Naylor JonoJONO NAYLOR (National): I have a confession to make at the beginning of this contribution. When I was first confronted by the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill I really did not understand what a tort was. That is kind of surprising because I think I have actually read every novel that John Grisham has ever written and one of them is actually called The King of Torts but I cannot quite recall what the book was about. As the old adage goes if you actually do not know something hire people around you who do know the things that you do not know—right? So thankfully for me my executive assistant (EA) is also a fourth-year law student and so she was able to explain to me—on a number of occasions I might add—what a tort was. I think on about the fifth or the sixth time through I was starting to understand it. It was certainly not something we did in social work degrees actually to be fair so it was not something I was going to pick up at university.For a start actually for us as at the Justice and Electoral Committee when we were confronted with this I think it was really important for us first of all to be able to gain an understanding of what it was we were talking about so then we were able to gauge the importance of it. That may also reflect why in fact there were only two submitters on this piece of legislation because the general population probably thought: We don't want to appear just as ignorant as Jono Naylor so we won't turn up to actually submit on this bill either."That said with a very good education under my belt from my EA from other members of the committee and from our very fine submitters I now want to speak about this bill because actually as the previous speaker intimated while it is addressing one very small part of our law it is actually a very important one.The purpose of this bill is to establish rules to clarify what New Zealand's law will be relating to where cases about tortious wrongs are to be heard and what law applies. There is one thing that really does not work in the world and that is when we have legislation that gives rise to ambiguity. At the moment with the double actionability rule in place there is some ambiguity about trying to define which law should be applied when there is a tort in play and when it is actually then required—it sets a very high bar actually in the current state—for it to be a wrong both here and overseas.I think it is also clear to point out and I think I am in a place now to do this after my education to anybody who is listening that a tortious wrong is actually a wrongdoing to a person or an organisation and—in fact it is only private civil wrongs. I am already correcting myself. A breach of contract is covered by different Acts and so is criminality so I think it is important that we do understand the narrow scope to which this applies.Obviously what we are trying to do now is actually address the practical issues that relate to the country in which a private legal matter must be resolved—for example where the case should be heard and whose law actually applies in a particular circumstance. It is very difficult if you are a New Zealander and you believe that somebody has wronged you to simply think that it is somehow against the laws of New Zealand and therefore that should apply. Of course if the wrongdoing occurred while you were both overseas that then adds a little bit of muddiness to the waters and makes things a little bit more difficult for people to determine how to resolve this. So as is always the way when we are passing legislation whenever we can provide clarity rather than having muddy waters that is something that is well worth doing.This bill is specifically required for the law of tort because the types of disputes that arise from torts are generally not governed by written agreements that would specify the jurisdiction that any future action would be decided within. So if it was a breach of contract for example you may well have it written into the contract that if there is a falling out or a breach of the contract in any way shape or form the law of Kazakhstan or the law of the US or the law of New Zealand will be what applies. But because torts and the civil nature of them do not necessarily apply to things that will have been written down—and already there is going to be some ambiguity—it is important that our law actually clarifies exactly where that tort should be heard and what laws and what jurisdictions will apply.We are aiming now to have more consistency with New Zealand—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member—and it is tragic to do so—however it is time for us to adjourn for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JONO NAYLOR: Now obviously when we left off with that interruption from the dinner break I could see so many disappointed faces on the opposite side of the House. Obviously they were enjoying things so I thought I should come back and finish things off.Alastair Scott: Start again.JONO NAYLOR: I could start again from the beginning but I will not do that because I have not got quite enough time to do it all again.As we said earlier there were only actually two submitters to this piece of legislation. We were wondering whether it was because people did not necessarily understand what it was about or whether or not it was so cut and dry and obvious that we should do it that nobody felt the need to comment on it. We did have a couple of submissions. One was from the New Zealand Law Society and again it gave very helpful information for those of us who were novices in this whole area also particularly from three people—Campbell McLachlan Jack Wass and Maria Hook—who highlighted some of the case law that had contributed to this. I do want to pick up on that because I did wonder how we had got ourselves into this situation in the first place of having legislation that we now need to change.With the indulgence of yourself Mr Assistant Speaker and the House I just want to go back to where it all started which was unbelievably actually in Jamaica in 1870. At the time in Jamaica there was a guy called Governor Eyre who was the governor for Jamaica during a rebellion. Of course Jamaica was an English colony at the time. Jamaica was operating under martial law at the time. Governor Eyre in his wisdom made orders for thousands of people to be flogged. He had activists tried for treason and then had them executed.The plaintiff who actually then took Governor Eyre to court in this case was obviously Mr Phillips who was one of the victims of these activities—i.e. being flogged and beaten. While Mr Eyre was still in Jamaica funnily enough for him legislation was passed forgiving any acts done with good faith to suppress the rebellion. So when he returned he could not be charged with the tortious wrongs of trespass to the person and false imprisonment. So despite the fact that many leading politicians and thinkers considered his actions to be inappropriate there was not a lot of choice ultimately because it did not line up in the two jurisdictions. This was the starting point for some of these bits of legislation to come into place.What has happened now is that actually there has been a lot of confusion as I said earlier about which jurisdiction would apply for cases in tort beyond that. In recent times Australia Canada and the UK have moved to the "place-of-wrong" rule which is that actually these torts are deemed to occur in the place where the event happened. They have dealt with them and now we are catching up. I want to acknowledge that those places—Australia Canada and England—used common law rather than legislation to change that but to tidy things up here in New Zealand obviously we are going down the legislative route through the great work of the Hon David Bennett initially followed up by Sarah Dowie who incidentally has obviously been the chair of this committee.I guess to sum up I want to say it has been a fascinating learning curve for all of those of us who have been involved. To be fair probably two submissions on it was an appropriate amount because probably if we had had to sit through more than that we may have struggled to get our heads around it all. But we had two very informative submissions that improved our knowledge to enable us as legislators now to improve legislation for New Zealand so that we are consistent with our counterparts around the world and can ensure that going forward that private international law—that choices of law in tort—will actually take place under the appropriate laws and ensure that we get good results."