Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I will take a brief call on the Land Transfer Bill. We are very lucky in New Zealand to have the Torrens system of land registration which was brought to Australasia actually by Mr Torrens—first to Adelaide and then to New Zealand. It gave us a rational way for the registration of interests in land and it ensures that we have got a very very simple and reliable way of recording interests in land. Anyone who has ever worked in the United Kingdom will know that even now so many years after we have had the Torrens system of land registration in New Zealand—it is probably more than a century now—they have still got unregistered interests in land in the United Kingdom which means that buying and selling property in the United Kingdom is very complex and far more expensive than it is in New Zealand. And even after you have gone through that more complex and more expensive system it is more risky because there can be unregistered interests in land that prevail against a purchaser who buys a property.In New Zealand you can rely upon the title in the absence of fraud as being proof that what you think you are buying is what you are buying in terms of its title restrictions. If there is any restriction on your title—any mortgage or any easement over the land that you are buying—then it should be on the title and if it is not there it will not bind you. And if it is not there because someone makes a mistake somewhere in the Land Transfer Office and you buy a property not knowing of that mistake it is not your problem. You still get clear title and it is the Government through the fees that it collects when we each register a transfer of title—when we buy a property or take out a mortgage or something like that there is a fund that is created that compensates people for their loss. But the person who has purchased without knowledge of that defect does not suffer and it is a fantastic system.This bill actually does not do much to change that system. It is really housekeeping legislation which is necessary periodically and it says in the explanatory note that this is to change terminology to update it towards electronic forms of transactions rather than paper-based records but in reality we have already been using electronic records very effectively in New Zealand for more than a decade—for a long time. So I do not think this legislation is all that contentious.Can I say to Denis O'Rourke whose opinion I respect that I disagree with him in respect of the deletion of clause 54 of the bill which the select committee agreed unanimously should be deleted. I have been a solicitor in a law firm witnessing mortgages. You know they are a dime a dozen—it is meat and potatoes for lawyers—and you do not have to ask people for their driver's licence or their passport or on behalf of the bank get some other complicated form of identification in order to witness someone's signature on a mortgage document. It has not been problematic. Why would we—if it has not been problematic—impose more duties upon banks that would be passed on to their lawyers which would further complicate conveyancing and increase the transaction costs of people who were buying and selling properties and taking out a mortgage if there is no need for it? If we had a problem with widespread identity fraud we would have to revisit that as a country because in respect of the costs upon the system that we all bear through the land transfer system that I have referred to where there is an error on the register—for example if someone forges a mortgage—those costs would become too large and we would have to revisit that as a Parliament. But we would do that then rather than imposing costs now. So I actually agree with the Government Administration Committee that it got that right in excluding that.In terms of the judicial discretion that is introduced to allow an exception to the principle of indefeasibility of title—I will just explain what that is; I have talked about that briefly already. If you get title and you have not done anything fraudulent then you can rely upon that title as being what it shows on its face and if someone else has got some interest that is legitimate that is adversely affected by that they still cannot knock you off the title. You have got an indefeasible title. This bill introduces an exception to that rule against indefeasibility of title a new one. There has always been an exception for instances of fraud. If someone acts fraudulently in order to gain an interest on the register of titles to the detriment of someone else of course they should not be able to benefit from their fraud and rely upon the title they got fraudulently. That has always been an exception to the rule against indefeasibility of title and should always be so.But we are introducing in this legislation another exception to the rule for indefeasibility of title and that is where it is manifestly unjust to stick to the principle of indefeasibility of title and where compensation is not sufficient. There are a couple of points to be made on that. Firstly actually on this point I think Denis O'Rourke may be right in respect of his complaint in respect of clause 57(3). I do not think it is an especially large point but I will concede that he might be right that there should not be that second layer of test. If it is found to be manifestly unjust to stick with the rule of indefeasibility of title then maybe there should not be an additional test as to whether compensation would suffice. But I think that is a secondary point.My concern when I listened to the Minister in respect of his contribution the Hon Chris Finlayson the Attorney-General—he made reference to cases where it could be unjust to accept indefeasibility of title where the Māori Land Court has incorrectly determined that someone should succeed to property or purchase property where someone else according to the Māori Land Act had a higher or perhaps a right to inherit that should have prevailed over the person who got title. I think we have got to be really careful there that we do not introduce a different standard of conduct in respect of Māori land compared with other land. I would have thought that it would be in the interests of Māoridom to actually have pretty firm rules about indefeasibility of title for transactions relating to Māori land as well. So I will at the Committee stage be seeking some assurance from the Minister that we have not opened the gate too broadly in respect of another exception to indefeasibility of title in respect of Māori land.My final point is that one of the I think good changes here is to give more flexibility to the courts when assessing the compensation that is payable to someone who has effectively lost their interests to a later purchaser without fraud because the later purchaser gets an indefeasible title but is entitled to compensation for their losses. We are introducing flexibility as to when the dates for calculation of the loss should be based not necessarily the dates when the loss was caused but perhaps a later date with they are seeking compensation. If you have a look at the ridiculous price inflation that we have had in land in Auckland recently if your compensation was out by a couple of years and you had lost a title to a property and you were compensated at a value that was 2 years earlier you could get that compensation and not be able to purchase a comparable house in Auckland and that would be unfair. So I think it is good that we are allowing some flexibility for the date of calculation of loss.