Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Deputy Speaker thank you. Look I am going to take what I hope is a shorter call on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. To begin with can I just acknowledge the member—Hon Christopher Finlayson: A worthy successor to Sir Geoffrey.Hon AMY ADAMS: —that's right—Sarah Dowie who has brought the bill as I think has been acknowledged by the speaker who has just resumed his seat the member for Christchurch Central. It is a very good bill a very worthy bill although I have to reflect on the fact that anything that's got the word tort" in the name is sure to sort of set a wave of panic and fear through anyone who's been a law student and anyone who's a current law student and anyone thinking about being a law student—in fact anyone who's ever talked to a lawyer. As soon as you start talking about torts I think anyone who hasn't been legally trained immediately goes "Oh God blimmin' lawyers. Here we go again."Chris Bishop: Or they think you're talking about cake.Hon AMY ADAMS: That's right—not unfortunately torte with an "e". We've just had a very interesting although somewhat hard to follow treatise from the member who's just sat down on the interesting and archaic tort of enticement. I think we may have discovered the only member in this House who can really go toe to toe in a debate with Christopher Finlayson on arcane points of law and no doubt this House will be privileged to listen to some of those debates over the course of this term.Hon Christopher Finlayson: I thought he was talking about the coalition negotiations.Hon AMY ADAMS: Ha ha! Well as Christopher Finlayson has just pointed out he may well have been referring to the coalition talks when he was talking about the tort of enticement. But I'm one step further down the path of recovery from legal practice than both the member who brought the bill and the last speaker. I'm now nine years into my deprogramming and return to the non-legal world and so I'll try and I guess put more of what might be a layperson's spin on this bill.Actually very simply what torts are all about is just a wrong done between two people and how you go to court to get a remedy for that. And that's—well actually it's not simple even when both parties are in New Zealand and the event occurred in New Zealand. It still becomes incredibly complex and difficult and the sort of thing that lawyers enjoy immensely. But where you have two parties or more than two parties and the relationship and the events have spanned a number of countries there does become an incredible difficulty of deciding exactly which legal system applies. The law should turn its mind to how we can make that far simpler so that not only can disputes be dealt with more simply but people can figure out in advance what the rules are that are likely to apply to them.We used to have this slightly strange position where the test was: the country of most relevance to the dispute or the facts in dispute. Relevance is one of those things a bit like reasonableness that can be a little bit in the eye of the beholder and it is very difficult to pick up any sort of instruction manual and work out what that means. It wasn't even a simple "Where were you when the wrong occurred?" This bill removes that doubt and makes it very clear that the country's laws that apply are those of the country where the wrong—the bad thing—was done.Now even that sometimes isn't simple enough and the bill therefore goes in to set out a range of rules for how you can determine where a wrong was done. It used to be in the good old days that you knew exactly where the negligence occurred and where the water tank broke and spilt the water over your paddocks or whatever the event was—and the lawyers in the room will know what I'm talking about. But actually in an increasingly digital world and in an increasingly borderless world our events and our businesses and our interactions are not that simple and it is incumbent on us and the law and therefore this Parliament to try and remove that uncertainty wherever we can.So look this does make sense and for all of those millions of New Zealanders crowded round their radios and internet livestreaming to watch this debate in joyous anticipation of the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill passing the simple thing to understand is that it simply makes it much clearer to understand which set of rules apply in some of these very difficult legal disputes. The thing to take away is that it will make it simpler it will make it cheaper it will make it cleaner and importantly it will bring us into line with the countries that we tend to look to: Australia Canada England and the like. So Madam Deputy Speaker I don't need to take up any more of the House's time. I don't have a particular legal treatise to set out on one of the other arcane torts. I will leave that to my more recently active colleagues from the legal profession and commend the bill to the House."