O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): The first thing that I ask myself about this bill is why did David Bennett decide to sponsor it. Could it possibly be that he intends to go to live overseas permanently and wants to prepare the ground for that? Could that be the reason? If so that in itself would be a very good reason for supporting the bill. Could it be that there is such huge pressure from his constituents in the Waikato that this bill be passed that he could not resist it? Could that be the case? Somehow I doubt that very much. Could it be that Mr Bennett is looking for a legacy bill something so that he can say to his grandchildren This is something"—the only thing probably but something—"that I did when I was in Parliament." Could that be the motivation? Somehow again I doubt whether that would be satisfactory as a legacy bill.Could I say next that I also have had only a little experience with what I used to call the conflict of laws and that was in my early years as a lawyer in the Public Trust Office when I had to deal with the conflict of laws around testamentary law. I remember very distinctly the difficulties that arose when people who lived in New Zealand still had a domicile of origin overseas. They had made a will in New Zealand and there were difficulties because English common law and New Zealand statute law are quite different to the Code Napoléon which applied through most of Europe—that was where I remember in one case in particular the deceased person had lived. They were very very difficult situations to deal with—quite different from the law of torts but also very difficult.New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill even though we accept that the current law is far from perfect. We are not doing so because we do not really think that there is any particular need to abolish the current law as it applies and as it is proposed to be abolished in this bill. We are not satisfied that change to the existing common law rules around the conflict of laws and the application of the law of torts of one jurisdiction or another is actually necessary and we would have to be persuaded that that would be the case.The third reason that I want to give for not supporting this—apart from the fact that it is not needed; apart from the fact that there is no requirement for this there is no pressure for this—is that we are concerned about clause 8(1) which displaces the general rule. Mr Parker has already pointed to the fact that it introduces a new test and I quote from the latter part of clause 8(1) where it refers to when the circumstances in which " it is substantially more appropriate for the applicable law … to be the law of the other jurisdiction …" and so on apply. The concern we have about that is that we are not sure in what circumstances it would be substantially more appropriate or not. That is a discretion that the court would have to exercise. I do not know how it would exercise that discretion. I would like to hear discussion about that and how that test would work in practice. So I think that is too general. That is not specific enough and does not actually achieve a sufficiently robust new regime to justify the abolition of the current law which has been developed over such a long period of time.Overall this bill does have some merit because it does deal with that difficult issue of double actionability but we think in New Zealand First that the solutions that are provided for in this bill are not necessarily the best. For those reasons we will be voting against the bill but on the other hand I will certainly be interested at the select committee to listen to the arguments that will no doubt be put forward to justify the bill that we have before us today. For the time being however New Zealand First will be voting against it."