Barry Maggie; Rurawhe AdrianHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak with great pleasure to the Arbitration Amendment Bill having been the deputy chair of the Justice Committee through some of its gestation through that process. I am delighted on behalf of Andrew Bayly who is the sponsoring member of this bill that as a result of his tenacity and as a result of the focus of many people on a bill whose time had come this bill has filled a gap which needed to be done.I feel as well that we are privileged in this House: we're not usually in a position where we have the former sponsoring member with us. I would like to acknowledge Paul Foster-Bell my friend and colleague from the class of 2011 who is with us tonight who I suppose began the bill—the father of the bill. I'm not going to go into the rugby metaphors because I'm not quite competent to really decide whether Paul Foster-Bell is a hard-charging prop. As Paul said himself he has never been accused of rugby prowess ever in his life before—Hon Meka Whaitiri: Soccer! Cricket!Hon MAGGIE BARRY: —so tonight is an important occasion on very many levels. There's a first time for everything as the Hon Meka Whaitiri is saying I think. But you know this is a bill that is complicated. It has passed through many hands but it needed to happen. It has had close links with the Trusts Bill which was another behemoth another very complicated piece of legislation which needed to occur. But should it involve the Arbitration Amendment Bill or should it not? So for a number of months actually the select committee was deliberating as to where this bill could best be placed.I am grateful for the involvement of the justice Minister Andrew Little because he was able to see the usefulness of the bill and also able to understand and acknowledge as leaders can that the advice that we were getting from officials was not up to scratch. Without in any way being personal about the individuals concerned it was very apparent that there was not enough international arbitration experience or even that wider world experience which was required for a bill of this complexity and really with that international knowledge that was needed. So the officials I think and advisers took it in good heart. We had the intellectual rigour of our former colleague the Hon Chris Finlayson as well which was really important and I think that in the end what occurred was a very robust process. Paul Heath QC who is a very experienced and retired High Court judge was somebody who was able to bring an enormous amount of intellectual rigour which again is the phrase I would use. He was somebody who was able to draw together a number of very complicated opportunities and options and distil them into something which is the bill that we are about to pass tonight.There are other people as well that I feel ought to be acknowledged in this because there truly have been many parents for this bill. The prominent economist Hilary Croke has commented very favourably on it and from a perspective of making the New Zealand economy stronger. That is something that can sometimes get lost in the detail of the law but to be able to pull back and see that—I think it is about a million dollars for each of these cases that come through—this is potentially a very good earning opportunity for New Zealand. But we did need to change our laws so it was very useful to get not only Hilary Croke's perspective on this as a prominent economists but also I'd like to acknowledge Deborah Hart who is the CEO of the Arbitrators' and Mediators' Institute of New Zealand who is with us in the gallery tonight and has also contributed a large amount of ideas and intelligent practical advice. So I acknowledge and thank her for her contribution.It was a difficult piece of legislation to get through as its current sponsor Andrew Bayly knows only too well because there was a lot of tension around what should be in the public domain and what should not and the confidentiality aspect is extremely important—so the idea that someone would go into a confidential arbitration process and try and settle it away from the courts away from the expense but also privately so that commercially sensitive material was not going to be broadcast. If it were it would be a deterrent really to the arbitration process. So it was very helpful indeed that we were able to track that through. When we looked at the conflict resolution—which is something that you know a number of successive New Zealand Governments have purported to support but have stopped short because of the sort of complexities I've referred to. Cross-border commercial contracts international treaties containing arbitration clauses—all of these things have grown apace recently—and enhanced technology; these are other matters which really needed to be taken into consideration when we updated and brought this particular bill up to modern fit for purpose.So the globalisation of world trade and investment which New Zealand has been not the largest player in but certainly an enthusiastic smaller player has resulted in increasingly harmonised arbitration processes worldwide. It is very good that this bill makes us a part of that worldwide trend and I think when we look at the case for the greater use of arbitration why would we not use it more? Why would we clog up our courts? Why would we not have the clarity of the arbitration laws in line with international standards that we really need if we want to do business in the modern international world? Potentially as an income earner for the country hundreds of millions of dollars could be something that would work very well for the New Zealand economy. But we do really have to be careful around ensuring that we do things properly and without this bill we would not be able to give any of those assurances.When it comes to reducing the caseload in the courts it is a very important consideration. Complex cases of a nature that come before the courts and could be resolved through arbitration prior to that are really an important consideration. Our justice system is groaning under the weight of the cases that come before it. The complexity and all the rest of it means that these cases are better decided quietly and privately in arbitration with experts. I think that by using international and regional conflict resolution and not just in that area of international commercial arbitration but in the broader spectrum as well we now have a bill that will enable our very talented New Zealand legal minds and our commercial companies as well for that matter to really robustly engage in gaining business for New Zealand New Zealand Inc." but also for the reputation and the experience of our very good legal minds.So there is very little not to like about this bill. We would have liked it to have been more comprehensive but this is a place of compromise and I think in the end we arrived in a situation where we were all of agreement that this was the best we could do under the circumstances. But that could not have happened without all of us participating and compromising in some ways not least the sponsor and the original father of the bill. But I think there is—Andrew Bayly: Oh he's a father now?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: He's a father now! Yes OK so Andrew Bayly is wondering if there's been an update on parentals. No; I meant that in the generic sense with this bill. But I think it is important to acknowledge that some bills take a long time to come through the process of Parliament and the process of select committee was at very real risk of turning out a bill that would not be fit for purpose and would not be of any use to anybody and would not have satisfied anybody and would have been pretty much a waste of all of our time. So by bringing in Paul Health QC by taking the time to really resolve it in a mature fashion I think it has been an exemplary bill because it has shown what's possible with cooperation and with compromise.So this is a bill whose time has come. I think that internationally it will be fantastic for opportunities for New Zealand. Whether it adds up to a million dollars per case and hundreds of millions of dollars over the years remains to be seen. But the fact is that when this bill passes tonight in this House with the cooperation of all involved it will position New Zealand in a way that means that we can be internationally competitive and that we can hold our heads high in this area. I think there will be a lot of business coming our way from what one can gather through Asia. I have from my time on the select committee become much more informed about how the international markets work and it would appear that with a bill like this going through there are a lot of opportunities that we could take advantage of as a country and for "New Zealand Inc." for the National Party for Andrew Bayly a friend and colleague and for Paul Foster-Bell I'm very glad that the bill has got to the stage and I recommend it and commend it wholeheartedly to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members this is a split call—five minutes. I call Simon O'Connor."