profession and have held practising certificates for more than 7 years—that is 5,091 eligible men, as opposed to 3,844 women. I can understand why there is a little bit of an issue; because of that qualification, women are not being reflected in the numbers that we would expect as reflective of the number of women in the profession. If you look at it, we would have expected that 47.5 percent of judges were women, but that is not what we are currently seeing.

The other interesting point is that of the 243 judges, only 29—or 12 percent—are Māori, and I think that if we were to reflect New Zealand society, then 16 percent of judges would be Māori. In essence, what this particular Supplementary Order Paper is trying to do is to have the judiciary reflect New Zealand society.

The State Sector Act does not do it, in fact. I looked through the State Sector Act and the functions of the State Services Commissioner—in section 6(d)—is to “appoint leaders of the Public Service”, but there is no regard to gender, cultural, or ethnic diversity. I think that we have an opportune time, with this Judicature Modernisation Bill, to actually put into this piece of legislation some minimum levels of acceptability about what we want the judiciary to look like. We want the judiciary to reflect New Zealand society, in terms of both the representation of women and the representation of Māori, but also in terms of the representation of other New Zealanders.

What I did not get from the library—and it is obviously because the statistics are not regularly kept—is the number of ethnic judges that we have in our system. So I did a little google, and I know that we have got two Samoan judges—we have Judge Epati and Judge Malosi. Judge Sanjay Patel was sworn in on only 22 June this year and we also have the first Tongan judge, Mina Wharepouri, but other than me googling, we do not regularly collect ethnicity statistics in terms of the demography of our judges.

So I have put this Supplementary Order Paper to the Committee because I think, like everything, there is a time and a place to make a stand. Our police force has made it this year—it has committed to 50/50 women and men in the police force, and 50 percent women reflected in all the positions across the police force. I actually think that it is about time that any piece of legislation, and a piece of legislation like this that is trying to modernise our judiciary, actually reflects those sentiments. We want a judiciary that reflects New Zealand society, so I implore this Committee to support that particular Supplementary Order Paper. Kia ora.

I am just going to take a brief call. I have spoken already in this debate, but I wanted to touch on a couple of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been filed since we last debated the Committee stage of the Judicature Modernisation Bill. Two in particular, I think, are new to the debate. The first is a tabled amendment—Jacinda Ardern is seeking to, effectively, reinstitute the requirement for the mandatory publication of District Court decisions.

I just wanted to talk to that very specifically, because there is very good reason why we have not carried on with that obligation, which is that the District Court is, of course, the workhorse of the New Zealand court system. Over the course of the year, it puts out something like 15,500 judgments, of which only a couple of hundred are written, considered, detailed judgments. The vast majority, around 15,000 judgments every year, are oral, quick, sentencing-type decisions—simply a record of proceedings.

To put this requirement in law would be a requirement right across the system for every one of those to be transcribed, checked, formatted, gone through peer reviewing, and put online. This, of course, could be done but as a question of resourcing within the justice system you have to question what the value of that is. When you are simply recording and transcribing straight sentencing notes that, frankly, are not of any precedential value, do not bind the higher courts, do not really inform the knowledge of law in our society, and are for the matter of public record, the very clear view that we have reached is that that simply is not a good use of the time and the resources we have in the justice system, which could be far better spent in much more productive ways.

If we were to do this, let me make it very clear to the Committee that those are important resources that are not available for supporting, for example, better access to justice and more information for litigants, and self-represented litigants, and all of the other things that this House, I know, is very concerned to do.

I would also point out to the Committee that the District Courts now have a website—districtcourts.govt.nz—where they are publishing the decisions of relevance. So the decisions that this Committee has talked about, the necessity to access, absolutely are being published online and are accessible. I think that is the right balance. We are getting the decisions up that are of use and are of information to the system. We are not requiring, as a mandatory blunt tool, every single utterance of a judge at the end of a process to be treated with the same cost implication. So the Government will not be supporting that amendment to the SOP.

The second SOP that I want to touch on that is new is Louisa Wall’s Supplementary Order Paper 217, which she has just spoken about, around the appointment of judges and the desire to reflect in legislation the need to represent a gender and ethnicity balance in our judges. Although I absolutely agree that it is important that our judiciary make up a mixture of our society, I want to say two things. First of all, there are already very clear protocols that ensure that in appointing judges there has to be attention paid to ensuring they represent a reflection of New Zealand society. That is already in the matrix of the decision making that has gone through when judges are appointed.

The second point that I would want to make is that, actually, if you look at the track record, particularly under the current Attorney-General in the last few years, we have been extremely successful in seeing very good women judges appointed—not because of any quota system or making up the numbers, but because very good senior women lawyers are being recognised as excellent judges. Of the last three High Court judges appointed, two of them were women. Just very recently, we have had the head of every single judicial bench as a woman. The number of women being appointed under this Government—I do not have the numbers in front of me; I would be very surprised if they were not very heavily weighted in favour of women being appointed. So actually I would challenge that there is a demonstrable problem in this area.

Yes, in terms of percentages the member is right, but then look at the percentage of senior women in the legal profession. Having been in it for years myself, the problem starts there. We know that there are not enough women moving through to senior levels of the profession and that, of course, means that there is a smaller pool available for judges to be appointed. But I think, in actual fact, the actions of the Attorney-General over recent years have shown very well that the protocols are in place and are working to ensure that the best judges are appointed and that they do reflect modern New Zealand society.

I do not think it is necessary to codify that in a fixated way, which suggests some sort of quota making up the numbers assessment. I know that as a woman when I am promoted I want it to be on merit and not because there is some requirement for the numbers to be met. I think, as I said, the existing system that we have absolutely reflects the need to ensure that judges make up a cross-section of society. That is working very well, and so the Government will not be supporting that SOP either.

It is great to get an opportunity to make a contribution on the Judicature Modernisation Bill. At the outset I just want to remind people that Labour, of course, is supporting this bill, but we do have some reservations about it and I certainly have some questions that I would like to ask the Minister.

I want to focus my contribution on Part 2 of the bill, which is where it repeals the District Courts Act and instead this bill makes a unitary District Court where we have specialist courts as part of that unitary District Court. Those specialist courts will become divisions of it. Those courts will be a Family Court, a Youth Court, and a disputes tribunal. I particularly want to focus my contribution on Part 2, as I said, clause 260, which is about exceptions. This is the part of the bill where it talks about what jurisdiction the new unitary District Court will have to hear civil proceedings. I note that there are a range of figures used in the bill to describe whether the court will have jurisdiction to hear such civil matters. I think that it is perhaps quite a dangerous thing to prescribe limits because they can quite quickly become irrelevant as figures.

The example I want to use for this is clause 260(1), which actually states: “The court does not have jurisdiction to hear and determine the following classes of proceedings:” and the first one it lists is that it does not have jurisdiction to hear and determine proceedings for the recovery of land. But there are some exceptions to that, and that goes down to clause 261, where it says that the court can actually hear proceedings for the recovery of land in particular situations. The situation described in clause 261(1) is where “(a) the annual rent does not exceed $62,500; or (b) the value of the land does not exceed $500,000.” I think that is quite a dangerous thing to do in a bill like this because, as we know, the price of land in New Zealand at the moment is actually growing at a rapid rate.

My concern would be that if somebody has a civil dispute about recovering land, and that land, at the time that they decide to put an action in front of the court, is worth, say, $400,000, it would therefore come under the jurisdiction of this part of the bill. However, by the time that action comes before the court, it could be several months later, it could be a year later, or it could be 2 years later. What is the situation—and I would be interested in what the Minister has to say about this—if, in the meantime, the value of that land had gone over $500,000? That really is possible in today’s society.

Today, in the city where I live, in Hamilton, house and land prices have gone up by 30 percent in just 1 year. When the action is put in front of the court it is quite possible that the land may well come under its jurisdiction because it could be, say, valued at $400,000, but by the time it gets in front of the court, the land value may have gone up to a place where it actually takes it out of the jurisdiction because of clause 261(1) of this bill. So I would be very interested to know what would happen in that circumstance. Would the judge be required to strike it out as not being within the jurisdiction? Would they have to transfer the proceedings to a different court, to the High Court, because it had gone over the limit that the District Court could hear? What would be the remedy for this happening? Or is it the case that the court would continue to hear it because at the time when the action was first put in front of the court, the land actually was of a value that did qualify?

If this truly is a modernisation bill, then it should take into account all those sorts of issues. I just want to bring back to the Committee’s attention how dangerous it is to use these sorts of figures when they could become—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair and thank you very much. It is a privilege to take a call on the Committee stage of the—here we go—Judicature Modernisation Bill, and I hope my contribution is a lot clearer than my pronunciation of the name. Labour does support this bill, but I want to focus on Part 1 and particularly on Subpart 5, “Senior court Judges”. Of course, I am going to reference the submissions by both the Bar Association and the New Zealand Law Society, because who better to take a lead from in this particular section of the bill but actual practitioners in this field.

Clause 93 talks about the judicial appointment process. The Minister who was in the chair previously, Amy Adams, gave the outline around flexibility and avoiding any overly prescriptive criteria when appointing judges. I do want to draw the Committee’s attention to the submissions, like I said previously, from the New Zealand Bar Association and the New Zealand Law Society in respect of judicial appointments, as noted in clause 93. The comments that I draw from their submissions, particularly from the New Zealand Bar Association, are about the role of the Attorney-General in appointing judges. In its submission, the Bar Association is recommending that the appointment process that the Attorney-General undertakes should be done in a consultative manner. It has given a whole list, by way of example, of the organisations or the actual individuals that it considers the Attorney-General should consult with—for example, the Solicitor-General, the president of the New Zealand Law Society, the president of the New Zealand Bar Association, and other such people as he or she considers appropriate. Clearly, the New Zealand Bar Association asserts that the Attorney-General should be required by legislation to consult with specific people in advising the Governor-General on judicial appointments.

I turn to the report from the Ministry of Justice to the Justice and Electoral Committee, and I read about this particular point I am raising—on clause 93. It makes mention that there were a number of submitters that support the Attorney-General taking a more consultative process in terms of making the decisions. It then talked about the Law Society, the New Zealand Bar Association, and the Human Rights Commission. Then it goes through, as officials do, and actually puts up the argument on whether those recommendations should be taken or not. I do note—and perhaps the Minister can explain this to the Committee—that one of the reasons why it does not consider that it should take up the suggestion of a consultative process has to do with the following statement: “We are not convinced that legislating set criteria and consultees is the only way to achieve this aim. In large part the sunlight effect of requiring the process to be published and, therefore, open to public scrutiny …”. I would appreciate it if the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, would just explain how not taking the consultative process will ensure that we have an open and transparent part, as per clause 93.

In terms of the other clauses I want to go to, there are quite a few in Subpart 5 of Part 1, but I definitely want to hear back from the Minister in relation to that point. The other one is, obviously, the criteria that are laid out in terms of the sorts of qualities we want in judges when the Attorney-General makes his or her determination. Again, the New Zealand Bar Association lays out in its submission a set of criteria that are quite clear, I think, in terms of suggesting statutory criteria—namely, the personal qualities, including integrity, sound judgment, and objectivity. Obviously, legal ability is one of those criteria that we should list.

I rise to take a short call just to speak to some of my amendments that I have not had an opportunity to speak to. Before I do that I do want to refer to a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that there was some discussion over during the last period we were able to debate the Judicature Modernisation Bill, and that was SOP 62, which on the face of it seems rather simple. It simply states that the amendment would reinsert subclause (2) of clause 3. I say “reinsert” because although it was never in the Judicature Modernisation Bill, it was in the Supreme Court Act 2003, which is being modified by this omnibus bill, and it reinserts what is called the “rule of law” clause. It is an incredibly important constitutional provision, and I just wanted to briefly acknowledge that Minister Adams has indicated her support for that SOP, and I am certainly appreciative of that.

The Minister though, while in the chair, spoke to another amendment that I want to quickly touch on. Originally in the bill there was a requirement in clauses 167, 401, and 544 that would require online publishing of all filed or written judgments. When you listen to the Minister speak about that amendment that we have in my name around the publishing of online judgments, you would have thought that we were introducing the idea. We were not. It was in the original bill that went to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It was debated, discussed, and endorsed. It has since then come back to the House and, very recently, the decision was made that those clauses would be removed. So it was not a new idea. It was not proposed by the Opposition; it came from the Government.

I have some sympathy with the rationale that has been presented. Actually, the Minister seemed to question the usefulness of this provision altogether. What was proposed to us at the time when we questioned why it was being removed was simply that the capacity was not available in the court system to put it in place for now, and we had some sympathy for that. We know our court system is under strain. So our suggestion, via an amendment to the Minister’s SOP 197, which simply deletes a clause altogether, was to put a time period on it. Let us give it at least a year to make sure we have the capacity to make sure judgments are transcribed and available online.

The original rationale for this was that it was an access to justice issue, and I do not think that has changed. I have to say that I have had individuals come and see me in my office—two cases, in fact—where, actually, all they have sought is access to a judgment that they were involved in that they had not been able to access in a transparent way. So I do think that there is a call for this, for those issues that are not seen as major before our courts and might simply be of a low level within our district courts. Although we have sympathy for the argument that capacity issues exist, we think that our amendment was a neat, concise way to get around those issues.

One of the other amendments that I want to speak to briefly is in the Minister’s SOP 197, which amends the use of audiovisual links (AVL). In the original bill there was a presumption that AVL would be used, basically, in all non-substantive proceedings. I want to thank the Minister for putting in place an SOP that actually removes that presumption when it comes to sentencing. I think, having watched AVL in action—you can watch an offender sit in a court process and be completely disengaged from everything. It is a very distant way to deal with someone who is directly affected by what is happening in the courtroom. The idea that sentencing would happen under those circumstances does not sit well with me. So I support what the Minister has said to add a little bit more flexibility there for the judiciary in the way that is managed.

Finally, in the last 30 seconds that I have remaining, we have SOP 61, which removes the presumption that as you hit a certain age as a member of the judiciary, then you are immediately required to leave the bench. If there is an issue with performance, let us deal with an issue of performance. That is a separate issue to age. That is a separate issue to age, and it seems completely arbitrary to us to pick an age when, actually, performance issues can happen at any point in someone’s career. We think that that should be dealt with in another way, which is why we have an SOP to remove what we think, ultimately, is just a discriminatory provision.

I want to take issue with what Minister Adams said, when she was in the chair, concerning the publication of judgments, especially in the District Court. She just reiterated what we have been told both in writing and at the Justice and Electoral Committee that there was a resourcing issue. However, when you read what we have been told in writing about this, it says this about the publication of judgments in the District Court—that the Chief District Court Judge is advancing work to enable significant District Court decisions to be published, and the ministry is working closely with her to establish this publishing capacity from next year. So this is, obviously, imminent. It is going to be possible—there will be resources, clearly, expected to be available from next year—for at least significant District Court decisions.

As Jacinda Ardern said, none of us expect that each and every thing that a District Court judge says orally needs to be published on the internet. We do not expect that. That is not what this is about. It is about especially significant District Court decisions, the ones that people want to have access to, and they need to have access to them either because they are involved, or because they are in the Sensible Sentencing Trust or they are in some other organisation that has an interest in these things. So that is all we are asking for. The Minister of Justice tried to tell us that we need to delete all that and go back to the status quo because of resourcing issues, and yet the advice we have received from officials is that that work is advancing and that from next year—and that could be January next year for all I know; as early as that—it will be possible to publish online significant District Court decisions. That is all we are asking for.

So why is it necessary—and I want to ask the Minister this specifically, and I want an answer to it—to delete that whole provision, which the Government itself put in originally. Now it is reneging on it on the basis of resources not being available, and yet we are told elsewhere that resources are, in fact, going to be available to enable that to be done next year. So this does not add up—it does not add up at all. We need to get the story straight here. What is it about? People need to have those decisions published online. We have been waiting for this for a very long time. The bill itself sets out to say that it is—one of the purposes of it is about transparency. That is one of the fundamental reasons why this so-called modernisation bill is being presented. It is about transparency. Well, now we have the Government reneging on just that—transparency. It is not good enough and, by its own advice, there will be resources available, at least for significant decisions, in the District Court next year.

This bill will not come into force for a little while yet. By the time the whole process is finished I expect, based on that advice, the resources to be available to at least enable significant District Court decisions to be published. So I want to hear from the Minister why she is now saying it is not possible when we have been told that it is. That is all it is about. All we want is this law put in place now so that by the time it comes into force next year—as we were told—we are going to be able to see at least significant District Court decisions published online. We are asking for nothing more than that, and I want to hear a much better explanation from the Minister than we have had so far—all this waffle about resources, when we know it is going to be possible.

The point is that the law has to be in place to ensure that it happens when the resources arrive, and they are going to be imminent, as I have just said. So I want to hear that explanation. I think we all deserve to hear that, and so does the public. As I said in my previous speech, I have had a number of contacts from members of the public saying how important it is to them to be able to access online District Court decisions, especially those that are substantive. Nobody is asking for every tiny little thing that a District Court judge says orally to be published online—nobody has ever asked for that—so that is no excuse, either. So, finally—once again—please, Minister, turn up and give us the real deal on this, because it does not make sense so far.

I am excited about taking a call on this bill, and I want to confine my remarks to the purpose clause and then I want to also make reference to Subpart 3, “Community Magistrates”, in Part 2. I also want to speak on my colleague Louisa Wall’s Supplementary Order Paper 217. But, before I do so, I want to say that I think, by and large, this House welcomes the review and the updated legislation. It has been about a hundred years since the original Act came into existence and, therefore, I think, generally speaking, most of us are trying to ensure that we get the best legislation out of this. I am glad, and I hope that the Government does take its time in ensuring that this process is given due consideration by all parties.

I want to make reference to Part 1, and particularly the purposes, because I understand that in the review on which this bill is based, it had the Supreme Court Act of 2003, where there is reference to a couple of key principles that are missing from the purpose of this bill. I note in clause 3(b)(ii) it makes reference to “practice and procedure;”, but there is nothing in the interpretation clause that makes reference to that practice and procedure. My reference is that in the Supreme Court Act, it made reference to the rule of law and it made reference to the Treaty of Waitangi, and I think there also needs to be a reference to the sovereignty of Parliament as well as to judicial independence. It seems to me that we are expunging some key elements that should underline our court systems, and I am not sure what the Government’s intentions are. I did understand that in the second reading speeches the Minister said that these principles, or these elements, would be included in our constitution, but if that is the case, why are we not then amending the constitution before we do this? So that is the first question I want to ask.

I also want to ask the Minister—the Government is calling this the Judicature Modernisation Bill. The removal of that key element—the removal of our emphasis on abiding by the rule of law—is not a good look for us on the international scene, particularly in our relationship with what is happening in Fiji, you know. In this day and age, modernisation means that, more than at any other time, we have to re-emphasise our commitment to these core principles, core elements, that should underline our court system. I refer to subclause (6) of clause 38, under the heading “Miscellaneous matters”, and I simply ask—there is a reference in clause 38 that anybody can ask the judge to detain somebody who is leaving to go overseas and, if proved to that judge, that person can be detained. But then, in subclause (6), it says that “A defendant who is remanded in custody must be brought before the court within 4 days after the date of the order.”

I am simply asking, why 4 days? Why not “be brought before the court immediately.”? I say that only because the experience of some of our constituency when they have been detained whilst they are on an urgent matter—whether it be, say, a funeral in Pakistan or India, the detaining of this person before they are able to go before the court for those 4 days means that they miss the urgency of the matter that they were travelling to. I am not talking about whether they are able to justify the warrant for them to be detained; I am asking whether that person being held in prison should have the right to immediately be brought before the courts and not be held for 4 days.

I want to refer to Subpart 3 in Part 2. This is about community magistrates. I want to ask a question.

I would like to answer the member Denis O’Rourke. He has asked when the public will be able to access online District Court decisions. He will be very pleased to know that significant decisions of the District Court are beginning to be made available on its website, DistrictCourts.govt.nz. The numbers are small so far, but the website went live very recently. As the Minister of Justice said, the District Court makes thousands of decisions each year, but significant ones will be uploaded as they are made.

I would also like to make a comment on Sue Moroney’s question on the change of land value. The bill increases the jurisdiction of the District Court from $200,000 to $350,000. This is the first increase for over 20 years. Clause 260 lists traditional exceptions to the District Court. Where land values exceed $350,000, proceedings must commence in the High Court. Where a matter in dispute exceeds $90,000, the party may request the transfer of these proceedings to the High Court, and the District Court must agree. Where a matter exceeds $50,000 but is less than $90,000, a party may request a transfer to the High Court, and the District Court may agree.

Thank you for this short call on the Judicature Modernisation Bill—I had to practise that term several times, because I was tripping myself up. Labour supports this bill; however, we have some concerns. The New Zealand Law Society made a really considered submission on this bill, and one of the key submissions that it made was around the fact that the High Court Rules should not be included in this legislation. In that vein, I would like to address Part 1, Subpart 6, which is about “Rules of court and miscellaneous provisions”.

This bill proposes to retain the High Court Rules—a document that is close to about 800 pages, in terms of the schedule—which will preserve the status quo under the Judicature Act 1908, but in addition to the submission from the Law Society, the Law Commission also recommended that the High Court Rules should be taken out and not included in this legislation, but instead be made as regulations. The Government initially agreed with this recommendation, which was seen as recognising that the High Court’s inherent power to manage its own practice and procedures coexists with the rule-making powers provided in legislation. I wonder whether the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, can explain why the Government changed its mind and changed its position on this issue.

The High Court Rules, by their very nature, will require a lot of amendments, and we have just heard from my colleague Mr Su’a William Sio that it took around about 100 years before we got to this stage of talking about this modernisation of this particular bill. It would be fair to say that we probably will not want to see the changes to the High Court Rules taking quite that long. Other than in exceptional circumstances, delegated legislation should not be used to amend Acts of Parliament. I agree with both the New Zealand Law Society and the Law Commission that the High Court Rules should not qualify as exceptional situations justifying this approach, and that it should be taken out and amended as regulations. Furthermore, the inclusion of the High Court Rules in this particular legislation is not consistent with the treatment of the other higher courts. The rules of the Supreme Court, as well as the Court of Appeal Rules, are not included in legislation. So why are the High Court Rules not treated in the same way? Why the inconsistency? Perhaps the Minister can clarify this for us.

This omnibus bill contains changes that are long overdue, and I welcome the changes, which will enable our courts and our justice system to be easier to understand, more effective, and that will make justice more accessible to many more of our citizens in our democracy. I would like to acknowledge the Minister who was in the chair earlier on, the honourable Minister Amy Adams, for all of the work that she has done in getting this bill to this stage—as well as the Justice and Electoral Committee; they have done a lot of work on this bill. More importantly, I would like to thank the Minister for agreeing to my colleague Jacinda Arden’s Supplementary Order Paper 62. We believe it is crucial to refer, in the purpose clause of this bill, to a commitment to parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, judicial independence, and, indeed, the Treaty of Waitangi. This was previously a serious omission from this bill, and I am glad that it is now included.

I would also like to talk briefly about clause 167, which Denis O’Rourke spoke about before, and which, if introduced, would require every final judgment of a senior court to be published online unless there was a reason not to do so. The select committee spent some time discussing clause 167, and there was some discussion that it would in fact be included. However, the decision was made to delete clause 167. In this technological age—when most people would expect that when judgments are made and are made available, they would be on the internet—it would be great to know from the chair why it is that they decided to delete clause 167. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

I have not heard from Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise to take a very brief call. I have not followed the bill through the Justice and Electoral Committee, but I want to touch on a couple of points, given that we are taking this bill in the Committee stage as one debate.

The first point is at the high level—that this is coming after the last 1908 substantive clean slate review of our judicial environment. We welcome this opportunity to engage. There are serious changes within the legislation that the Green Party is supporting. One area, in particular—given my technical background and interest in IT issues—is the idea of the specialist panels. These High Court judges can establish a specialist panel on areas, for example, in commercial law.

A recent case I was reading about relates to copyright and intellectual property (IP), and is about who owns the copyright for a tattoo. It is one tangible example of some of the changes that our society is going through and the legal challenges we are grappling with that will possibly be addressed through this, the Judicature Modernisation Bill. The question is who owns the IP for the tattoo. Is it the person wearing the tattoo? Is it the artist? What happens if that representation is, for example, used in a video game? Again, who owns it? There are complex issues.

IP is an area that this Parliament has battled with—for example, the software patents legislation. We have seen it as a controversial issue in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is a very technical area that is now seeing much more widespread public concern and involvement in the debates. It is a highly technical area with case law going back literally hundreds of years. So it is good that we have some flexibility, that we can see these specialist judge panels established.

The second point I would like to touch on is Supplementary Order Paper 66 in the name of my colleague David Clendon, which is introducing new clauses 167A and 167B and a new cross-heading. This is relating to a judicial register of pecuniary interests. It is something that my other colleague Dr Kennedy Graham had a member’s bill on and promoted very heavily a number of years back, and something we urge other members of the Committee to support. This is something that every single member in this House deals with in our democracy, and our Parliament is better as a result. Our register of pecuniary interests allows us to be transparent with our information regarding our assets, our outstanding loans, and the gifts we receive. We have seen some cases in the media and in the public domain where judges’ relevancy has been called into question when it comes to these issues.

We think a judicial register of pecuniary interests is something that is reasonable. We think it is something that is important for transparency. It is incredibly important that our judicial system is seen to be of the highest quality. Everyone in court, be they a defendant or on the other side of the bench, deserves to know we have got a high-quality system. The Supplementary Order Paper in the name of David Clendon would require a pecuniary interests register to be established and judges to declare whether they have a close relationship with litigants, legal advisers, or witnesses to the case. I think this is entirely reasonable. I understand the Government was previously quite interested in this area, and I hope we can see some substantive debate on this point. This is something that other countries—Canada, I believe—have done, and is something we should be doing because as we have used it in our Parliament, in terms of the pecuniary interests of our members of Parliament, it is important we translate this and bring those principles of transparency and sunlight to this realm.

All in all, we support this legislation and we welcome the debate.

I will just take a moment because I want to comment on something that Nicky Wagner said. I am grateful for her advice that we are now going to see at least some significant judgments of the District Court published on the internet. But that does not explain why the entire clause 401 of the bill is now going to be deleted. It does not explain that at all.

If indeed that is what is going to be happening, and happening more and more and more, then how come we are deleting clause 401? All it says is this—and this is clause 401(1)—“Every final written judgment of the court (excluding the Family Court, the Youth Court, and the Disputes Tribunal) must be published on the Internet as soon as practicable unless there is good reason not to publish.” the complete judgment. And then in clause 401(3) it says: “final written judgment means a written decision that determines or substantially determines the outcome of any proceedings and is either—(a) a written reserved judgment; or (b) an oral judgment transcribed by an official transcription service.” That is all it covers.

The Minister was talking about minor decisions made by District Court judges that it would not be practicable to put on the internet, and so on, but that is not covered by this clause. It actually covers precisely what we have been told is happening now and is going to happen more and more.

So how come, then, clause 401 has to be completely removed? It still does not make sense. As far as I can see, if in fact the resources are there already and it is already starting to happen, why are we now deleting it? I expect, as I said in my other speech, that by the beginning of next year we will be able to see a lot of those substantive judgments on the internet, and those are the ones that people want. So my question has not yet been answered.

💬 Hon Member: No.

No. I need to know why we are now being asked to delete clause 401. It does not make sense. So I would ask Nicky Wagner, on behalf of the Minister of Justice, to again consult her officials and get an answer to that, because I want to know.

I would like to address my remarks on this mammoth piece of legislation to clauses 167 and 401, just briefly, in parts 1 and 2 respectively, and then concentrate on Part 5. I am hoping I can make an additional contribution on this issue. These are the clauses that remove the requirement for the final written judgments to be published on the internet. As you have heard—and I am not going to go over this again—the bill came back from the Justice and Electoral Committee with those clauses removed. Those clauses were originally in the bill. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has put up a proposed amendment on clause 401, not to reintroduce it but to put in a time period—some time out, in 2018—to allow there to be preparation for the publishing of these judgments on the internet. Of course, we support that amendment.

I would like to remind the Government of two things. One is its own key performance indicators (KPIs), shall we say—the Better Public Services KPI result No. 9, which is that “New Zealand businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government advice and support they need to run and grow their business”. The next is result No. 10, which is that “New Zealanders can complete their transactions with government easily in a digital environment”. Alongside that—and we have had several references today to the Open Government Partnership—is a requirement, as part of the Open Government Partnership, which we are signed up to as one of 69 countries, for easy digital interaction with the Government for citizens. Surely, this is part of that. Taking away that requirement ultimately seems to be driven by financial considerations.

My question on this to the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is: was the ruler put through it by the Minister of Finance, who said “No, sorry. It’s going to cost too much.”? We can see by the advice that was given by officials that there are 15,300 final decisions that fall within the scope of that bill. So was the ruler put through it by the Minister of Finance, and was the ministry told “Yes, do it on a voluntary basis, but only within the resource cap envelope that you’ve got.” and that “You can’t have any extra money.”? Because that, it seems to me, is why the select committee has actually removed that provision.

I would like to turn my attention to Part 5, which is a substantial part of the bill and a part that we support, which sets out the methods to enable and govern the use of electronic technology in court and tribunal proceedings, including allowing all current paper-based requirements to be replaced with electronic processes. This is not like the previous part. It is not about uploading judgments; it is about electronic processes. Although we support this and think this is a logical and necessary step to take, we do want to raise a few concerns. We note that back in 2012 when the Auckland registry went electronic that there were serious delays and huge backlogs within the Family Court, with the Law Society warning that it was only a matter of time before someone was seriously hurt, or worse. In fact, the Secretary for Justice, Andrew Bridgman—I am not sure whether he is still the Secretary for Justice, but this was back in 2012.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Yes, he is.

He apologised to Parliament—and good on him for doing that—admitting that staff were not fully prepared for the change and that the Ministry of Justice did not engage enough with the legal profession early enough or actively enough. So I am just introducing a note of caution around that. I imagine that was discussed at the select committee—and how important that is.

Can I, in my final seconds, just say that this bill does not go far enough? There is a next part to this discussion around the move to electronic processing, and that is a move to an online courts system, which should not be years away. It should be something that we are preparing for and thinking about now. Former District Court judge David Harvey has done a lot of work on this. I know the Minister has expressed some comments. This is happening now in the UK. It is about access to the courts system, particularly for people with lower incomes, and it is something that we heartily support.

I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Sorry, I cast that vote in error; it was meant to be 32 votes opposed. I seek to have that corrected. My apologies.

I have not announced the result, so that is fine.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can I clarify the number of this Supplementary Order Paper?

Yes. We are dealing with Jacinda Ardern’s amendment to Supplementary Order Paper 197. This is deleting the Minister’s amendment to clause 401. Could I just ask the Green Party—what was your vote, please?

Twelve.

The next amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern is now out of order, as being contingent on a previous amendment already lost.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 197 in the name of the Hon Amy Adams be agreed to.

I have cast two votes for the Māori Party on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 217 in Louisa Wall’s name incorrectly. Can I seek leave for the Māori Party’s votes on SOP 217 in the name of Louisa Wall to be cast as two in favour, in each instance?

Leave is sought for that purpose, to correct the record. Is there any objection? There is no objection. So the corrected vote on Louisa Wall’s amendments as set out on SOP 217 is Ayes 46 and Noes 73, and the amendment is not agreed to.

The Committee divided the bill into the Senior Courts Bill, the District Court Bill, the Judicial Review Procedure Bill, the Interest on Money Claims Bill, the Electronic Courts and Tribunals Bill, the Arbitration Amendment Bill, the Bills of Exchange Amendment Bill, the Building Societies Amendment Bill, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill, the Companies Amendment Bill (No 2), the Contractual Remedies Amendment Bill, the Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2), the Courts (Remote Participation) Amendment Bill, the Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 4), the Family Courts Amendment Bill, the Insolvency Amendment Bill, the Local Government (Rating) Amendment Bill, Property Law Amendment Bill, the Remuneration Authority Amendment Bill (No 2), the Resource Management Amendment Bill, Te Ture Whenua Maori Amendment Bill, and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 200.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.