Finlayson Christopher: Property Law Bill — Third Reading 
Finlayson Christopher: Property Law Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12116] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I join with the Minister in congratulating the Law Commission on a job well done. I particularly thank Justice Blanchard who when he was a law commissioner undertook this huge task and did it very well indeed. I am delighted that the Ministry of Justice at last has picked up the Law Commission’s report on property and has ensured that this legislation be introduced referred to the select committee and passed through its various stages because as the Minister said this is the first major reform of property law for 55 years. 
There have been some minor amendments to the Property Law Act 1952 over the years but this is the first major reform for 55 years. That is not as dramatic as reform of evidence law which took about 98 years but it is none the less a very lengthy period of time between the Property Law Act 1952 and this reform in 2007. I do not think notwithstanding the Minister’s praise for everyone that that reflects very well on the New Zealand Parliament. Although there may be reform at last it should have occurred a long time ago and too many important black-letter non – party political contentious laws are ignored by this Parliament and are not given the prominence they deserve. 
The worst example of law that is out of date and cries out for urgent reform is limitation law which has not been properly studied and reviewed since 1950. So although we may praise this place in 2007 for getting on with property law reform the reality of the matter is that our record in law reform—particularly as I say non – party political law reform—is very very poor. 
It is beyond the scope of a 10-minute speech to go into the detail of this legislation. I think the Minister accurately and succinctly summarised it. It deals with all aspects of property law from mortgages to leases to deeds to steps that may be taken by the courts when dealing with landlocked land or where neighbours have problems with trees and so on. It covers a huge number of important matters that affect the daily lives of New Zealanders and that is why it behoves this Parliament to keep such law up to date. 
The only thing I want to focus on—mainly because it is a subject of great interest to me and particularly as I have read the Law Commission’s recent report on presentation of New Zealand statutes—is that with the passage of this legislation some ancient law inherited by this country from the Westminster Parliament will be repealed. In 1988 this Parliament passed the Imperial Laws Application Act. The first schedule to that Act records imperial enactments in force in New Zealand. A large number of those enactments relate to property and if one reads clause 360 one sees that legislation that goes back to 1267 is going to be repealed. 
So this is in imperial law terms quite a dramatic change and when one looks at the first schedule in the light of some changes to the law over the last few years one sees that there are very few imperial enactments that will remain in force after this legislation comes into force. There will be a couple of constitutional enactments including interestingly the Magna Carta and the Act of Settlement and pieces of legislation that still underpin our constitution. The Royal Marriages Act 1772 is another but there will be very few other pieces of legislation still in force. So this is in its own way another sign that we are moving on from Westminster and are developing our own statute law without the need to rely on Westminster statutes. In fact it is surprising that there are still a few statutes that remain other than the constitutional ones. 
The only other point I would make about this is that from time to time these ancient statutes are referred to in the course of litigation so I hope that notwithstanding the passage of the law these statutes will be accessible because if one looks at the Property Law Bill one sees a couple of references for example in clauses 231 and 232 to the Grantees of Reversions Act 1540. It could well be that from time to time the courts will want to go back to that legislation in the course of interpreting the new Property Law Act—as it will soon be—in order to obtain some guidance as to the way in which they should go. That is not an uncommon event in litigation. I refer for example to a decision of the Supreme Court in  
Lai 
 v  
Chamberlains 
 which was a case about barristers’ immunity. 
In the course of their judgments their Honours needed to consider law practitioners Acts that went back to 1854. Closer to home when dealing with land law I refer to the  
Registrar-General of Land 
 v  
New Zealand Law Society 
—a decision actually of Justice Blanchard in the Court of Appeal. The issue in that case was whether conveyancing could be carried on by anyone other than a barrister and solicitor and the Court of Appeal needed to go back to the original Conveyancing Ordinance of 1842 and trace through various statutes. So too with  
Attorney-General 
 v  
Ngati Apa 
. The Court of Appeal needed to consider a range of historical Acts in deciding the issue of whether historical legislation had extinguished any Maori customary property in the seabed and foreshore—and of course the court found it did not. So historical legislation is important and notwithstanding that we are soon to pass into law the Property Law Bill. I certainly hope that some of the statutes that I have referred to which are shortly to be repealed will none the less be still accessible for the reasons that I have outlined. So enough said on this issue. 
The National MPs have enjoyed taking part in the debate on this legislation. It is fair to say that the National MPs made a substantive contribution to the debate particularly in the Committee stage. By contrast the Government MPs said nothing. The only comment I would make about that other than to reflect on the laziness of the Labour MPs is to say that there is an obligation on members of Parliament to debate these issues. 
In the old days of course there used to be a clause by clause analysis. The Property Law Bill is one of those bills that could have profited from a clause by clause analysis. But the reason we do it and the reason we should take our job as legislators more seriously than the Labour MPs do is that from time to time courts can have recourse to  
Hansard 
 if there is an issue about the intention of Parliament. If of course the courts refer to the speeches made by National MPs they will obtain excellent guidance. If they refer to the Labour MPs they will not find anything because the Labour MPs never spoke. The Labour MPs throughout the course of this legislation have really been shall we say suboptimal. In the select committee their contribution was perhaps a little bit better than that. 
I say in conclusion that I think it is a good day for the Parliament as we are shortly to pass the Property Law Bill. It is very timely. It should have been passed some time ago. But I do end by saying that although this is a good day for the New Zealand Parliament in property law terms there is other legislation that is crying out for reform and I certainly hope the Government gets on with the job particularly in the area of limitation.