Mapp Wayne: Wills Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Wills Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:10876] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I am very grateful to my learned colleague Chris Finlayson for setting out the reasons why 2 November might be a more appropriate date for the commencement date of this legislation. I would have to say to the Minister given the relatively light legislative agenda that the House is faced with these days and given that so much of the work of the House seems merely to be implementing Law Commission reports—which of course is why National is tending to vote for such measures—this kind of legislation is non-contentious. 
It is an irony is it not that we have had a Government voted into office with an agenda and it has ended up in its eighth year with the best it can do being merely to have a programme of law reform with its directions and orders coming from Sir Geoffrey Palmer of the Law Commission. I thought that Governments were elected with a plan and programme that they would carefully implement but this year truthfully we have been doing—effectively—a legal toolkit repair job. That is valuable work and I can see the importance of it but it is not actually why Governments are elected. 
Governments are elected on the basis of fundamental platforms that they have put before the public. Was this legislation ever really put to the public? Would Government members have been elected if they had gone out to the people and said: “Do you know what we will be doing in the next 3 years? We will be implementing Law Commission reports because we are a thoughtful Government that is concerned all about law reform. Give us your vote on that basis.” Well I think that the public might have told those members that they do not really vote for Governments for that purpose. 
Even in the context of implementing a programme of law reform as directed by the Law Commission the Government has still managed to muck it up. Today we are debating the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 129. Even more remarkably we are debating Supplementary Order Paper 132 dated 7 August because the Minister just forgot something—do members know that? He forgot that the Government had repealed the Evidence Amendment Act 1980 (No 2) so he thought that he had better go around and check the rest of the Government’s legislation to see whether it was up to speed on this matter. Finally in the dead of night and on the last possible day one could make such amendments this ad hoc repair job is now being undertaken. Finally there is a recognition that the Evidence Amendment Act 1980 (No 2) was in fact repealed some time ago and was replaced by the new Evidence Act 2006. I say to the Minister that it was 2006 we were talking about. 
As for the other point raised by my colleague to do with the amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 129 omitting the commencement date of 1 July and substituting 1 November 2007 that is also something of a repair job. I have another Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 118 dated Tuesday 19 June and I have to ask the Minister why his repair job was not done in that Supplementary Order Paper. Why was the date not corrected and properly put into place in the Supplementary Order Paper dated 19 June 2007 when it was blindingly obvious by that point that the 1 July date could not be achieved and that the legislation would not be in force on 1 July 2007? So here we have the situation where we are debating by way of a repair job three Supplementary Order Papers whereas a competent Minister and Government would have had a single Supplementary Order Paper dated 19 June and covering all three items because they were all entirely predictable back in June 2007. 
This Minister prides himself on being one of the success stories of this Government. He likes to see himself as an up-and-coming thruster in the Labour Government and I guess he will be a thrusting front-bencher in the future Labour Opposition from 2008. I guess I will see Mr Cosgrove sitting on the front benches in 2008 in the Opposition. But if he had been really on top of his game then he would have fixed this matter up with a single Supplementary Order Paper. He has a whole department for heavens’ sake! It is supposed to look at these things. Instead he is reliant on colleagues on the Opposition side of the Chamber pointing out the problems. Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition mindful of the importance of good-quality law reform has had to point out to the Government that what it was doing was simply inadequate and that it ought to be correcting this kind of situation properly. I see this as being a symbol of the decay of this Government a symbol of the declining levels of competence and in a sense a symbol of failure—failure in the most basic ways that Governments are measured. 
Are Government members competent to do ordinary jobs of law reform? This bill is kind of important to individuals but let us be honest it is low-level stuff in terms of this Parliament. Yet even on non-controversial legislation and even on legislation that the entire Parliament is supporting Government members have still managed to muck it up. They still do not reach that minimal level of competence that the country has a right to expect of its Government. I would say to members opposite that they should be embarrassed. They should be embarrassed by the fact of this failure because it is a symbol of a deeper malaise and a deeper failure that has occurred in this Government. It is a symbol of a lack of ability to govern any longer. That is what it really says. 
I have to say to Government members that if this is as good as it gets then frankly it is about time that they surrendered their offices and said that they had failed the public of New Zealand and were no longer up to the job of governing in the way that the public have a right to expect. There is a sense that we are seeing the last of this Government because even the simple things it can no longer get right.