Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I don't have many questions—in fact I think three. If the Minister is comfortable with the approach I'll ask them all in one hit so to speak and then look forward to any answers she can give us on each of those.The first and probably most straightforward one goes to process—just to acknowledge the discomfort of the Green Party and ACT Party which I share to an extent around the fact that we are having to legislate in urgency. I'm sure all of us would rather not be but I do acknowledge and accept the case made by the Minister and the Government that it is necessary nevertheless to pass this legislation with some haste. I wonder if a post-enactment review of some kind might be contemplated either by reference to a select committee—obviously that's not our usual process but then again neither is urgency. And obviously the significance of the issues at stake I think would indicate that that's a proposal that hopefully she would at least take seriously and consider. That's the first question.The second is: I wonder if she can speak to what she understands to be the effect of new section 3B—in clause 4—and specifically the operative provision is subsection (5). This is where the amendment bill is saying This section overrides any inconsistent other law." This is placing the new law—or the newly amended old law if you like—above any other law. So if there's any inconsistency nevertheless this shall prevail. It seems to me taking that at face value and I think in accordance with the explanatory note of the bill this is placing the legislation beyond the remit of the courts in respect of considering even the question of inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I may be wrong in that. I genuinely seek any guidance that the Minister in conjunction with her no doubt excellent officials can provide on that score.My third and final question is really just to invite the Minister to agree or disagree with me in my angst I suppose—if that's not stating the case too strongly—in relation to the manner in which the courts and Parliament have interacted in this matter. We see in the Attorney-General's report which as I've already said I think is excellent and records the key issues well in most cases—but I'm nevertheless uncomfortable by the idea that the Attorney might regard as off-limits to him the question of consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as opposed to recording quite correctly that the current position of the law is that there was ambiguity in the original Act.So again I'm not sure that I've articulated that well but if the Minister can provide any comments about what she understands the relationship of the court to Parliament to be in terms of the question of inconsistency particularly because as the Attorney has noted in the section 7 report the case wasn't argued on the basis of limits at section 25(g) of New Zealand Bill of Rights Act being justified. That wasn't actually argued. So I think it's unfortunate if we were to regard the question of reasonable limits on the basis of policy objectives as having been settled. And just for the sake of the record section 25(g) is the part of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that talks about a person having the benefit of a lesser penalty if there are two possibilities as between the time that the offence was committed and the sentencing.And actually I suppose a related question—I'm being cheeky here; this is now a fourth and I said there would be three—is whether indeed the returning offenders regime is in the nature of a penalty at all because it seems to me that that question lies at the heart of the way that we would consider rights to have been breached or not and for example differentiates the position of the Green Party and I think all other parties in this House. So I'm grateful for any comments that the Minister can provide whether that's this side of 10 o'clock or indeed we hear that tomorrow morning as it seems inevitable we'll return to finish this matter."