Graham Kennedy: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19351. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):I do not intend to take up too much time in this second reading. I will reserve my more substantive comments on the bill for the third reading but I just say that the Green Party is very pleased with the progress in the Privileges Committee on the Parliamentary Privilege Bill. I do also want to join others in acknowledging the work of officials particularly Mary Harris Debra Angus and Meipara Poata. It is a privilege—if you will allow the word—to be a member of a committee served by officials of that calibre.The Parliamentary Privilege Bill is a most massive piece of work and it focuses on the most fundamental matters affecting the constitution that I think we have undertaken certainly in the 50th Parliament and possibly for some time before. It also involves the most intricate threads of reasoning that I have experienced in committee work in my time in the House and I pay tribute to colleagues Chris Finlayson David Parker Grant Robertson and others as well as the officials for collaboratively producing this bill.I want to make just one or two points of a general nature. We have been talking this morning about the principle of comity underpinning this bill and the relationship between the executive and the judiciary. I would wish to emphasise—and I am sure I speak for others—that the bill is not intended in any way as a sign or a gesture of disrespect to the judiciary. It is taking on some of the judicial decisions that have been made. As David Parker said there is a fundamental reason for that. The principle of comity rests on mutual respect and it is that that is driving to some extent this bill. But there is if I may say so a related principle and that is the principle of self-respect of the branches of government—self-respect by the legislature of the legislature and the interests of the legislature self-respect by the judiciary of the status and interests of the judiciary itself. And I think the mutuality that underpins the principle of comity rests on a recognition of the need for self-respect on both branches as well. I think it is very important that this bill—presuming it passes through the House—is embraced in that spirit by everybody in New Zealand and all branches of government.My second point picks up on something the Attorney-General has said about parliamentary privilege. I totally agree that privilege in this House is not a licence. It is not a licence granted to members—to insiders—to defame members of the public outside. It is precisely the opposite. It is not a licence; it is a protection. It is a protection that is exercised by the representatives who are elected by the people to ensure that the rights and the freedoms of the people are respected in perpetuity. So privilege is actually in a sense vicariously the privilege of every member of the New Zealand society and provided it is exercised with responsibility we should all be embracing it. With privilege of course comes obligation not least the obligation to ensure that we get this bill right.I would just want to make one last comment and that is in response to—at the risk of wafting into seminar-like ratiocination but I blame David Parker for that—Hon Todd McClay: You wouldn’t do that Kennedy.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Yes it is David’s fault. It is true that bills of this nature underpin and secure the democracy that prevails in this country and it is incumbent on us to cherish and celebrate the status of democracy in this country. But I think there is an equal counter-requirement on our part not to overstate that and not to perceive our democracy as being superior to others. I think in fact that the moment we start to do that is the moment we start to take on the risk that you could undermine it.I say that because the Westminster model that we have inherited which Mr Parker mentioned has tremendous strengths but I personally think it also carries with it some weaknesses. I worked in an organisation that you Mr Assistant Speaker might possibly be aware of when I was in New York and my job was to relate to parliamentarians around the world and to parliaments. When you visit 30 or 40 parliaments you get a feel for the constitutional structures that underpin the politics and the society in those countries but also the dynamics and the chemistry day to day that give the blood to the veins of that kind of particular democracy. You go away concluding that every democracy has its strengths and its weaknesses and we have to recognise that ours has weaknesses.We talk about the separation of powers but we have just devoted the last couple of sessions—not so much with consideration of reports on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the police but with the Henry report—to exactly this issue: the separation of powers and the problems that the merger of executive and legislature in the Westminster system gives to us. I think we could have regard actually to the republican constitutional status and the civil law code which have strengths that we lack. It is as simple as that.I think if we look at 30 or 40 Parliaments around the world that reflect the republican status the one defining conclusion I have drawn from visiting 30 or 40 of them is that a little bit of carpentry is not a bad idea for democracy. Those legislatures are hemispherical but the Westminster system is almost World War I trench warfare. There are times when I have concerns looking at the fine member of Parliament—and I really mean that—in the form of Grant Robertson and the fine member of Parliament in the form of the Attorney-General. They are two sword-lengths apart more or less. It is trench warfare and it undermines the ability to form a social consensus that can be sometimes quite critical to issues of defining importance where we must play down the adversarial nature of relationships between parties and the differentiation of policy between parties.Some things are too important for politics and we need to find an underlying consensus on which we can base a national policy that can move marginally from Government to Government not in the fundamental way that can happen in Westminster systems and in Australia and New Zealand probably more than anywhere else. I go through Europe as I did at the end of last year and I see the underlying consensus. Take climate change which I am devoting a lot of time to. There is a consensus there on which policy can rest that is lacking in this country and in Australia in Canada and in the United States. So I just mention that in passing because I think when it comes to supporting a bill like this it is critically important that we do support it and that we get it right. But let us also think about some of the other broader issues of defending the democracy that we do so cherish in this country. Thank you.