O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): 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."