Twyford Phil: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3458. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call in support of the Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill brought to this House by the honourable member Dr Kennedy Graham. As members will know Labour is supporting this bill to go to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is hard to argue against a bill that seeks to extend the principle of transparency to any branch of government and the record of this party in Government is one of supporting the advance of open government and transparency. On the face of it we see no reason why this bill which seeks to extend transparency to the judiciary should not at least receive serious consideration at the select committee. The executive branch of Government as my colleague Phil Goff noted has been subject to the disclosure of pecuniary interests since 1990 and it was the fifth Labour Government in 2006 that extended the same requirement to all members of Parliament. Now we can see that was undoubtedly a good thing. 
As previous speakers have observed the primary benefit that this bill seeks to achieve is the strengthening of confidence in the judiciary through transparency. This will ensure that where there might be a conflict of interest in a case due to the particular interests of a member of the judiciary it can be resolved earlier rather than on a case by case basis. 
The purpose of the Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill is to promote the due administration of justice by requiring judges to make returns of pecuniary interests just as Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament currently do and in doing so that will reduce the potential for perceived or real conflicts of interest. The Law Commission as has been noted is working on these matters now and will bring a report to Parliament. That will undoubtedly be of great assistance to the select committee as it weighs up these issues. The commission has already released an issues paper on this matter as part of efforts to modernise the Judicature Act and I want to quote one or two passages from that issues paper. The commission noted that there are more than 50 tribunals in New Zealand—many of which require a legally qualified tribunal chairperson—dealing with a wide range of legal issues. It asked: “Why should people exercising at least quasi-judicial powers not also be covered?” by these kinds of provisions. 
The Law Commission also said that the primary question is whether a register of judges’ pecuniary interests is necessary or appropriate. If the answer to this question is yes then there are a number of other questions that the select committee will have to consider about the scope and requirements of such a register whom it will apply to what level of detail is required and how widely available the resulting information should be. Those are all I think useful issues that the commission poses. Previous speakers have noted the importance of maintaining privacy for those who are covered by such a register and as is the case with MPs’ pecuniary interests declarations there will be a need to ensure that the information is presented in a way that does protect the privacy of individuals. 
The Law Commission’s preliminary view was that no legislative intervention is required to the substantive law relating to recusal for financial interests by a judge but “the process by which recusal applications are entertained in the … courts could usefully stand refinement and publication.” The question is how much detail what kind of scope is required and what the cost of those provisions would be in relation to the benefits. I think the really useful observation made by the commission was that the value of transparency is that it increases public confidence in our institutions of government. Labour is supporting this bill’s referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee.