Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Well thank you very much Mr Chair. Now it's great to have the Attorney-General in the House. I think he was trying to be helpful but I think he has actually broadly confused matters and I'd encourage him to take a call and potentially address some of the matters that the Opposition wants addressed.So the first issue is in relation to this issue to do with the courts and unvaccinated and vaccinated jurors. To paraphrase what he said basically he said It's really complicated."—and it is—and that is an argument not to pass the bill this morning or this afternoon but to send it to a committee to ventilate these very complicated issues. So indirectly in trying to be helpful and ask the Minister to address the issue to do with jurors and how the courts will figure all that out he's basically made the argument of the Opposition which is that the bill is complicated and the factual scenarios with which the traffic light framework will be applied are very complicated. It's not that we can't work through them as a country—we'll be able to do that—but actually bills like this need time to breathe need time for people to get their head around them. It got dropped on the Opposition on Monday night and I thank the Minister for at least giving us half a day to look at it rather than Tuesday morning—Hon Member: You mean half a night.CHRIS BISHOP: —half a night—but actually the public need time to do that too. So I'm not sure Mr Parker was being very helpful. The other point in relation to the courts is—and it's just been occurring to me now and potentially the shadow Attorney-General may want to have comment on this as well—how does this relate to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court? I mean if the Government says as the Minister's just indicated that they'll work through the issue of jurors vaccinated and unvaccinated what happens if a High Court judge says "Well I don't really care what the Government says. I'm allowing unvaccinated jurors on my panel."? What happens if a High Court judge says that? A High Court judge has inherent jurisdiction over their courtroom. We know that the judiciary are very protective of their inherent privileges and various journalists and others have discovered to their cost that there's lots of things you can and can't do in a courtroom. This really does raise an issue of comity between the Parliament and the judiciary and in fact between the Government and the judiciary in the separation of powers. I mean what is the legal position if the Government says that only vaccinated people can serve on juries which the Minister has indicated is an open question and up for debate and a High Court judge says "Actually you know what? I believe that tramples on the right to a fair trial and I'm not doing that." Actually if you're unvaccinated you have a right—in fact in some cases you have a duty—if you're called to serve on a jury and if a High Court judge "Justice 'Insert name here' " down the road says "I don't really care what the Government's mandate says. I have inherent jurisdiction over my courtroom. I believe that it's an affront to the right to a fair trial for unvaccinated members of the community to not serve on a jury." They are members of the New Zealand community like everybody else and the fact that they have made a choice not to be vaccinated—I would say it is the wrong choice but it is a choice that they have at law and no one is supporting mandatory vaccination here across the entire community. So choice is preserved for a large chunk of people and it may well be that they get called up to serve on a jury and the question is a really tricky one. It's a live issue. What is the position with regards to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court? So the Attorney-General may wish to comment on that.Just in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act situation with respect the Attorney-General is somewhat gilding the lily. Yes it is true that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vets happen right up until the bill gets introduced—of course that is the case—but the point is the bill was drafted in a hurry. I just refer him to the legal advice that is public that's directed to him from the Ministry of Justice which is the section 7 vet report at paragraph 2: "We have not yet received a final version of the Bill. This advice has been prepared in relation to the latest version of the Bill … This advice has been prepared in an extremely short timeframe due to late receipt of the Bill that was not in compliance with Cabinet Office Guidance." and we know it wasn't in compliance with Cabinet Office guidance because when the framework went to Cabinet on the Monday before it was announced on Friday 22 October it had not had any New Zealand Bill of Rights Act analysis done and that's what that reference is to. As the Attorney-General knows and as the Minister knows all Cabinet submissions have to have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act framework applied through them and some analysis done. The Ministry of Justice did not do that and hence we find ourselves in this lamentable situation where we have the legal advice prepared at the last minute and that legal advice is of course contestable by the Parliament. So I want the Minister to address the questions I've raised."