Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I want to for a start agree with some of the comments that have been made by the Opposition—that I agree and the Government agrees that the entrenchment of the anti-privatisation clause is an inappropriate use of the entrenchment tool which is why we have brought the amendment to the House today in order to fix what the Prime Minister has called and what the Minister in the chair has agreed was a mistake.I want to deal with some of the exaggeration that we've had from the other side. This bill didn't proceed through any more stages in urgency than it would have in ordinary business—the second reading was done previously the third reading wasn't done in urgency. It's actually a good example of why we should be—in respect of contentious legislation—slow to put a big bill like this through all stages of urgency. And because we didn't it is easier to fix the mistake that was made in respect of this particular clause. The other comparison that was made by Chris Bishop was to say this was comparable to Fitzgerald v Muldoon: no it's not. On that occasion what happened was that the Prime Minister of the day broke the law. There's no law being broken here. Neither is it the same as the refusal of the Rt Hon Robert Muldoon to effectively let the Treasury cooperate with the incoming Lange Government in the face of a run on the currency which cost the country hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars. Arguably you can say there would have been a serious constitutional mistake made if this Act was passed with this provision in place but it is not going to be because a week after the mistake was made we are fixing it. Now that—Erica Stanford: Only after significant pressure.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well actually the Cabinet minute which the media have referred to and the Minister herself referred to at question time today records that Cabinet agreed that the bill should not entrench privatisation provisions in bills. So there is a mistake that has been made here. I can understand why the Greens promoted this idea and I can understand why even some members of the Labour Party were attracted to the idea because we don't like privatisation. Simeon Brown: You were too.Hon DAVID PARKER: No I wasn't ever attracted—Simeon Brown: Well you voted for it.Hon DAVID PARKER: I was never attracted to this idea and—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! I did not vote for it. Hon DAVID PARKER: —I have stood against using entrenchment clauses for policy purposes throughout this process. Now as Chris Bishop has said there is very limited use of our entrenchment provisions in respect of constitutional norms that are long settled. It's very important that we keep it that narrow for a number of reasons. There are two main reasons: one is that this Parliament cannot bind a subsequent Parliament that's how democracy works in respect of policy choices. If we get kicked out and someone else gets elected on a different platform it is the right of the new Parliament to change the law. Whether it's important to us on privatisation of water issues or on tax rates or on labour relations laws it's really the same and there are only very limited exceptions in respect of constitutional matters. I also want to say why it's so important to guard that boundary around constitutional matters because it's always been a moot point as to whether those constitutional entrenchments in respect of Electoral Act provisions or the Constitution Act work at law. You know they have been upheld by convention now for 50 years or so and it's fantastic that this Parliament has upheld that convention so that convention has not been abused for that lengthy period of time but it remains a moot point as to whether those entrenched provisions could themselves be repealed by a simple majority of the Parliament repealing either the section that includes the entrenchment or the Act which includes the entrenchment. Now that's not a legal issue that we ever want to approach in this House and one of the ways we don't approach that and the way we protect the entrenchment provisions that importantly sit in our constitutional legislation is to not use them for policy processes which if we started to you would find that a subsequent Government that couldn't get to the 60 percent majority would just come here and they would repeal the section by simple majority of 50 percent plus one. They could come to a future Parliament and repeal the entrenchment provision by a majority of plus one and it would probably be effective against a challenge through the courts because I can't see the courts wanting to intervene in respect of that. The issue of whether the courts after this long period of entrenchment of the constitutional provisions would see it as something that is a convention that can be overridden by a future Parliament by simple majority overriding the 75 percent entrenchment provisions in the Electoral Act or the Constitutional Act is a debate that I hope never to see. I hope that we maintain the strength of that convention by not undermining it and I leave open the moot point as to if a future Parliament did try and override those voting provisions by simple majority I think there would be a contest before the courts and it would be a very very interesting constitutional question for the courts to grapple with then. On the one side you would have the people that would say that the legal effect of those clauses is not to bind a future Parliament that they have political maybe moral force in support of a convention not to abuse those provisions and always change them either by way of 75 majority or a referendum. And the referendum route was what was used to change these provisions most recently in respect of the MMP change to how you cast a vote in an election. So that's one view that it just has a moral or political force that causes Parliament to always honour it; the other is that it does actually have some legal effect that can be given force before the courts. I hope in my lifetime that we never have to explore that boundary and that's why I am grateful to the Minister for bringing this amendment before Parliament. Even though I understand the will of other people to want to guard against privatisation from my perspective it is wrong in principle to entrench—Erica Stanford: She spoke in favour of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). Hon DAVID PARKER: I've spoken in favour of—Erica Stanford: She spoke in favour of the SOP.Hon DAVID PARKER: I am speaking in favour of this SOP which the Minister has rightly—Erica Stanford: The original SOP—the Minister spoke in favour.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well actually the Minister wasn't in the chair when the SOP was put to the House and that is perhaps a fair criticism in respect of the effective urgency because we do sit longer hours and the Minister can't always be in the chair. So you know I put that on the record as well. So for those reasons I'm pleased that this mistake is being fixed. There is no constitutional crisis this bill is being fixed before the third reading. It is not yet law. It is the debates that we have in this place and because of good work by members of the Opposition and members of the Government and members of academia we are fixing the mistake that was made and protecting that convention properly in respect of constitution—in respect of which there are provisions in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that ought to be entrenched.