Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's been quite a night in the House in this debate about this excellent bill actually. So just to bring it back to the bill I would like to note and acknowledge the work of the Hon Chris Finlayson QC. It has been a bill with an origin story that all bills should have in my view which is to say that members of the profession and the Law Commission did research at the front lines into this very complex area of law brought it all together and found the difficulties that the profession and the public were having. The recommendations that this bill adopts came out of that which in the law and the justice system is really important because there is often a disconnect between the difficulties of applying the law and upholding our system of justice that we in Parliament often ignore for many years. Then it was a member of the Bar of that profession who put the bill together. So it is an excellent bill. It does address issues in our system that needed to be addressed and the broad broad issue that this bill does address is upholding the rule of law which in any system includes the necessity of the law to be accessible knowable clear and contained ideally in legislation that the public can access in one document. That hasn't been the case when it comes to the law of contempt in New Zealand. It's been contained in multiple statutes and in case law which really is completely inaccessible to laypersons—you know between knowing how to find case law and then reading a case and finding how it would be applied. We can't really expect that members of the public would comply with the law of contempt in those circumstances. Lastly in terms of the broad aspects of the law that this bill addresses it updates our law and makes it workable for the digital age. One of the offences that this creates that will I know make it much easier for trial judges to manage their work is to say clearly to members of juries that they can't go off and do research on Facebook and google-search case facts and then come to the court and base their decisions on that rather than the evidence. I think that's important because New Zealanders need to know that decisions made by juries are based on fact—evidence that was admissible and reliable and proved in a court of law. So that kind of thing has for a few years now undermined our system of justice in many ways and has actually caused mistrials which are expensive and time-consuming and put great stress on both our system and also witnesses victims and the accused who all have to come to court again and again. Just to lastly and briefly address the big contentious issue that the House has been fighting about tonight and to make it really really clear that the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper 289 as it relates to falsehoods told about judges—it's absolutely not the case that a falsehood that was told with the honest belief in those so-called facts would come under this law. It's very clear how high the threshold is. Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did the member read the submissions? GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: The prosecutor has to prove—I'm reading from it. Sorry that you haven't read this law as well as previous law which you breached Dr Smith. So the law—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: The law as—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! E noho kia ora. I thought this speech was going to be a really good one but the member just crossed a line and should not have OK? No matter what the provocation she does herself no good service by actually saying what she just said and she should refrain from further references to it. GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: I apologise Mr Speaker. So what does fall under this bill is a falsehood deliberately told—a deliberate falsehood—that also was told with the intention or recklessness as to whether that falsehood would bring the justice system into disrepute and the falsehood has to be about a member of the judiciary. It is not a criticism of a judgment not a criticism of a decision not a criticism of a judge; a falsehood told about a member of the bench with the deliberate intention of undermining our system of justice. And even if all of that is the case it's still the case that you need leave of the Solicitor-General. The bar is so high. Of course we know as with all such New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights limitations are absolutely allowed in a democratic and lawful society in order to protect the greater good and to protect our system of justice and the public safety. The public interest in having confidence in our courts is one of the most fundamental aspects of our democracy. So deliberately undermining that public interest through deliberately told falsehoods absolutely does not fall under the right to free speech just as defamation is an exception to that because we know that there's a public interest in protecting individuals against falsehoods that damage their reputation and therefore their lives. So this is an excellent bill. It does simplify clarify and make our law much more accessible as it should be and it upholds our system of justice and the rule of law. Thank you.