Wong Pansy: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9013] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 The public deserve an explanation. Like myself they might be a bit confused by the Green member who has just sat down. He started to tell us that we should respect convention—if something has not been done in Parliament before then we should not even try to attempt it. It is incredible to think that the Greens actually respect tradition and convention. 
 Let me come back to this bill and interestingly to its purpose. Clause 3 states: “(1) The purpose of this Act is—(a) to establish within New Zealand a new court of final appeal comprising New Zealand judges—(i) to recognise that New Zealand is an independent nation with its own history and traditions;”. At first glance one may tend to agree with that but when one reflects on it one wonders why Prime Minister Clark consistently tells us that we have to do what the United Nations wants us to do for example under section 59 on smoking—because all the other countries have to repeal it so do we. 
Whenever there is an issue such as the labour laws etc. we are told what to do by this very flexible Prime Minister Helen Clark who seems to be able to change her argument according to the issue she is championing. In this case it is said that New Zealand is an independent nation with its own history and traditions so therefore we must have our final court of appeal the Supreme Court. Why is it that when we come to other issues we say we must do whatever international rules or regulations stipulate? How can we consistently follow the argument of this Labour Government when one day it says we are obliged to do what the international community believes we should do and the next day says: “Hey we’re an independent nation with our own history and tradition so we should not continue this linkage with a very superior Privy Council in Britain.”? 
The second reason we are told under clause 3(1)(a)(ii) that we should have a Supreme Court is “to enable important legal matters including legal matters relating to the Treaty of Waitangi to be resolved with an understanding of New Zealand conditions history and traditions;”. One would think that a Government that put such a provision in the purpose clause of a bill would actually respect the treaty partner’s—the Maori community’s—opinion on that. I was told by my very learned and well-respected colleague Georgina te Heuheu that the majority of the Maori population was not consulted and did not agree. In fact most Maori—the treaty partner—who turned up to the Justice and Electoral Committee actually said that they do not believe we should cut our link with the Privy Council. 
The Minister should at least have the decency to stand and take a call to explain to us why it is that the purpose clause in this bill does not seem to equate to our actual observations. I was surprised earlier that my parliamentary colleague Taito Phillip Field stood up and sought to shut down the debate even though we appreciate that Labour members always do what they are told. He and I sat on the same select committee in respect of the Western Samoan citizenship petition where he kept telling the committee and the submissioners that the Privy Council had made such a great ruling and he tried to persuade us and Parliament to listen to the wisdom of that court.