Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I stand just surprised and shocked to be honest that a member of the Government took such a short call on this piece of legislation. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation which goes to the heart of some substantial constitutional points around how our constitution is arranged the separation of powers and parliamentary sovereignty. And to have a 10-second speech from a Government member—Hon Tim Macindoe: It wasn't even that.SIMEON BROWN: —is I think—well if it was 10 seconds—it shows absolute disregard.This bill was first announced by the Government on 26 February 2018—2018. That's over two years ago that the Government said that they had approved that this bill would come to Parliament. It's now the end of May 2020 a Thursday night and we're sitting in urgency and we've finally come to the first reading of this piece of legislation. I stand alongside colleagues on this side who are deeply concerned about this piece of legislation but also the process that it is going through in this Parliament. When we discuss constitutional matters in this Parliament they should be done as much as possible in a bipartisan way. Using urgency in the middle of the night on a Thursday evening when Parliament should have risen is not the time to be pushing through pieces of legislation like this.This is the type of legislation which goes to the heart of our core constitutional arrangements. It goes to the heart of the separation of powers and to the heart of what we have in our Parliament which is parliamentary sovereignty. What it is is a step along a journey which a number of people would like to take our constitutional arrangements along to which we have the ability for the courts to essentially strike down legislation in New Zealand.Hon Andrew Little: That's not what this does.SIMEON BROWN: It's not what this does that's correct Mr Little but that is what many people would like to see happen: where the courts are able to interfere with parliamentary sovereignty and with the right of this Parliament to determine legislation.Section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act always provides for the Attorney-General to report to Parliament where a bill appears to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I do just want to point out that on a recent piece of legislation only two weeks ago the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill which was pushed through this Parliament—Hon Tim Macindoe: No select committee. SIMEON BROWN: No select committee that's right—there was no select committee. The Parliament did not even have the opportunity for those rights to be looked at.So this bill essentially puts in place what's already in the legislation. There is already the opportunity: the Attorney-General has the right has the responsibility to report to Parliament where a bill appears to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It looks prospectively at that piece of legislation it looks at what the impact of that legislation is going to be and then Parliament has the opportunity to decide whether Parliament believes that is a justified limitation or whether that is something which the Parliament wishes to override the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act on. Parliament makes that decision willingly knowingly having listened to submissions and being able to make those decisions. This bill then allows the public who've had the ability to submit on that piece of legislation to be able to lobby the Parliament to be able to be engaged in the political process to have a second bite of the cherry to then go and relitigate their issue in the court to try and seek a declaration of inconsistency which will then relitigate potentially the entire issue. The Attorney-General will have to provide a report to the House and Parliament will then have to change its Standing Orders and create new processes in which it will have to then re-engage with that issue.The point is that the Parliament here is sovereign. The Parliament has the right to make legislation based on the information that it has based on evidence from the community based on submissions and the right to be able to override the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I do bring it back to the point I made before: this is a step towards a direction which there are certain people who want to take it giving the courts the ability to strike down legislation. That is not a path that I want to see New Zealand go down. Thank you Mr Speaker.