English Bill: Supreme Court Bill — Third Reading 
English Bill: Supreme Court Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9098] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I think the way that speech was greeted in the House is a very serious issue for this Parliament. This new Supreme Court starts out damaged at conception and the reaction of this House is the measure of it. It is the measure of the fundamental problem at the core of the dispute today and that is distrust. This is made obvious even by the way the Prime Minister has conducted the debate in recent weeks. She has said that this is not a major constitutional change and that that is why it does not require a public referendum. Well that is rubbish. She stands alone popular modest and competent as she is as the only person—aside from members of the Labour caucus—who believes that. Anyone else who has looked at this measure which not only abolishes appeals to the Privy Council but sets up a final Court of Appeal in New Zealand says it is a major constitutional change. 
So why does that matter? Well I just wish the Government would listen to this advice. This court can succeed only if it meets one of two conditions: it has broad support in Parliament or if that is not the case it has the broad support of the public. It is a major constitutional change and the constitution belongs to the people. If in the first instance this Parliament offers broad support that can be enough. In the case of MMP it was decided that there had to be not only one referendum but several because it was such a major change that would affect the direction of this country and its political life for decades. 
I say to the Government that it has failed the very court that it so much desires to have. It has failed because it has not gained broad parliamentary support. It has made no effort whatsoever to gain that support—none whatsoever. So the Government ends up passing this bill in this House on a narrow left-wing majority. It could have done differently. National did put a bill forward in the mid-1990s which failed for lack of parliamentary support. That tells that side of the House that these ideas are not altogether foreign on this side of the House. There could have been debate and discussion about it but there was none. In fact the Government did such a bad job of parliamentary support that it started out with the support of the United Future party which had goodwill and whose members are supporters of the Government and it lost that support. That is how badly the Government has failed. 
Then the Government failed the second test which was that if it could not win over Parliament it should put it to the test with the public. It has not. That goes to the core of the mistrust of this Government and its social agenda. The way that the Government has dealt with that issue has been arrogant elitist and contemptuous of public opinion. Helen Clark Margaret Wilson and Lord Cooke—our most eminent jurist apparently—have all said that the public are not up to it. In fact Lord Cooke said that the thought of the proposal being subject to a referendum made him tremble. I sat there and watched him tremble as he said it. That is the risk for New Zealand—that the spirit of the founders of this Supreme Court Margaret Wilson Helen Clark and Lord Cooke will infuse it. The risk for this country is that people who have so much contempt for public opinion who think we are just not clever enough to understand the issues are the types of people who will be appointing the Supreme Court and will be on the Supreme Court. It is a disgrace. I say to this Government that long after it has gone this Parliament will be wrestling with that Supreme Court because it started out without the foundation of support that even the supporters of the Supreme Court should be looking for. If the Government really wants this court to work then it should get the public behind it if it has failed to get Parliament behind it. 
The next step in this process is the process of appointment. Again it is blighted by distrust. Margaret Wilson’s record on appointments is disgraceful. This Parliament does not trust her to make the appointments to the Supreme Court. Many people do not realise that Margaret Wilson and Helen Clark get the opportunity to appoint two courts—the Supreme Court and then to fill all the vacancies on the Court of Appeal created by that process. It could be the case that in the next few months Margaret Wilson and Helen Clark will appoint 10 of the 12 senior judges of New Zealand for a generation. That is unacceptable. I believe that it would be unacceptable if the National Party set out to do that. It has never happened in New Zealand history and it ought never to happen. If the Government is determined to push this through judges cannot be appointed in the way that traditionally they have been.