Macindoe Tim: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Macindoe Tim: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4438. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to stand in support of this bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. I do want to commend my friend and colleague Chris Auchinvole for his initiative in introducing it to the House and I congratulate him on having it drawn from the ballot because it is always a significant achievement for a member to be given the privilege of introducing a bill to the House through this means. I commend him for that. 
I do want to acknowledge that Mr Chauvel has indicated that Labour will support the bill through all its stages. I am very pleased to hear that and I thank him for that. But I also want to make the point to Mr Chauvel that far from being an abuse of the members’ bills process this bill actually introduces a measure that was recommended to the House by the Law Commission. For 5 years it has sat unenacted and for some of that time of course the Labour Government was in office. I want to say to him that there are a number of members of the public of New Zealand including many in my electorate who would much prefer this House to be spending its time discussing measures of this nature than some of the other bills that come forward. So it ill behoves the Labour Party to criticise members on this side of the House for bringing bills of their own nature forward when many of their own bills are actually abhorrent to other members in the country. This is a House of many different shades of opinion and it is a time and it is a place for us to be considering all the bills not to be casting aspersions on the motives of some who bring a bill to the House. 
As the member who has introduced the bill has told us in 2007 following consultation with the judiciary and Government agencies the Law Commission issued a report proposing tweaks to the procedure for habeas corpus applications. Just as was the case a fortnight ago when we debated the first reading of the Joint Family Homes Repeal Bill in the name of my colleague Simon O’Connor the member for Tamaki here again we are dealing with a specific recommendation from the Law Commission. It would be quite wrong I believe for us to be ignoring these recommendations. We owe it to the Law Commission which plays such an important role for us to give due weight to its recommendations. 
As every law student learns early on in his or her tertiary training habeas corpus is an ancient writ requiring a person in State detention to be brought before a judge or court to determine whether their detention is lawful. That is absolutely fundamental to our legal system and it would be quite wrong for us to understate that and to mock what is behind this bill. That is a very very important constitutional procedure. In fact habeas corpus is understood to date back as far as the 14th century and how often do we get the opportunity in this House to debate measures of that constitutional significance in history? A key provision— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Quite recent. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Well Mr Williamson having been here since the 14th century remembers plenty of them— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I wrote some of them! 
TIM MACINDOE 
: As he says he did write many of them. But most of us not having the advantage of his advancing years sadly have not had that opportunity. 
A key provision of this bill is for the High Court or a judge of the High Court to be able to dispense with the rule that habeas corpus applications take precedence over all other business. It is also to give judges more flexibility to dispense with the 3-working-day time frame for hearing a habeas corpus application where it would be appropriate for more preparation time. As my colleague has indicated it is expected that if this bill passes its first reading tonight it will be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee which I have the privilege of chairing. I look forward if that happens to hearing from the profession and members of the public and to working on this bill. It does in my view fit very neatly with National’s commitment to the delivery of better public services in the justice sector. 
I will simply close at this point by saying that I look forward to working on the bill. I look forward to hearing the submissions that we will receive on it. I again commend my colleague for promoting it. As I say it was recommended more than 5 years ago by the Law Commission. This is sound and sensible legislation. If it is passed tonight my select committee will give it the attention and the intelligent examination that it deserves.