Little Andrew: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17337. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): In the nature of Statutes Amendment bills we will of course support this bill the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). It does a number of tidy-up jobs on various pieces of legislation—that much the Associate Minister of Justice has just said—but it is an opportunity to reflect upon those pieces of legislation that appear in the bill and see whether we can find a common thread weave a common thread or make some sense out of it. I have been through them in some detail and I am struck by some of the—admittedly minor—changes to some very important pieces of legislation. Some are to do with the judiciary some to do with our judicial process and some to do with other administrative process. I am just wondering whether actually through this Statutes Amendment Bill this Government is setting up an escape path for a recalcitrant Minister. If you have a look at some of these provisions there is a very unusual thread of commonality that goes through it.Let me start with the judicial conduct commissioner and commission bill—let me just clarify the exact name because I would not want to mislead and put wrong the tens of thousands of people who have tuned in specially this afternoon to watch the passage of this legislation. It is the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004. This is a piece of legislation that allows those who are aggrieved by what has happened to them in court before a judge to take action. Indeed the Judicial Conduct Panel has dealt with some justified complaints against judges. It is very difficult of course because most of the people who are aggrieved at the conduct of judges are usually those who have lost their case before a judge. But there are some who are treated peremptorily unfortunately and in an inappropriate way. They make complaints and they can have those complaints heard—a sort of second tier of justice delivered. Well the changes in this Statutes Amendment Bill for the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act do two things. They allow the deputy commissioner to do what the commissioner can do once the commissioner has delegated it to the deputy. They also allow the commissioner to dismiss a complaint already dealt with.I just make this point—and of course it would not be a matter for a Statutes Amendment Bill—but in reflecting on this piece of legislation and the processes that it enacts is it not a pity that the judges themselves do not have a body to go toto complain about injustices done against them? They might well lay a complaint against none other than the Minister of Justice—not because of dinners she has had in Shanghai or her travel itinerary in all parts of the world on behalf of her husband’s company but because of her comments and her attitude towards our judiciary.Her attitude is absolutely epitomised by the comments she made in the weekend in an interview on the prospective Victims’ Commissioner when she said of our judicial system that she agreed with the statement that “This is not a court of justice; this is a court of law.” She said of our judiciary: “This is not a court of justice; this is a court of law.” That came from our Minister of Justice. It was not Billy Bragg and his famous song about the appalling nature of the bail system in the United Kingdom; this was the New Zealand Minister of Justice talking about our system of justice on the 6 o’clock news on Sunday night on Television One. If I was a judge in this country of whatever court I would be horrified and I would be looking for a process by which to complain about that Minister. Perhaps they will not have to look much longer if the present Minister of Justice meets her just deserts and is gone by the end of the week because she certainly should do so.Now I want to go to the Official Information Act. This is a very interesting piece of legislation because it allows for oral requests to be made and then for those oral requests if they are not clearly understood to be put into writing by whoever receives the request including Ministers—including Ministers. It also allows a refusal of a document that cannot be found providing a reasonable effort has been made to locate the document. Following our requests for information about for example Michelle Boag and her complaint about the Minister for ACC and her breach of privacy well we were told that it could not be found and so this provision may well provide a mechanism by which to get information from that Minister.I might say this about the Minister of Justice who is the Minister responsible for the Official Information Act. She must have the most appalling record of responses to Official Information Act requests. I have not received a response to an Official Information Act request that has not been heavily redacted—that has not been concealment of information. But this seems to be the flavour of this Minister. Rather than be open upfront and transparent she conceals everything and it now turns out she has got a lot to conceal. There is a lot of conduct that she wants to hide and soquestions are now being asked and we wonder whether this change to the Official Information Act in this Statutes Amendment Bill might enable us just a smidgen further in her door to find out what is actually going on and what it is that she is hiding.I turn to the Ombudsmen Act because there is a change to the Ombudsmen Act in this Statutes Amendment Bill as well. This allows an Ombudsman to refuse to commence an investigation if he or she judges it necessary to do so. That is quite a sensible provision—uncontroversial in any other way—except who is the Minister responsible for the Ombudsmen and the Ombudsmen Act? It is the Minister of Justice—the Minister of Justice. Here is the thing. When you cannot get an answer—a proper answer or a heavily redacted answer to your Official Information Act request—where do you go? You go to the Office of the Ombudsmen and the same Minister is in charge of that office too. And what do we find? The poor old Ombudsmen’s office snowed under predominantly because of Ministers who fail to answer their Official Information Act requests and the Minister of Justice is the worst. So I hope that the Associate Minister of Justice who has shepherded this bill into the House today takes note because he may have to step up very soon and we want responsible people ready to step up and take up these senior roles. Perhaps the Associate Minister when he gets the opportunity in a few days’ time to pick up the cudgels of the real job the big job will make a difference in this regard.Then of course we have the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. There is no question I think that the current Minister of Justice will want to resort to her rights and obligations under this Act very soon—if she has not already. This provision under the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) allows objections to licences that are limited to the suitability of the applicants. So the only ground upon which you can object to an application for a licence is the suitability of the applicant. Whether the present Minister of Justice through this bill is actually preparing her way for a career change I am not sure but if she is she is in trouble. She is in trouble under this provision because it allows you to oppose an application for a licence on the grounds of character. That is to say if you are not a person of good character you cannot hold a liquor licence. So I just say to the present Minister of Justice to be careful because that career option may be closed off because we cannot have Ministers of Justice leaving that post who want to go off and sell alcohol when they have left that post under a cloud of suspicion of wrongdoing. We cannot have that.Then finally there is the Sentencing Act. That is an interesting provision because it deals with what happens when an offence is committed in a car that is not your own. So if a Minister who transgresses commits an offence in a ministerial limousine for example the car can still be seized. The car can be seized and disposed of—Dr David Clark: It could be crushed.ANDREW LITTLE: Well it may well be crushed. So I can foresee a Minister of Justice who has been recently pushed out of her role going off to apply for a liquor licence that she cannot get sells liquor anyway and has the car that she is in seized by the Crown. None of this is any good. But I just want to say this finally. She has a resort. There are two parts of this bill that she can resort to. The first is the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act amendment and if there is any place that the current Minister of Justice needs to go it is surely a friendly society because she is running out of them here. She is running out of her friends around here and she could go along to a friendly society and find that there are people who just want to be friends regardless of the character of the people they are dealing with.But finally if all of that fails—if all of that fails—there are the changes to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act in this bill. The provisions in this bill make it easier to change your name. So if the Minister of Justice leaves the postunder a cloud because of very serious allegations of impropriety and misconduct and she cannot get another job either as a retailer of liquor or anything else then she can go along to the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages and she can change her name. There will be a new form provided under the amendment in this bill and it will be easier for her to change her name. So she has prospects and she has a future. But after all of that notwithstanding the apparent setting up of alternatives for the present Minister of Justice we will support this legislation because these are good changes for the people of New Zealand.