Mallard Trevor: Inquiries Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Inquiries Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 22 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12764. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker—after all these years! Labour supports the Inquiries Bill and I do want to start off by thanking the Minister in charge of the bill Chris Tremain for the cooperation over the last week or so as this has been progressed. I think it is an indication of Parliament working together in a way that it can. I think it is only a pity that he was unable to be present on Tuesday and yesterday in order to take charge of the bill because I think it slightly lost a bit as a result of people who were not quite as familiar with it taking care of it. A note for the future is to make sure that when a bill is in his name on the Order Paper if not actually on the copy of the bill the member who is doing it for him says “on behalf of” the other Minister. If that was done there would not have been the confusion that was the case.I think it is fair to say that the Hon Nathan Guy was somewhat confused over a couple of days on this. Also frankly it would have been better if someone who was vaguely familiar with what was in it rather than—what is his name—Simon Bridges who did not appear to have any knowledge of the bill was taking it through the Committee stage. All I am saying is that it is a pity because it somewhat undid the good work that the Minister of Internal Affairs had done on consultation and the work of the officials.I want to agree with the Minister that the Law Commission did do a good job. Although I understand the reasoning for the Government delaying this bill I am not sure that I agree with the logic. There have been a number of areas where it would have been better to have sorted this out earlier. I think particularly of theRena . This sort of level of inquiry—or one of the two inquiries that can be set up here—would have been a good approach for theRena . The ability to move more smoothly into the Fonterra issue and into what might be now a wider inquiry given Westland Milk Products and some other things that we are hearing about the Chinese border would have been useful as well.One of the things we know is that if we could have got something into place in 2009 and if there needed to be some updates they could have been done as part of an omnibus bill or a Statutes Amendment Bill or something similar to get it tidied up. It would have been better to have it in place. So I do want to compliment my colleague Annette King whose sterling work it was to get this going; Rick Barker who was prompt in getting the bill into the House; and the Government Administration Committee which considered it well.I think it is worth giving a little bit of comment around the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 330 because it is one that did make not major changes but changes that I think could be described as significant in the way they worked in the bill. What it does is it allows a bit more flexibility around the establishment of inquiries. As an example it allows the inquirer or the inquirers to be appointed before the terms of reference are finalised. I think that is something that is useful because it means that they can effectively be on the job and there can be some advice from them and some work with them around the terms of reference.I think that if anyone needs reminding of the importance of the quality of the terms of reference one needs only spend as I did today 10 minutes in the Privileges Committee listening to what happens when you have poor terms of reference and an inquirer who was not properly involved in the development of the terms of reference to know that getting that process right is something that is important. That certainly did not happen in that case. This process can help with that.The Supplementary Order Paper clarifies the process for appointing counsel to assist an inquiry. I think it is fair to say that that area was light. It clarifies the discretion of an inquiry to manage its process in applying the principles of natural justice. Without going too far into the conversations that the Minister and I had over the weekend I think it is fair to say that that was the area of greatest concern to the Labour Opposition. It was the fact that there was effectively a loosening a moving away from what had been established following the Erebus report and the Mahon report findings. As someone who thinks that it is important that people who are being criticised have a real and a fair opportunity to answer and to have their views incorporated I was concerned as were some of my colleagues.But looking at it in the end although there is a slight movement back there is a balancing factor of being able to get a report done relatively quickly in some cases because in some cases the findings are going to be quite important and are going to be needed for the development of policy the application of resources or to avert a further disaster. The last thing that you want is a highly legalistic litigant who is being criticised being able to hold up that process by way of reviews in the High Court and other action. It is like all of these justice issues: there is a balance that sits there. This is a slight tipping of the balance away from the fairness to the people who have been criticised towards the ability to get the inquiry done and dusted in a slightly quicker manner. But those rights still sit there.There are changes around the ability to recompense participants for their reasonable expenses without them having to be summonsed. Previously it was sort of a weird situation where if you volunteered to come as an expert you could not get your expenses whereas if you were sent for and required to come you could. That is really a silly situation and I think the bill has sorted that out.I also want to thank the Government for accepting my amendment. One of the things that—and this is no criticism of the Government at all because it is not an area where there was any change on the part of the Government around the question of people having orders restricting access to the inquiry. So either having private sessions or secret sessions—the very fact that some people come to inquiries is on occasions appropriate for that not to be made public. It is pretty rare. The way that the bill was heading it looked like it was a bit easier to do and it was almost as if the inquiry could do it without thinking.What we have done is make sure that sitting at the top of the matters that need consideration is the fact that the inquiry must take into account the benefits of observing the principle of open justice. On balance you do not go down that route but if you do there are some restrictions. Again there was a discussion about the Nicholas case and a number of others where earlier in the piece it could well have been appropriate. If—or when probably—Andrew Little forces Judith Collins to have the appropriate inquiry into the Rewa case there could well be women who were raped by that man who would prefer and will have the right to a secret hearing and a right to have their names never disclosed. My view is that that is absolutely appropriate.In summary this was a good bill. It should probably have been passed in a slightly less perfect form about 4 years ago but we have got to it now. It is better as a result of the changes and it is something that I think has got widespread support. Thank you.