Chauvel Charles: Arbitration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Arbitration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9777] 
We tend to pick and choose—and I do have a view about the desirability of that. I rather think that if an international body of experts is effectively recommending model legislation then little old New Zealand may be well advised with all the time that goes into the international deliberations simply to adopt that which we have chosen to become a party to. I accept that perhaps it is too early in our constitutional evolution to move to this sort of procedure. Perhaps I might live to see us one day doing something a little more mature with international legislation. In the end on the advice of officials we felt that adopting the recent changes to the model law would be consistent with the aim and purpose of the bill. 
 Those are relatively minor changes. Essentially they keep the model law up to date to meet the needs of its users and reflect best practice in the field of international arbitration. This brings us back again to the basic principles of the 1996 Act which we have tried to retain in this re-enactment such as consistency with the laws in other jurisdictions which after all is why we adopted the model law in the first place. Clearly following through and adopting the changes to the model law that were agreed to recently and advised to us by David Williams QC would maintain that consistency. 
Briefly to speak to what those changes are they relate to interim measures preliminary orders and security for costs. The amendments on interim measures provide more detail and guidance than is currently found in the legislation. Clearly incorporating those changes will allow more guidance to the parties so that where an arbitration is on foot they have a code to refer to in the schedule that helps them to know exactly how they should conduct the arbitration. 
The amendments also deal with the introduction of preliminary orders. I suppose an analogy in the ordinary jurisdiction would be with interim injunctions or declarations. There is a bridging device mechanism if you like for a party seeking an interim measure so that remedies are not destroyed while the arbitration either is waiting to be set down or is on foot. Remedies can be preserved through these procedures just as interim orders— Mareva injunctions and so on—in the ordinary courts would be able to be applied for. Security for costs is expressly included as an interim measure. 
I turn now to clause 9(2)—the amendments to schedule 2. The Law Commission recommended the removal from that schedule of a default procedure for the appointment of an arbitrator where the parties had signed up to an agreement allowing for the appointment of an arbitrator in the event of a dispute but failed to provide at that stage for the identity of the arbitrator or for a method of determining that question. 
The Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand did not support the removal of the default appointment because it did not feel based on its knowledge of alternative dispute resolution practice that its existence was creating any sort of problem in reality. So we agreed with the recommendation of the officials that the proposed amendment should be withdrawn. The Law Commission noted in it report and the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand noted in its submission that there is little concern expressed by those in the arbitration arena that a significant problem with the default procedure exists in practice. The Law Commission’s concern with the default procedure has been significantly ameliorated by a recent High Court case—that is  
Hitex 
 Plastering Ltd v Santa Barbara Homes Ltd 
. Obviously parties are currently free simply to avoid the default procedure in schedule 2 by expressly providing for a procedure in their own arbitration agreement and the replacement of the default procedure with recourse to the High Court would have been at odds with the aim of reducing judicial intervention in the arbitration process.