Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — In Committee 
Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9053] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 We are discussing Part 2 of the Supreme Court Bill and as I recall there have been speeches from United Future and two speeches from the National Party and a speech from Mr Field and from the Minister. So we have a long way to go yet on Part 2 because we have barely touched on it. 
The Supreme Court Bill is being rushed through Parliament by the parties in favour of it without adequate electoral support for it. At the last election the Labour Party received 31.4 percent of the vote of those eligible to vote. The Green Party received 5.3 percent of the vote of those eligible to vote and the Progressives received 1.3 percent making a total of 38 percent. The other parties’ voting percentages were ACT 5.4 percent; National 15.9 percent; New Zealand First 7.9 percent; United Future 5.1 percent; and others 3.7 percent—also totalling 38 percent. In effect in so far as the electoral mandate in New Zealand is concerned the parties favouring this bill and the parties opposing this bill are tied. There was no mandate at the last election from those eligible to vote in favour of this legislation. 
That I think is a very important fact. We see that a vital constitutional change is taking place yet the Government the Progressives and the Greens are ramming and rushing through legislation without the support of the people of New Zealand. I am quoting from information that has been made available to me from the Parliamentary Library that I requested; it is not something I have dreamt up myself in the last half-hour. 
Part 2 has a provision dealing with the work of the Court of Appeal. One of the things that became very clear from the submissions that were put to the Justice and Electoral Committee is that the Court of Appeal is overworked—with about 400 criminal cases and about 200 civil cases. This bill purports to reduce the number of judges on the Court of Appeal. One way the Government proposes to get around the situation seems to be to reduce the number of judges who will sit at hearings of the Court of Appeal. We have a court that is overworked now yet the Government is going to reduce the number of judges who will be sitting at it. That is really Labour Party logic! This bill will make it even more difficult for the Court of Appeal and inevitably in a court that is currently overworked there will be more applications for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court as a result. That is another failing in this legislation. 
Mr Field when he spoke last night gave us the example of Canada and Australia but did not mention the fact that when Canada and Australia abolished appeals to the Privy Council they already had a two-tier appeal system in place—and that had existed for quite some time. We cannot compare Canada with New Zealand bearing in mind that North America was settled by Europeans from the late 15th century—1492. North America was being settled by the French and the British in the late 16th century and Canada was taken over by the British in 1791 finally under the Quebec Act after Wolfe defeated Montcalm in Quebec in 1759. There is no comparison between Canada and New Zealand. 
In so far as Australia is concerned the First Fleet arrived in Australia in 1788 and colonisation got under way at that stage. New Zealand of course was a colony of New South Wales. It was part of New South Wales for quite some time until action was taken in 1839. So comparing New Zealand with Australia and Canada is a clear example of this Government’s trying extremely hard to draw a long bow on its justification for this bill. But the main point is that at the last election the parties that are in favour of making this dramatic constitutional change did not get any electoral mandate to make this change. Extraordinarily enough it is a dead heat—38 percent each or 76 percent in total and with 24 percent of those eligible to vote not making up their minds to vote on the day. Usually a non-vote is an indication that the person does not support the Government.