Mallard Trevor: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is pretty rare that I get up and say that I agree totally with Chris Finlayson the Attorney-General but in this particular case I think he summarised these issues very well. I thank my colleague David Parker for further outlining them and I say that even the comments of John Banks—other than I think a slight misunderstanding of how Governments were formed in the 17th century—also made a lot of sense and added some value. I think most members of Parliament will understand that I am very familiar with the case that has led to the change that we are now discussing. I agree with my colleague David Parker and the Attorney-General—I think that the Attorney-General and David Parker were on common ground—that the courts have got it wrong. I think David Parker was saying that they should not have been there in the first place and I do agree with that.It is fundamental to having proper ministerial accountability that Ministers can be properly briefed by officials on particular issues. Sometimes you know there are questions about the adequacy of the answers that Ministers give and sometimes there are questions about the adequacy of the briefings that they receive but to suggest that briefings cannot be full and frank because the officials might face a defamation action is something that I think is particularly unfair and it does not help us here.Mr Speaker what you do at the beginning of every Parliament is wander off to Government House and express your wishes for the House to be granted a number of things but the most important of those is the freedom of speech. It is the ability to say what is important. Sometimes members of Parliament will say what is important to them. They will give their views. Sometimes they will be wrong. Sometimes in other circumstances they will commit defamation. But it is my view that that right—the right to criticise without fear—is something that is very valuable very important and I think probably not used often enough in our modern Parliament.I think that the way we have gone—certainly in the time that John Banks has been in Parliament and even in the time that I have been here—is that we tend to have more debates about big party political issues rather than about the things that are important to individual constituencies and to local members. Maybe that is one of the flow-ons from MMP but I do every now and again get cases that I contemplate bringing up in the House of people who I think are ripping off my constituents.The most recent case was that of a man inWainuiōmata who sells washing machines that just break down. He says that they are refurbished but they are not. They are stored outside. For a period of time Work and Income New Zealand was referring people to him with grants that those people had to repay often for long periods after their washing machines had broken down. We have sorted out the problem at the Work and Income end and the man will go out of business relatively soon. His main source of custom has gone because the beneficiaries inWainuiōmata now get good-quality new washing machines which are not much more expensive. They have guarantees that are enforceable as opposed to those from the man inWainuiōmata who basically chased people away when they came to ask for their guarantees to be enforced.The point that I am making is that there are lots of cases that we get as local MPs where we should have the right to freely and openly criticise people without fear of facing a defamation action. Some of those cases will be massive some of them will be relatively minor and some like in theAttorney-General andGow v Leigh case fit somewhere in between that. I have no doubt that in that case there was a high degree of political motivation in Ms Leigh’s action. I think she was attempting to get some sort of settlement from the Crown in a way that I thought was most inappropriate. Notwithstanding everything that was said previously the quality of her work was suspect and questionable. She was replaced. My view is that that was an appropriate thing to do and that to sue the Attorney-General and the person who gave the advice was not appropriate.I think what we are doing now is coming to the right point in getting the law so that members do have free speech. It is your job Mr Speaker to ensure that it is used responsibly but in the end we will face the electorate and will face adverse consequences from the electorate if we get it wrong. Thank you.