Parker DavidPart 2 Substantive provisionsHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I have a question in respect of clause 7 of the bill. The bill as it was introduced and went to the Justice and Electoral Committee said nothing specific around personal injury. The select committee has seen fit to recommend a change through clause 7(2) of the bill where it says: Where elements of those events"—which constitute a tort—"occur in different countries the applicable law under the general rule is …" and they insert this new subclause (aa): "for a cause of action in respect of personal injury caused to an individual or death arising from personal injury the law of the country where the individual was when he or she sustained the injury;".Now if I read the commentary that came back from the select committee this is because there were concerns presumably that with the bill as drafted we were creating some possible confusion around New Zealand's law relating to the accident compensation system. Of course in New Zealand—and this is unusual compared with most jurisdictions around the world—we have a system where you cannot sue for personal injury. We have given up the right to sue for personal injury where it was effectively a lottery largely on the basis of whether your injury was able to be proven to be caused by someone negligently and whether you could afford legal representation to prove your case. If you did bring an action for personal injury it was of course a barren remedy if the person you were suing had no money.Essentially people in New Zealand—and indeed this continues to the day in a lot of other jurisdictions—were not compensated on the basis of need. There was a lot of luck involved as to whether you got compensation and we in New Zealand in the 1970s changed that so that everyone has a right to medical care earnings-related compensation and in some cases some lump sums on the basis of need rather than on the basis of fault. So we have got a no-fault accident compensation system that replaces the tortious right to claim for personal injury.The select committee has seen fit to change the general rule that went to the select committee. The general rule just said simply that "Where elements for those events [constituting a tort] occur in different jurisdictions the applicable law under the general rule is taken as being—(a) for a cause of action in respect of … property"—they said something that is irrelevant to this point—and then "(b) in any other case the law of the jurisdiction in which the most significant element or elements … occurred."There was no definition of personal injury in the version as it went to select committee and there was no specific reference to actions for personal injury; there was just that general proposition in respect of actions other than those that were damage to property. The select committee has inserted the specific reference to personal injury to say that it is the law of the country where the individual was when he or she sustained the injury. I think this is perhaps quite an important point to get right in this bill and I would like the member in the chair Sarah Dowie to address whether she is confident that with the changes made there is absolutely no doubt that we are in any way interfering with the operation of the accident compensation scheme that we have in New Zealand."