Collins Judith: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20627] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill is not the hugest bill to come across our desks. It has a mere 3 clauses and some subclauses and it is very difficult to think why it is getting such precedence at this stage when some other bills such as the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill need to come through the House significantly more quickly—as my colleagues Dr Richard Worth and Dr Wayne Mapp have already said. 
The previous speaker from the Labour Party despite her comments that this bill was all about ensuring that all sorts of reporting would be done in relation to the Supreme Court seemed to have the very strange view that the decisions of the Supreme Court could not be reported without this bill which of course is absolute rubbish. The fact is that anybody can do that anyway—except once this bill is passed. One of the things I find quite strange about this bill is that it is not particularly empowering; it is all about what cannot be done. It is very disempowering. It goes on to say that the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting has this fantastic position of being able to report on Supreme Court decisions. Well a lot of people will be saying: “So what?”. A lot of people will be saying: “Well who else would want to do it frankly?”. 
Hon Member 
: Who says that? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: A lot of people say that. But apparently so many other people want to do it that now nobody will be able to unless the New Zealand Law Society says he or she can. 
Stephen Franks 
: What about the website? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Of course that raises the issue of websites and also of why other people cannot report on Supreme Court decisions. If anyone happens to look at the website of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council our former highest court one can see that the Privy Council very carefully and obviously in a very modern way publishes all its reports on its website. So we do not need to have anybody else doing anything; those judgments are right there on the website available for those of us in New Zealand who want to read some really good decisions in the way that they are phrased the way that they are succinct to the point do not muck around but get on with it—the way we like our decisions really. Those decisions go straight on to the website; they do not need to have the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting in what amounts to a de facto monopoly situation. 
So the bill seems very strange to me. I guess in this country we still have the idea that if we do not legislate for something to happen then maybe it will not happen. It is a very strange way of looking at things. If the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting feels it is so in need of this bill then I guess it can have it but for the life of me I cannot understand why we are saying that the New Zealand Law Society may give its consent for someone else actually to publish the reports. It goes on to talk about the continuation of “the publication of a series of reports of decisions” and these may be done by only the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting. What about all the people who report as they do now for instance on what is happening in the Employment Court or the Family Court or whatever? This bill says that they cannot do that without the permission of the New Zealand Law Society. 
So although we in the National Party have decided we will vote for the bill to go to the select committee I am sure that our representatives on the Justice and Electoral Committee—which I presume it is going to—will be very interested to know why no one else can commence or continue the publication of a new series of reports of decisions. I can understand why there must always be an official version of judgments. That could be dealt with now by a website or by the Supreme Court simply publishing its own reports. After all as I understand it the people over in the basement of the Supreme Court are not particularly busy— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: A slim volume. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: As Dr Wayne Mapp says they have a somewhat slim volume at the moment. Thank goodness for Mr Richard Prebble; otherwise there would probably not be much in it at all. One has to wonder who is actually racing in to try to stop the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting from doing its job. The council could actually do the reporting anyway; it does not need permission to do so. This is a very archaic term. Parliament is spending a huge amount of money—about $1 million no doubt to put a bill through to become an Act—to give the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting the right to publish. I find that bizarre. Obviously we want it to do the job so there is always an official record but I see no reason at all why we would allow a bill that says nobody else is allowed to publish a series of reports to continue on from the select committee. 
If we look back at the history of law reporting particularly in the English courts where all sorts of different reports came through—no doubt the lawyers in the House will be able to confirm this for me and I see Dr Worth nodding his head—we see that we used to have the Elizabethan reports and different things. There is a history of different publications sometimes for the same cases. But there was the freedom to allow the market to decide that people would have these reports. 
This bill seems to be unnecessary. With that I have to say that National will support it going to a select committee. However I am sure that Dr Worth and our other representative will look very closely at why we need to have this bill.