Mapp Wayne: Judicature (High Court Rules) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Judicature (High Court Rules) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:18852] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Well I guess that speech said a great deal about the way New Zealand First sees its future in this House did it not? It will be very short—possibly only 1 more week. I am actually surprised that Mr Jones in recognition of the fact that he may be here for only 1 more week did not take the opportunity to give a somewhat longer speech. It may after all be one of the last speeches he makes in the House. 
My colleagues Mr Finlayson and Dr Worth have indicated—and indeed I have to acknowledge the speech made by Mr Fairbrother as well—that they are experienced advocates in the courts. They know how important this sort of legislation is. 
One of the intriguing things about this Judicature (High Court Rules) Amendment Bill—and it is an extremely thick bill—is that it was referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee on 26 August 2008 for a report back by 9 September. Ironically the committee states in the commentary on the bill: “Given the short timeframe for consideration we were not able to hear submissions on the bill.” It is huge thick bill but there were no submissions at all. But as the committee members quite properly pointed out this work has been the subject of work over many many years by relevant committees primarily the Law Society and also by the judges and the Bar council and so forth. 
One of the things that is perhaps not as well understood amongst the legal profession as it should be is the status of the rules. A lot of people think that the rules are something that are essentially created by the court itself or through the process of the court and that they have a subsidiary aspect about them. That is not the case. These rules are legislation—creatures of statute. The vast bulk of this bill is schedule 2 which is the new High Court Rules themselves. The bill is a complete and comprehensive rewrite of the rules. The bill is called the Judicature (High Court Rules) Amendment Bill but that should not give people the impression that it is a simple amendment to the rules. This is a new set of rules with some of the issues set out by my colleagues. 
One of the extraordinary features of sitting today and I must take the opportunity to say this is that anyone would think this Government believes it is a 4-year Government. The reason I say that is that when I look at the business of the House—and this is an issue of procedure that I need to speak about—we have some 52 items on the Order Paper. There are actually 66 including notices of motion. Huge numbers of these bills have been set down for first reading. I wonder whether the Government intends all of them to have a first reading because I am aware there are other bills yet to be introduced that would also be put down for first reading. But we have only 1 week of sitting time in which to undertake that exercise. 
Why on earth I ask myself would a Government with 1 sitting week to go have an Order Paper with 56 items of business many of which were introduced this week? Why would it do that? The Government has had 9 years. It has had plenty of time to organise a logical and natural flow of business. We would think the peak period of Government business would be in the second and third years—the second year in particular. 
One of the remarkable things we noticed late last year and early this year was how incredibly thin the Order Paper was. It got down to about 21 items of business. I find it frankly almost an abuse of procedure for a Government to think after 9 years that it can load the House with 56 items of business pretending that the House will be sitting for weeks and weeks or for months and months and that it will send all of these bills off to select committees as if there was no election coming at all. Frankly that shows a Government that is arrogant a Government that is tired and a Government that thinks it can fool people by looking busy when in fact we are about to terminate. 
I wanted to specifically raise that point with the House because I think the public needs to know the way this Government operates and the way it essentially abuses the democratic procedure. There is a lack of appreciation that the people have a say and that they will have a say in just 8 or 9 weeks’ time. Surely we would expect a Parliament to respect that judgment and not pretend that this is a 4-year Parliament. 
I congratulate—well it is less the Parliament in this instance because although this is said to be a Government bill it originated directly from the legal profession and the judiciary and in a sense we are acting as a conduit. Nowhere is that more demonstrated than by the fact that we have a bill of 766 pages. The bill itself which introduces the schedule is less than half a dozen pages long—it is 5 pages in fact—but it does one significant thing in relation to the role and functions of the Chief High Court Judge. It is a very important function. 
At one stage the Chief Justice of New Zealand used to be in the High Court and then we had a Court of Appeal presided over by a president and our top court was the Privy Council. With the establishment of the Supreme Court it was appropriate and necessary that the Chief Justice be in that court. It is proper that our highest judge be represented in our highest court. It always was a rather odd circumstance that our Chief Justice was in a lower court and that the decisions of the Chief Justice could be appealed and overruled by the Court of Appeal. One would have to say that it was somewhat idiosyncratic. Once we had a Supreme Court there had to be an administrative judge within the High Court itself to manage the organisation of the judges such as the planning of cases the establishment of rules and so forth. So the judges—and it is the judges in this instance—have added some additional powers for the Chief High Court Judge in the exercise and management of that court to make it rather more sensible. 
National supports this legislation. The observation that it has taken 9 long years to get it here should I guess properly be made. But more seriously I find there is a pattern of what I see as essentially an abuse of approach by the Government. Loading this Parliament right at its very terminating point with 56 bills is frankly an example of Government arrogance. I say to those members some of whom I suspect will not be returning to this Parliament that the reason they will not be returning is this example of arrogance and pretence that the people do not count. Let me say to those members that the people do count and they will have their say in 8 weeks’ time.