Dowie Sarah: Land Transfer Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Land Transfer Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9686. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): It is actually a pleasure to stand and rise to speak in this first reading of the Land Transfer Bill brought into the House by the Hon Louise Upston. My goodness if I am here as long as Mr Cunliffe and I come up with conspiracy theories along those lines please just show me the door. It is incredible to sit here and listen to 10 minutes of just absolutely phenomenal conspiracy. What this bill is about is modernisation.Mark Mitchell: It’s The X-Files David.SARAH DOWIE: It is The X-Files—it is absolutely The X-Files. It is beyond a joke. At the end of the day the Land Transfer Act has been in force for 60-odd years and it is in need of modernisation—nothing more than that. Land transfer has evolved. I was there I remember in my short 40 years as a lawyer practising and running—Hon David Cunliffe: You’ve been practising for 40 years? You don’t look a day over 60.SARAH DOWIE: —the land-based transactions in the conveyance transactions. We have changed now to an electronic—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member and although she might have brought the interjections on the member making the interjection should know that I am over 60.SARAH DOWIE: Thank you. The process of conveyance has actually changed and we have moved to an electronic system so it is only fair to modernise and update the Act that governs this process and make it more workable and more reflective of today’s day and age.I am really pleased that the Minister has referred this bill to the Government Administration Committee. We are the heavy lifters in this Parliament I think.Chris Bishop: Ha ha!SARAH DOWIE: We are so Mr Bishop—we are the heavy lifters. We often get technical legislation and lo and behold as an ex - property lawyer I am excited about the Land Transfer Bill—I am excited.When we talk about the Torrens title system this is a system that underpins our property transaction basis. It is an incredible system of course developed in Australia and adopted by us gosh I think it was about 100 years ago. But it really does underpin the nature of our property transactions. New Zealand is known—having adopted this Torrens system and through the Land Transfer Act—as a secure place to do business in respect of buying and selling property.Of course two of the premises behind the Torrens system are that it is a secure system and that you do not as a purchaser need to go beyond the register or beyond the title to research what is on there. You can reasonably rely on that register and of course on indefeasibility of title. That has sustained time within New Zealand—that no claim or interest can be defeated or voided with a past omission or error or act. Like I said before that has sustained time. But what this bill does is it modernises indefeasibility in respect of that premise. It is allowing a limited change to indefeasibility where there are fraudulent actions and the result would be that there would be a gross injustice and somebody would miss out or be harmed by some fraudulent action. Therefore the courts can go and look at that and indefeasibility would be somewhat modified there.Look this bill is updating the legislation in respect of the evolution of what we have seen with regards to property transactions. The e-dealings need to be properly documented and updated so that the legislation is reflective of where we are at the moment with our property system. This is a good bill. There is no conspiracy theory with it. It is updating a 60-year-old bill. It is timely it is needed and it is important. I commend this to the House.