Statutes Amendment Bill

Members, we come to Part 23, the debate on clauses 89 to 98, “Amendments to Land Transfer Act 2017”. The question is that Part 23 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Here we go again with public notices, section 220, inserted by clause 93. What it does is, essentially, provide that we’re—because land transfer information can be a lot of data. For example, a subdivision plan, if you’re subdividing a large area, not only is it just a lot of diagrams and words, but the document itself is data heavy. It’s usually done on some computer design system. So what this does is enable the provision of the data on an internet site. The problem is it doesn’t explicitly require the publication of the exact internet address where the information can be found.

I would suggest that, really, rather than simply saying it’s available on an internet site or our internet site—so you could have a surveying company saying, “Full details available on our internet site.”, but that doesn’t actually take you much further, you then have to go and navigate your way to it. What you really need is the actual internet address: “The full details can be found at www.”, etc., etc., etc. At the moment, it doesn’t actually give notice; it just says it can be made available. But this is about notice, and notice should be given of the internet site on which it is available—it’s essentially a guide or a navigation tool. If we don’t have that, you can simply have a note: “Full information available on an internet site.”, and that is going to be exactly what isn’t needed. Again, this gets around the problem of having these long public notices in newspapers about marginal strips and the like, that we’ve just been talking about.

It really is important in these situations to not just say it’s available somewhere but to say exactly where it is required. If the Associate Minister of Justice is going to say, “Well, obviously, you have to provide not just notice that it’s available; it’s made available on an internet site.”—but exactly where that information is. Amended section 220(2)(b)(ii) does say, “give sufficient detail to enable the person to understand what sort of further information is available on that site.” So it probably should just have a subparagraph (iii) underneath it saying, “provide the internet address of the web page where that further information is available.”

Thank you, Mr Chair. To the member the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, clause 93, amending section 220, is inserting a new subsection to allow for some information on the matter to be published on the Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) website instead of all information. So it’s basically allowing LINZ to pull out what is the relevant information, because sometimes the information that they do have is so fulsome that in putting it on the site, you end up losing the relevant information. So it’s basically saying that they can put in that relevant information that is needed—this is a technical amendment—provided that the public notice can clearly identify where to locate the additional information on the website itself. So, basically, they can come up with a part of—this is the crux of whatever information they want to share, and to get the fuller information, it’ll be “Click this link here.”

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have a question for the Minister regarding clause 90, which is inserting “registered owner”. Now, my understanding of this is that this clause pertains to the Crown not being liable for compensation should there be loss or damage resulting from a breach of trust by the claimant. I understand that the registered owner part was dropped off between the 1952 drafting and the 2017 drafting, and now it’s just kind of being added back in. Can I check: what happens then if people try to make a claim for compensation to the Crown between 2017 and now? Would that mean that their claim for compensation by the Crown, by registered owners, then would stand, because it’s technically not in the legislation?

This amendment, at clause 90, amending section 61(1)(a), is a minor clarification where losses arising from a breach of trust by a registered owner are not covered by the Land Transfer Act 2017 compensation regime. That’s consistent with the position under the 1952 Act and the model Act drafted by the Law Commission. Because of this omission, the extent of the Crown’s liability in these circumstances could be misinterpreted if this is not made explicit.

Sorry, just one quick follow-up. That would mean that it got picked up, but there hasn’t been an instance at this stage? By clarifying this particular bill, it will hopefully clarify all of that?

Yes. It was inadvertently admitted, so we’re just putting it in there for that clarity.

Part 23 agreed to.

Part 24 Amendment to Local Government Act 2002