Bishop Chris: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1961. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): What a learned contribution by James Shaw. It was an excellent speech—by James “Grey” I should say. I have to say it was in stark contrast to the disgraceful remarks by Phil Twyford about 10 minutes ago. After the embarrassing month that he has had—being called out for misleading the social housing sector before the election endorsing the National-led Government’s reforms in social housing and then campaigning against them and criticising them afterwards. He was called out. We found the speech. It was a highly embarrassing month for him. So for him to come down to this House and criticise on spurious grounds my good colleague Alfred Ngaro—he talks about chutzpah ladies and gentlemen; well he had a lot of chutzpah himself. Phil Twyford should come down here and apologise to Alfred Ngaro and also apologise to the social housing sector for telling a social housing conference that he agreed with the thrust of what the National-led Government is doing in social housing. I recognise I am straying a little bit far from the bill but I am only following the lead of Phil Twyford who started with a disgraceful personal attack.Anyway we know that the Greens do not engage in that sort of behaviour so well done to Mr Shaw for his contribution to the debate. Mr Shaw pointed out quite rightly that it is an interesting time to debate this bill because of the pecuniary interests that we are filling out. I think it is fair to say that Mr Graham did put forward this bill in good faith and the Government did take a look at it in good faith. It has had a long journey. It was first introduced in 2010. A previous speaker—I think in the first or second reading debate that I was reading before—noted that this was the first member’s bill to prompt a Law Commission paper or inquiry. That is an achievement and one day I hope to have a member’s bill adopted. I hope that we will just pass it without a 5-year-long gestation period and without it being voted down. But I hope that I will also have such achievements in my parliamentary career.If I could summarise why the Government is not in favour of this bill it would be for five reasons. Firstly the Law Commission recommended that it not proceed; secondly there are legitimate concerns I think about the safety and the privacy of judges if there were to be a Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges; thirdly and this is important there was concern about the chilling effect that a pecuniary interests register would have on the incentive for judges to move from commercial practice or the Bar to the bench; fourthly it is the Government’s belief that the current law is satisfactory and indeed is actually being strengthened through the Judicature Modernisation Bill which other members have mentioned; and fifthly and finally there is no evidence we believe that there is a lack of confidence or faith in the judiciary.I want to run through those reasons starting with the first point about the Law Commission not recommending that a Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges be required. As I have mentioned the Law Commission did issue an issues paper in 2011 and Sir Grant Hammond who is a former President of the Court of Appeal and his team at the Law Commission put out a thoughtful paper. I am not sure whether our colleague on the Government benches Dr Mapp was on the Law Commission at that point but I am sure that his expertise and intellectual acuity—Hon Todd McClay: Wily.CHRIS BISHOP: Wily as my colleague Todd McClay says. I am sure that the discussion of the submissions on the issues paper was considered by Dr Mapp.Then what happened was the Law Commission also undertook a review of the Judicature Act 1908. It was actually quite remarkable in some ways that the Judicature Act which is actually a constitutional Act in our unwritten constitution—the foundation stone in some ways of judicial review which provides the mechanism by which ordinary citizens or non-ordinary citizens can hold the Government and the executive to account. The Judicature Act was reviewed. It was in some ways remarkable that it had not been reviewed in that time. The Law Commission also reviewed the structure and the framework of our superior and lower courts. I will not use the word “inferior”; that word has fallen out of favour as time has gone on—the superior and the lower courts. They did a review of these. There was a very very wide scope to that review and it has ended up in the Judicature Modernisation Bill which of course had its second reading I think last week. In that bill there is a recommendation that the heads of the bench develop recusal guidelines. The Government agreed with that submission and that is reflected in the bill. That is at the heart of why the Law Commission says that essentially there is no need for this bill to progress. There are better ways of managing the conflicts that judges may potentially have and the Government has recognised that.Secondly there are real concerns about the privacy and safety of judges. I do not want to overstate those concerns because generally in New Zealand we live in a fairly peaceful country but there are concerns about people being able to use a Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges to put the privacy and the safety of our judiciaryat risk. That is not something that anybody in this House would want. Those concerns were reflected in some submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I was not on the select committee—unfortunately I was not a member—but I think it is fair to say from talking to my colleagues that there was some cognisance of those concerns. There was some recognition of them and some agreement. So that is another reason why the Government’s view is that the bill should not proceed.Thirdly I think it is important to canvass the chilling effect that this bill could potentially have on the ability or on the incentive for people to join the judiciary. The Attorney-General in his contribution to the second reading of this bill noted that we have a very very good judiciary in New Zealand but that it is sometimes quite difficult to persuade excellent lawyers either in the commercial field or at the Bar to move to the bench. One reason for that is that a lot of our very best lawyers—some of our top silks some of our top commercial litigators—are on a pretty good wicket. They can earn a fair degree of money in the roles that they are in. For some people going on to the bench does involve a pay cut. That is one reason. There is also a concern about workload and there are some other concerns—particularly about being a judge who travels around the country a lot. But we do not lack for good judges. We have an excellent judiciary I believe and a lot of judges whom I have had the privilege of knowing—a couple—do it in some ways out of a sense of duty and in the belief that being a judge is a good way to give back to the legal system; that they have in some way a duty to give back to uphold justice and to dispense the Queen’s justice. But a Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges is a barrier to judges making that decision to move on to the bench. The Attorney-General expressed concern about that and I think it would be reflective of the concerns of the profession and that is fair enough.The fourth reason is that the current procedures work and they are being strengthened—I have mentioned that already—through the Judicature Modernisation Bill. If I could just touch briefly upon the suggestion from the Green Party and I think Jacinda Ardern in her contribution earlier also made mention of this: that perhaps the recusal guidelines that the heads of bench are developing could perhaps be strengthened a little bit by including them in the primary legislation. I think Dr Graham is going to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper in that regard. In my view that would be to tread a little bit too far over that very fine line between Parliament and the judiciary. It is my belief that it would disturb the comity between Parliament and the judiciary and the recognition of the appropriate lines between those two things. I do not believe that there is a need to put those recusal guidelines into legislation. I believe it is appropriate—and constitutionally appropriate—for it to be left to the judges to do that. We would be treading too far into the realm of the judiciary if we did that.Fifthly and finally just to close my speech on a good note there is no evidence of corruption in New Zealand. Our judges enjoy high levels of public confidence. I guess one of the good things about this bill is that it has ventilated some of the arguments about transparency and it has ventilated some of those issues over the last 5 years. The bill was advanced in good faith. I think there is general agreement that it will not be proceeding. But well done to Mr Graham for advancing it and to the Green Party for its mature contribution to this debate unlike the members opposite.