Banks John: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBanks John: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15489. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): I must say I have enjoyed working on the Privileges Committee with the previous speaker David Parker and others. The Parliamentary Privilege Bill is to be read alongside article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 or 1689 in the new calendar and common law privilege. It affirms aspects of the law and conventions regarding parliamentary privilege including those in the Standing Orders of the House and from various legal conventions and precedents. This country is well behind other Commonwealth countries in getting those matters up to scratch and contemporary. But the bill does not codify or replace the various legal conventions and precedents.The Parliamentary Privilege Bill—so that people listening this afternoon understand it—defines “proceedings in Parliament” to include amongst other matters where the officials provide material for Ministers to respond to an oral question which is the reason why this matter is being addressed at this time. It has actually been a Trojan horse for just that. It provides statutory guidance on how to interpret “impeached or questioned”; clarifies the protections afforded to certain broadcasts and reports of proceedings in Parliament; makes explicit that a statement made during parliamentary proceedings may not be used to determine criminal or civil liability in respect of a statement made outside of Parliament; affirms and modernises existing laws including affirming the House’s power to fine for contempt; and resolves a number of minor technical issues. The bill repeals the Legislature Act 1908 and the Legislature Amendment Act 1992 and amends the Defamation Act 1992.It is work that is well overdue for this Parliament in terms of other parliaments around the Commonwealth in particular. As the previous speaker said in 1688 or 1689 in the new calendar the House of Commons passed the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was a statutory reinstatement of some of the most important basic rights and liberties of English citizens and it forms part of our laws. Most would recognise those fundamental and civil political rights. For example taxes can be raised only by Parliament and not by royal prerogative the right to bail and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and justice is done by impartial judges in courts—it is not a personal matter for the Crown. The Bill of Rights also touched on succession laws for the monarchy. Many of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights 1689 are reproduced and fleshed out in our laws right across all the statutes and in the laws of the other Commonwealth nations that we refer to.The Bill of Rights speaks to us from the past and it is critical to our future to the role of this Parliament and to the rights of every single member of this Parliament because as I have said before every single member of this Parliament is an equal. No one is more important or has more rights than anyone else from every single corner of this House.Some of the provisions concerned Parliament and its privileges. The general law around the rights of this House is known as the law of privilege. It is part of a rich inheritance of the common law that is every New Zealander’s birthright. The Bill of Rights 1689 is the fount of the law of privilege—it is the fount of the law of privilege. It is what we stand for and what we stand against when doing the business of a democratically elected Government and as individually elected members of Parliament who are equal under the law for our actions in this House and the laws that are passed by majority in Parliament.It is said that the election of members of Parliament is to be free from interference from the Crown and it is often not well understood that there is a difference between members of Parliament and Ministers of the Crown members of Parliament and Ministers of a Government and members of Parliament and members of Parliament as part of a Government. The Bill of Rights 1689 as I said is the fount of the law of privilege.More important for today’s purpose it is said that the freedom of speech in debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not be impeached or questioned by any court or place out of this Parliament. That is why we are having this discussion this afternoon. That is why we have this bill. That is why we have got this legislation going through the select committee process around these corridors.The Parliamentary Privilege Bill deals mainly with freedom of speech in debate in Parliament and its impeachment elsewhere. The Privileges Committee must consider whether the law of privilege is clarified to extend to covering an official’s advice to theMinister for the purposes of answering oral questions in this House. Although MPs often complain about the quality of Ministers’ answers in this House that is an important part of holding the executive branch of government to account. These issues arose in a case where the comments of an official to a Minister in the context of preparing the Minister’s answer to a parliamentary question was held to be defamatory by the courts inAttorney-General andGow v Leigh. It is Parliament’s view that this is a process of Parliament and is therefore covered by privilege. It is the view of the courts that it is not. That is why we have this discussion today. That is why we have the first reading of this bill and that is the matter that is going to be addressed at the select committee over the next few months.Ultimately the scope of law of privilege—save any statute—is a matter for the courts to determine. As the law of privilege stands currently today official advice to Ministers in the context of preparing for parliamentary oral questions is not covered. It is covered in most other Commonwealth jurisdictions and it should be in this House.The House must wrestle with two competing interests: first whether such an extension or clarification is necessary for the proper functioning of this Parliament. My view on that is yes. Here we must focus on the effect of free and frank advice to Ministers operating as members of Parliament in this House and their responsibility for their words and for their actions in this Parliament. Second it is also necessary so that citizens be denied a remedy for potentially defamatory statements made by officials in the context of advising Ministers on answers to parliamentary questions.The bill also deals with the rules around restatement and adoption of statements in the law. Classically a member of Parliament cannot themselves repeat a potentially defamatory statement made inside the House but others can do so in good faith. This strikes me as somewhat artificial and unduly complex. In most jurisdictions in the Commonwealth this has been dealt with. The bill also includes a number of other technical fixes around the power to fine for contempt. I await with interest the submissions on these issues which will be considered carefully by the Privileges Committee. It is probably timely to shift more of the law of privilege into a statutory restatement.These are lofty matters but they are important to the functioning of a parliamentary democracy and to the rights and responsibilities of every single member of Parliament to work in this House in the best interests of every single New Zealander outside this Parliament and in the best interests of a truly functioning parliamentary democracy. For those who come into contact with the law of privilege I hope that this will allow them to better locate the relative law and understand it. In other words it is our responsibility as part of this reform to reach out to the public to those whom we serve so that they clearly understand our responsibilities to them in working for them on their behalf in this parliamentary democracy this debating chamber this fount of all legislative change and hopefully change for good.