Finlayson Christopher: Property Law Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Finlayson Christopher: Property Law Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2007. Volume:642;Page:11765. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 As the Minister of Conservation said the Property Law Bill is based on work undertaken by the Law Commission many years ago. In 1994 it published a report called  
A New Property Law Act 
 and the Property Law Bill is the fruit of that hard work. The National Party is pleased to support the second reading of what is a major and very important piece of black-letter law reform. 
The Property Law Bill was derided by the Minister of Conservation as being dry and boring but it is in fact fundamentally important to the running of any 21st century society. We must have our property rules clear and accessible because they affect every citizen. I acknowledge that aspects of this legislation may appear to be dry and boring to the uninitiated and it may appear to be boring to a Minister who is used to concentrating his efforts on saving whales or snails on the West Coast but as I said it is of fundamental significance. 
The Law Commission and Justice Blanchard of the Supreme Court are to be congratulated on the great work they have done on this bill. Indeed the quality of the work undertaken by the Law Commission and the Ministry of Justice which built on the bill with the work it has done is reflected in the relatively short commentary on this legislation by the Justice and Electoral Committee when reporting back to the House. Indeed it is fair to say that many of the changes we suggested were in the “very technical” category. 
 For example clause 58(3) is deleted; subpart 7 of Part 2 deals with the abolition and modification of common law rules relating to property and clause 58 deals with the abolition of obsolete estates and rules. Strange things like estates tail and estates by wrong are abolished by this legislation. The doctrine of interesse termini referred to in clause 60 is abolished. That is the kind of law reform that one is dealing with here and the technical changes that we recommended were in fact few and far between. There was only one substantive issue that we needed to spend a bit of time on and that concerned an aspect of the law of leases. So it is a good piece of work. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee received very few submissions on the legislation and I want to record in this second reading that the committee was “disappointed at the paucity of submissions we received for the bill especially from the legal fraternity.” because it is such a fundamental piece of legislation for the legal fraternity. As noted in the report the bill represents the largest single change to property law in the past 55 years. I would have thought that some of the large law firms could take a bit of time and trouble to prepare submissions come before the select committee and talk about aspects of the legislation. 
The Minister of Conservation has accurately summarised the changes. It is good legislation and the sooner it is passed into law the better. So as I said National is pleased to support the second reading of the Property Law Bill.