Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Look it's very important that Parliament considers this issue. The protection given to the privileges that MPs enjoy and its relationship with the bill that we are debating is an extremely important one. I do want to reflect on exactly why that is. It's important because it goes to the critical issue of judicial review and whether or not judicial review is available because if judicial review is available for MPs that may be subject to the procedure outlined in the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill then that mitigates significantly the detriment that is potentially done to them. As Donna Awatere Huata found out in the case against Richard Prebble she was able to have a substantive court hearing.If judicial review is unavailable then it is a significant impingement on the rights that MPs enjoy. I'm not saying that as a party political statement; that is the written legal opinion that the Attorney-General has provided. So judicial review is absolutely critical but a decisive issue as to whether or not judicial review is actually available to members of Parliament is the issue around parliamentary privilege. The Justice Committee heard evidence from a number of august bodies about whether or not judicial review was available. There were submissions made by the New Zealand Law Society quoting—SPEAKER: Order! I'm now going to ask the member to address—very directly and only—the question of whether this motion should be agreed to.CHRIS BISHOP: Sir I'm coming to the point around privilege and some of the submissions that were made to the committee around parliamentary privilege in particular. It's very important that Parliament gets to the bottom of this issue because in Prebble v Awatere Huata the parties in that case proceeded on the assumption that privilege was not impinged. Three judges in that case actually expressly said that it was not necessary to decide any concluded view on the scope of parliamentary privilege. Justice Gault made similar remarks and so did Justice Keith. Of course since then we have had the passage of the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014. So in the time between Prebble v Awatere Huata and today we have passed a very important piece of legislation. As members will well know that Act actually in some ways codifies parliamentary privilege following the Leigh litigation but also the Buchanan v Jennings litigation. It also adopts a very expansive definition of proceedings in Parliament": "all words spoken and acts done in the course of or the purposes of or incidental to the transacting of the business of the House or of a committee."Now the Minister of Justice speaking in the motion on this instruction to the committee just made mention that the bill that we are debating in no way touches the other enactments that exist in New Zealand statute law. I do have to ask how exactly he can make that statement because I think it is beyond doubt that there is at least some tension between the Parliamentary Privilege Act which essentially says that the courts can't inquire—SPEAKER: All right. This is the second warning for the member. There won't be another one. He is again discussing the substance of the amendment. The issue is whether it should be heard.CHRIS BISHOP: Mr Speaker I'll just reiterate again that the issue of whether or not privilege applies is a critical one. It's important that Parliament gets to the bottom of it and that's exactly why we need to have the amendment in scope so that the committee of the whole House can get to the bottom of it. I think I've made all the remarks I need to make around why exactly that's required."