Pillay Lynne: Limitation Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Limitation Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand to speak on a relatively uncontroversial bill in this House. That does not happen very often. In the last 2 weeks we have had to sit through debate on bills that were passed with a very slim majority and no real public mandate. The Government has pushed through many bills that formed— 
Chris Tremain 
: It’s called a majority. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Well what a funny majority it is when we look at the ACT Party. But it is all about—[ 
Interruption 
] Oh they have woken up now. They have all woken up. It was very sad indeed that we saw workers’ rights—rights that had been hard-fought for that respected workers and gave them dignity and that had been based on trust—decimated by the National Government hand in hand with the ACT Party which is in a terrible mess. But tonight at a quarter to ten under urgency this debate is not one of those occasions. 
Getting back to the Limitations Bill as Mr Assistant Speaker Roy knows I would like to I am one of the many Labour members who will take a call tonight to speak in support of the bill. We are speaking in support of the bill because it went to the Justice and Electoral Committee and we listened very clearly to what the bill was about. 
Hone Harawira 
: Surely not. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I ask that member to look at the way in which his party voted on the workers’ rights— 
Hone Harawira 
: On the Foreshore and Seabed Bill? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: No no on the workers’ rights legislation. That member lay down had his tummy scratched and did exactly what National wanted in terms of workers’ rights in New Zealand. So that is quite enough from that member. 
Simon Bridges 
: This sounds like a Shane Jones movie Lynne. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: My goodness “Clark Kent” rides again; it is just everywhere. I know that Mr Assistant Speaker would want me to come back to the bill. And I think that he would appreciate other members of the House not creating a diversion from what the bill is about. 
Simon Bridges 
: Tell us about the bill. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Never mind the new spectacles—“I look cool.”—and never mind going back to the past. This debate is about the Limitation Bill. We are here tonight to debate the Limitation Bill. 
Clare Curran 
: The National Party’s limitations. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Well I will need to take many calls on that one! But we are here to talk about the Limitation Bill. I think we should go back to the bill. I urge the House to do that because there has been a little bit of slippage here. The Law Commission the very hard-working and respected Law Commission recommended that we replace the current 1950 regime with a new modern regime. It is nice to see something modern happening in Parliament is it not? We do not see that very often. This is one of those occasions where we are stepping up and moving forward and the new regime— 
Hone Harawira 
: Yee-ha! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —yee-ha—will encourage claimants to make their claims without undue delay and protect defendants from the unjust pursuit of stale claims. I think that is really important. 
I acknowledge Chester Borrows; he is a very hard-working member. He is looking a little bit tired at the moment reclining back in his seat. But we all recognise Chester Borrows for the great chair he is. Even though the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee do not have a meeting of minds at all times Chester Borrows is a very good chair of the committee. A Maori Party member acknowledges that with applause. It is a very hard-working committee. I ask the member how many bills have been before that committee. 
Chester Borrows 
: Oh 17. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Seventeen? I think it is more than that. It has been a very hard-working committee. Many members including National members often grieve that we are not referring the Sentencing Council legislation back to that committee. I think that would bring about a bit of passion. One of the sad things about the committee is we have seen piecemeal legislation on victims’ rights stuff instead of the enactment of that very good bill which is languishing on the Order Paper. We get bit by bit from the National Government. At least this bill is going in the correct direction. I will not say “right direction” because most of its legislation goes in the right direction but that is actually the wrong direction because it is a return to the right. But this legislation limited though it is—being the Limitation Bill—is sound legislation. So I am very happy to talk about this bill in the House and I would like to talk about—[ 
Interruption 
] It is not often I am happy in the House. I am actually pretty unhappy most of the time because some dreadful legislation comes through the House. 
The purpose of the bill is to provide clearer more comprehensive law on general civil limitation defences. It balances fairly the right of claimants to have access to justice—and if there is anything that the whole of Parliament should hold dear it is access to justice—with the right of defendants not to be disadvantaged by stale claims. There also is some clarity about the way that claims go. I can see my colleague Carmel Sepuloni who is an incredibly talented young woman nodding in agreement. 
Hone Harawira 
: Hear hear! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Exactly. She is nodding in agreement because she is sharp. She not only has picked up her portfolios but is really on to it in terms of justice matters. I will go to the report from the Justice and Electoral Committee— 
Simon Bridges 
: 4 more minutes to go Lynne. You’re all right. You’re doing well. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I ask the member to please not distract me. 
Simon Bridges 
: There’s a lot to get through isn’t there? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: There is so much to say and so little time to say it. Give a guy new glasses and he goes crazy. 
I want to talk about the bill. Many people may think that the Law Commission did a fantastic job and that the legislation put before the House would go to a select committee and come back without being amended. But no that was not the case. I acknowledge once again as I usually do the fantastic select committee staff and officials—and I can see Chester Borrows nodding in agreement—who gave us incredible support and advice. Indeed many changes were made to the bill. They were not particularly controversial; they were more technical in terms of making the bill work better in practice. But there was one controversial change and it related to the defence to a money claim filed after an applicable period. There were a lot of views about whether the 15-year longstop period currently in the law should be aligned with the 10-year period in the Building Act. The Law Commission wavered a little—which is not like the Law Commission but it did do so on this occasion—between the two periods. In its final report in 2007 the commission concluded that a 15-year longstop limitation period struck the appropriate balance between justice for claimants and certainty for the defendants. The main explanation given for retaining the shorter 10-year longstop limitation period for defective building claims was the complexity caused by multiple parties and fading memories. National members will know about fading memories will they not? But that was part of our deliberation. 
The Labour members on the committee believed that those issues are similar for many other causes of action and saw no good reason at all for shortening the longstop limitation period for building cases. We believe that it is more appropriate for the same longstop period to apply to all policy areas for which longstop periods apply. That was one area where there was not necessarily a meeting of minds. Once again the Labour members led the charge in terms of progression and in terms of listening to the submitters who came along on the day—well not on the day; on several days. Unfortunately they did not win the argument in that one area. 
But we support the bill. We are proud of the select committee report and we commend the bill to the House.