Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well we know what the Minister of Justice had for dinner tonight: thesaurus of Scotch because I haven't heard for a long time such alliteration from a speech by the Minister. He talked about the succour and protection of our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act the appreciation for and literacy of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the appreciation celebration and elevation of our human rights. And that would be fine if his actions and his words were even closely lined up but I find it so ironic that he is the bastion of the protection of the rights of New Zealanders in the wake of what this House has experienced in the last two or three weeks. Now the shadow Attorney-General for the National Party is not able to speak to this bill at its first reading but I know she has some very strong views about it and it's my pleasure actually to kick off on behalf of the National Party its view. I will say from the outset that we will be supporting this at first reading but we do so with a very significant set of caveats that I and my colleagues will be elaborating on. And I must say—I need to check and the Attorney-General may be able to signal whether I did hear this right but the bill is actually going to go to the Privileges Committee. Is that correct? Hon Member: It's what he said.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I believe that's what the Minister said. Now I'm a member of the Privileges Committee. It's a privilege to be a member of the Privileges Committee I must say—there's my alliteration for the evening—but I'm not sure if the Privileges Committee has ever actually considered a piece of legislation and I wonder if the Attorney-General may be able to elucidate with the normal ratiocination that I know he can give but it is a most unusual place for a bill to be considered even of this nature. I want to just touch on the fact that I believe that this Government has run roughshod over the human rights of New Zealanders and actually the dignity of this House in the last couple of weeks and it's actually I think cut across a process that was under way in the Privileges Committee because we had been discussing the Taylor case that I think forms the basis of this bill. I'm not aware that that matter has been concluded by the Privileges Committee—they haven't met for quite some time—but it was my understanding that there were still questions to be answered before the Attorney-General took a Cabinet paper on what to do and now we find that it's not even the Privileges Committee; that place to question matters of rights and privilege has actually been sidelined in the bringing of this bill to the House before that item of business was concluded.Now we can I guess comfort ourselves—take succour" as the Minister of Justice said—by the fact that the bill is now coming back to the Privileges Committee so we're going to continue that conversation in some way. And that'll be good because I know that the Attorney-General who is the chair of that committee will have plenty of insight into this bill because he will help us understand. I hope we are able to bring the sort of constitutional expertise that I know exists outside of this place to help us understand what we're actually doing with this bill. And I'm no lawyer—Chris Bishop: Sir Geoffrey will be there. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well I look forward to that. I'm sure there'll be a number of others. Professor Geddis will be there. He will have a lot to say about this. I can assure the Minister of Justice that I haven't pulled a single chest hair out over the things that have gone on over the last couple of weeks but I can say I have held my head more in sadness than shame at the rights of New Zealanders being run roughshod over by this Government. Now it strikes me as highly ironic that the bill that provides for a response to a declaration of inconsistency by the courts is referred to the Attorney-General to provide an opinion back to this place when it's actually the Attorney-General's role in the first place to give an opinion on whether any piece of legislation breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and whether that breach is reasonable in the circumstances. Now we deal with that. As the Minister quite rightly says this is not unique. We try not to do it more often than is absolutely necessary but it isn't unusual for a couple of things to happen. One is that the Attorney-General issues a vet that says that that bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—and I can't remember the words in section 7—and whether it's justified in the circumstances. So what we are now saying is that the courts who are constitutionally separate from this court this place and who have to be very careful that those constitutional separations are maintained may nevertheless now issue a declaration on that basis. That declaration goes back to the Attorney-General and the first thing he'll say is "I know. That's what I said." He'll come to this place six days later or whatever it is and say "Yep I agree with the courts because that's what I told Parliament and Parliament passed the bill notwithstanding that." Or alternatively—and I may have got this wrong; Mr Parker may be able to clarify this—either they do that or they come back and say there's an inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and he says "Well I don't agree because that was the vet that I gave to Parliament to inform that." So I'm somewhat at a loss to understand what on earth this is going to do except pay lip-service to the courts. Now it may be entirely appropriate that we give well let's call it respectful and serious lip-service to the courts but nevertheless Parliament is sovereign. Regardless of what I think about the quality of the legislation that has been passed under urgency without consultation with our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that I frankly haven't seen and don't believe—but nevertheless that is this place's prerogative and the courts inject themselves into that very carefully I would suggest. That's a historical comment but it's also I hope a prediction of future actions by the court because this is what makes our constitutional democracy so strong: those separations between the executive the legislature and the judiciary. And that needs to be preserved. So while I understand because I was part of those very thoughtful conversations with firstly—well it involved Mr Finlayson and Mr Parker two very good gentlemen of law and I want that conversation to continue as we consider this bill. It is absolutely vital that those important constitutional pillars of our democracy are maintained. Now I've got to say this: I was opposed to this type of bill but after the behaviour of the Government in the last couple of weeks I think we absolutely have to have that conversation because anything that strengthens the power of the people's representatives to hold the executive to account has to be given reasonable thought. I am disappointed at what happened. I know—and I said this in the debate around the disestablishment of the Epidemic Response Committee—we make laws and we have processes for making laws not for the good times but for when times are hard and when there is a temptation for the executive to act with haste however necessarily. Those protections of consultation submission consideration and passage are at the heart of what makes the sorts of beautiful alliterative descriptions that the Minister of Justice gave so important. So while I tease him a bit on his language I actually support that as an aspiration for this country. I feel we have fallen below that standard in the recent past and if this bill gives us an opportunity to perhaps lift the standard again OK let's have that conversation but I do so cognisant of that important constitutional separation. With that I'm looking forward to that conversation. I commend the bill."