Finlayson Christopher: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:12601] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 In speaking to these clauses I will take a brief call to congratulate Mr Locke in particular because as Mr Hide said in an excellent speech in the second reading debate the other night this really is Mr Locke’s bill. Mr Locke is the person who became interested in this issue and worked with other parties to see that the issue was taken up by the Law Commission which published as the Minister said a very good report. It has led in no time at all to the introduction and rapid passage of this legislation. So I congratulate Mr Locke on being a staunch supporter of fundamental human rights. He has worked hard on this bill and has secured its passage. I simply do nothing more than ask him to apply that zeal for human rights to his party’s analysis of the Electoral Finance Bill. Were he to do so—were he to examine clause 5 for example and were he to examine the definition of “third party”—he would see that there are some very real human rights concerns. 
It is fair to say that when I first came into this House I thought a lot of Mr Locke’s views were not just out of the mainstream but loopy. However I have come to respect him and I acknowledge that I was wrong. I respect him as a zealous guardian of human rights and in many respects as the conscience of this Parliament on some of these issues. We do not always see that in members of Parliament. For example in the Labour Party we see people who spout about human rights when it suits them but then—we can take the example of the Attorney-General—failed to provide a section 7 report on the Electoral Finance Bill. Why? It is because it is too hard and because loyalty to party is more important than loyalty to the democracy in which we live. One would never ever say that about Mr Locke because he is a man for whom loyalty to principle comes before loyalty to party. If there is a conflict he will rise above it and deal with the hard issues. So I congratulate Mr Locke and I hope he does not think that these are simply weasel words because they are genuinely felt. He is a man of principle and he has achieved a great victory in getting rid of these odious sedition laws. I ask him to apply that zeal to the rotten Electoral Finance Bill. 
The second point I will make is in answer to Mr Mark because he raised two objections to the repeal of this legislation. By way of analogy to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill he said that that phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” was vague and asked the National Party why it applied one standard to the sedition legislation but a different one to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill. With the greatest of respect to Mr Mark I ask him to look very carefully at the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the bill because the bill does have its problems. It seeks to repeal already repealed legislation and it seeks fundamentally to alter the jurisdictional section of the Treaty of Waitangi Act which if the legislation were passed would render the Waitangi Tribunal redundant. There is much to be said of the arguments of Mr Paraone in the select committee that some of these clauses need refinement and better definition but the bill is defective and we are certainly opposing it for that reason. 
Mr Mark’s second point was an interesting one and I will briefly touch on it. He urged us to leave the laws as they are just in case they are needed and that is an argument not without merit because sometimes there are reasons why out of an abundance of caution legislators may keep a statutory provision on the books to see how the law develops. But I do not think there is any dispute—certainly from the majority of this House—that having looked very closely at the Law Commission’s report and having looked carefully at the bill there is no other argument to be made but that this particular kind of offence against public order is redundant and therefore justifies repeal. It is in much the same way as section 412 of the Crimes Act provided that as from the time of passage of the Act certain ancient provisions would be repealed including such old legislation as the Corruption of Blood Act 1814—the statute that my friend Mr Auchinvole referred to which goes back to the time of King Edward I and deals with elopement with adulterers and the taking away of nuns—the Whipping Act of 1820 and the Witchcraft Act of 1735. 
These are examples of legislation that was justifiably repealed at the time the Crimes Act came into force and frankly I am surprised that in the 1960s under a great reforming Attorney-General and Minister of Justice the Hon Ralph Hanan a former member for Invercargill the sedition laws were not repealed then. As I say in all of the time the Crimes Act has been in force the only person who was prosecuted for treason was Mr Selwyn who lobbed an axe through the Prime Minister’s electorate office window. That perhaps gives an answer to Mr Mark—that although the legislation may have had a reason for being in existence hundreds of years ago it has long since ceased to have any justification. Like the Whipping Act of 1820 and the Witchcraft Act of 1735 it is high time that the sedition provisions were put in the trash heap of history.