Smith Murray: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Smith Murray: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9006] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 United Future will support the Government’s proposed amendments because we think they improve the bill particularly regarding the change of date of instigation. Nevertheless we believe that to enact the Supreme Court Bill on 1 January 2004 would be premature and that the commencement date of 1 July 2004 is also premature. It would be preferable if the enacting of the bill were put back for 5 years because firstly it is not needed yet and secondly it is not wanted yet. It is not needed because at this point in time the Privy Council is more than adequate in meeting New Zealand’s need for a second-tier court of appeal. 
I accept that the new court would bring some advantages particularly in giving access to a greater number of cases. However the cases that it would be able to hear—in particular Family Court Environment Court and Employment Court cases—would be appeals at a third-tier level and the number of appeals that come through would likely be rare and therefore very few cases would be affected and obtain that advantage. 
Against that is the fact that we would lose with the Privy Council a quality of judiciary that has been accepted right across the Parliament as being of high quality. We would engage in a huge cost that we do not incur with the Privy Council and most important we would be making a move that does not have the confidence of the community. I do not think we need to make this change yet. I said in my second reading speech that I predicted we would probably need to make the change within 5 to 10 years—and probably at the lower end of that—but at the moment the Privy Council is very adequate for New Zealand’s needs. We do not need to change and to start the bill on 1 January 2004 is premature. 
The bill is also not wanted and this is perhaps the more important point. The business legal and Maori communities clearly do not want this bill. A substantial percentage of New Zealanders do not want this bill. The select committee process which involved a wide range of New Zealanders made it clear the bill was not wanted. There was overwhelming quantitative and qualitative opposition to the bill. I believe that the court will probably be needed by 2008. Events in the UK will have progressed and we will probably need it then. But we do not need it now. New Zealanders will by then I hope be ready for it providing they see it as their decision and have come to that conclusion without feeling that it is being dictated to them by the Government. 
Questions have been raised as to whether there should be a referendum. United Future did not initially support the proposal that there ought to be a referendum on the matter. In the commentary on the bill our comments show quite clearly that we opposed the idea of having a referendum because we considered it an inappropriate and unnecessary process for the reasons that those opposed to the referendum enunciated. We thought it was unnecessarily expensive to undertake a public referendum prior to reforming the court structure. 
However in the absence of cross-party support in the Parliament in the absence of public support during the select committee process in the absence of United Future being able to negotiate amendments that would sufficiently satisfy and provide answers to the prime concerns of key sectors of the public and given the prospect of a mere 63 votes being cast in support of the bill a referendum is the only remaining way of providing the necessary buy-in by the public to justify this bill being passed. United Future will therefore support the Supplementary Order Paper being proposed by ACT. 
In terms of the purpose clause there was concern among objectors as to judicial activism. United Future supported the Hodder formulations and with some amendment we proposed as revealed in the commentary to the bill that they be adopted in a modified form. I note too that ACT’s amendments by and large follow that. Therefore we will also be supporting the amendment in the Supplementary Order Paper proposed by ACT that the purpose clause and the addition to the purpose clause be put into the bill. The judiciary does need to be conscious of its place. There has been some concern in particular with the Lesa case.