Mapp Wayne: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11251] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I would like to address that matter. The first point I note is that Supplementary Order Paper 190 which nevertheless the National Party will support was tabled today. The concern I raise is essentially procedural. As I noted in my earlier contribution this legislation is primarily about the International Criminal Court and a very vigorous debate about issues related to the proceedings was conducted last week and indeed when the bill was introduced. 
Today—literally—we have a Supplementary Order Paper that is four pages in length. It is of reasonably complex drafting and uses the vehicle of this bill by virtue of its generalised heading to provide diplomatic immunity to representatives of the European Community. In essence the European Community is being treated as if it were another State. There are good and proper reasons why that has to be done and that is why we will support the bill. But I have to say we have seen an egregious practice develop over time by which the Government uses Supplementary Order Papers well beyond the purposes that people might imagine they are used for. The normal practice is that a Supplementary Order Paper is there to correct a particular error in drafting or something of that nature. So essentially it stays within the subject matter that the select committee members themselves thought they were dealing with. That is the general philosophy of the Supplementary Order Paper mechanism and everyone recognises that it is necessary. 
There has been a practice however as in this instance of this Government using Supplementary Order Papers in a much broader way—essentially to put in a new purpose for legislation. I remind the Government of the trouble it got into some time ago when the Attorney-General in fact and the Minister of Justice sought to introduce not without notice on the same day a Supplementary Order Paper that introduced a new criminal offence—the offence of criminal defamation. The difficulty we have is that major changes are made to our law without reference to a select committee. Sometimes that is justifiable but the issue is more serious than that in this instance because the changes were introduced without notice. In this case we acknowledge that representatives of the European Community do need immunity but frankly that provision should have been introduced with a little more notice than 1 day—or on this very day. It could have been done last week. It could at least have been properly signalled last week in the House. It was not done in the way it should have been. 
So I raise this generalised point: this is a dangerous way of making legislation. It is a trap that leads inevitably to bad law which often then has to be undone. I invite the Government in the limited time in office it still has to think and not do that—not abuse the parliamentary process in that way. It brings this House the governmental processes and the integrity of our laws into discredit. The Government might be happy with that amazingly enough but on our side of the Chamber we are not happy with that kind of abuse of process as I regard it. The Minister may say I am overextending the point but there have been precedents in this Parliament that were dangerous that had to be backtracked on and that were a grave breach of the civil rights of the people of this nation. It is a practice this Government has yet to learn not to do. So I guess in its last 18 months we will see not only the panicked reaction of the last few days but this kind of egregious abuse of parliamentary process which frankly I would have thought under an MMP Parliament we have moved beyond.