Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee to speak in support of this Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. Congratulations David Bennett for proposing what Chapman Tripp did say was smart no-frills law making bringing New Zealand into step with comparable jurisdictions." There is no doubt that this bill is valid and it is needed and so I am happy to stand up in support of you as a member of Parliament proposing this legislation. Congratulations.The word "tort" is derived from the French word for "wrong"—I am doing definitions here because I do not know very much about this area either. What a tort is is: "a civil wrong that … causes someone else to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act called a tortfeasor." who apparently is the wrongdoer. So a civil wrong is an act against another person or their property. Obviously what we are trying to do is to be very clear about what jurisdiction will apply. I found another interesting blog about this bill and its relevance. It was by a guy called Timothy Lindsay from Lowndes Jordan and he said: "New Zealand companies doing business with foreign parties and foreign companies doing business in New Zealand will be [particularly] interested in [this bill]". I wanted to highlight that. He said the bill "aims to clarify and simplify the New Zealand law conflict of law (aka private international law) rules that apply to actions brought in tort" and the issues that we are talking about are "negligence tortious interference … defamation breach of privacy" and "the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the alleged tort took place." That is what this bill is going to be able to clarify and simplify for us all.The other point that Timothy Lindsay made was that "it will require New Zealand companies to do their homework and understand the tort law of the land in the place they are doing business." so actually that is a good thing. People should know the laws of the land in which they are doing business so if this piece of legislation highlights that for New Zealand companies and makes them think about it then actually that is a good thing for New Zealand businesses. Or he said: "parties can avoid … both the existing common law choice of law rules … by incorporating carefully drafted governing law provisions into their commercial contracts." So I guess that is the other thing that this piece of legislation will do—to highlight in the contracts that New Zealand companies have with overseas companies how they are going to deal with it themselves. The merit of this piece of legislation is actually in providing the clarity that everybody needs when they conduct business. I want to congratulate you David. I think that we all strive in this House to make things better—to make things better for the people whom we are here to serve. This for me is not a flippant piece of legislation; it is actually a very relevant piece of legislation and I am happy to be on the select committee that will be hearing submissions. I am really interested in the number of submissions that we will receive. Maybe we should run a little bit of a you know what do you call it when we all put in five bucks and the closest—Hon Members: A sweep.LOUISA WALL: A sweep? Maybe a sweep would be really interesting. I am now really interested in the different areas—obviously companies but other people whom this piece of legislation is relevant to and who are going to make submissions. We could be really surprised. We could have hundreds of submissions to our select committee. We just do not know. It will be fascinating I think for the House to engage in serious discussion about this piece of legislation. I will not take too much more time other than to say that I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora."