O'Rourke Denis: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19742. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):Like other speakers I do not want to go deeply into the detail of the Parliamentary Privilege Bill either and I certainly wish to avoid any “pettifog-ification”. But I do wish to emphasise a couple of things.This bill is not just about protecting MPs from legal action in respect of statements they make nor about protecting their support staff; it is really fundamentally about protecting the right of representatives’ freedom of speech. It is about ensuring that advice given by their support staff cannot be used in legal proceedings brought by others. Nothing really could be much more important for our democracy than these things. Recently in this House Winston Peters revealed some disturbing information about a person behaving badly regarding the Christchurch rebuild. The purpose of that was to seek investigation by authorities and by the news media and that was a proper use I feel of parliamentary privilege. It was something that needed to be said. People outside the House felt unable to do so for fear of defamation proceedings so it was a proper use of parliamentary privilege. It is important that that be something that members of Parliament can do.The second thing I want to emphasise is that there is no real change here. The bill really just clarifies and partly codifies the operation of parliamentary privilege. It seeks to restore and affirm the scope of aspects of parliamentary privilege and to consolidate and modernise existing legislation following the judgment of the court in the defamation action Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh. For that reason the decision of the court has to be set aside in order to restore the previous legal position. Underpinning all this of course is the principle of comity—the mutual respect that the legislature and the judiciary must have for each other. The courts did move a step too far and this bill restores the balance but the principle of comity remains.The bill does not set out to limit article 9 of the UK Bill of Rights 1688 which is in force in New Zealand and which is the first formal instrument from a Parliament to protect freedom of speech in debates or proceedings in Parliament. Nor does the bill seek to codify comprehensively or replace entirely with rigid legislation every aspect of parliamentary privilege and that is a good balance we have achieved.It is aimed of course at one aspect as I have said: Parliament’s freedom of speech—MPs’ freedom of speech. The bill provides a clear direction that the Act must be interpreted so as to promote the purposes of the Act and the purpose of parliamentary privilege. It sets out the purpose of parliamentary privilege which is to make clear the privileges immunities and powers of the bill “to uphold the integrity of the House as a democratic legislative assembly;” and to secure its independence. Concerning statements made outside Parliament the bill takes an evidential prohibition approach regarding liability from statements that effectively repeat statements made in proceedings in Parliament and relies on reinforced provisions for stays of proceedings in respect of specified authorised communications of proceedings in Parliament. Other speakers have commented on the fact that MPs often get asked whether they stand by what they have said in Parliament and it is necessary that they should be able to at least say they do not resile from that.There was a need to clarify what the term “proceedings in Parliament” as used in article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 means and in particular to seek to reverse the law in the decision in Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh to stop evidence offered or received about proceedings in Parliament being used to inform or support effective repetition claims and claims of liability in court or tribunal proceedings. Although article 9 excludes evidence where the reason the evidence is offered or admitted is to impeach or question it does not prevent evidence being used with no impeaching or questioning to establish something that was said or done in Parliament just as a matter of fact. Qualified immunity is available as a defence still for fair and accurate reports of proceedings in Parliament or extracts or summaries of documents published under the authority of the House. That is very important of course for the news media.The bill strikes a harmonious balance in the area where privileges necessary to protect the independence of Parliament and the important role of the courts intersect. New Zealand First wholeheartedly supports the bill. We think it is absolutely essential to preserve the integrity of Parliament and the right of MPs to make statements in the House without fearing defamation actions and that applies also to their support staff. So we will certainly be voting in favour.