Cameron Mark; Edmonds Barbara; Rurawhe Adrian; Bishop ChrisMARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Just very quickly to clarify to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 80 tabled in the name of David Seymour Schedule 6. In the explanatory note I'm sure you can all see it speaks to the retrospectivity. Just to clarify and maybe the Minister can shed some light on it and as an example clarity in and around—and I'm just going to offer an anecdote here—laws that were historically not in place. Someone catches a fish and by virtue the law is changed. Is there a prosecutorial reality contractual obligations between a tenant and a landlord that what was in place has since changed—is the premise of this legislation that far-reaching? Can he speak with clarity to that please?BARBARA EDMONDS (Associate Whip—Labour): I move That the question be now put.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I am tempted to accept it. I'm not going to but I will give the call to Chris Bishop and I would expect some new material. Thank you.CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I'm conscious that we are potentially approaching the tail end of this elongated debate. But I thank the Chair's indulgence because I do have a very serious question that I want to ventilate for the House for the Minister and it's to do with the retrospectivity in relation to the property law changes in Schedule 6 of the bill. Hon Member: Didn't we do this last night and this morning?CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah we did do it last night and this morning but the reason we did it last night and this morning is that it is a massive change to property law and the House is doing its diligent job in interrogating why the Government wants to make retrospective changes to commercial contracts between tenants and landlords. So yes we did spend quite a bit of time on it last night and yes we're spending quite a bit of time on it this morning but we make no apology for that. I'll tell you why: because in this party we believe in the rule of law. In this party we believe in the sanctity of contract. In this party we believe that the Parliament should not just go around willy-nilly changing the status quo in contracts retrospectively. We don't believe that the Parliament should do that without proper interrogation as to why it is doing it. I come to the issue which is the bill as it was introduced—new section 245F(2) extended the retrospective application of the amendments to 28 September 2021 so it's about a month ago. So OK that's a month. That's not ideal. As I've indicated retrospective law is in principle a bad thing. But what we have here now is Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 78 which as I pointed out last night is actually about as big as the Government bill in the first place and it has to be that big because the select committee didn't have enough time to do a bar 2 version of the bill. We only had two weeks at the select committee so now we've got this big SOP. The SOP which is SOP 78—Hon Member: Zigzag SOP.CHRIS BISHOP: —it's a zigzag SOP—extends the retrospectivity back to 18 August 2021. So you know just kind of by the flip of a pen basically we've gone back another—what's that 28 September to—so another five weeks five and a half six weeks. Just by the flick of a pen by some drafter in the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO)—Hon Poto Williams: Where's the new material?CHRIS BISHOP: Well the new material is exactly what I'm talking about thank you Minister. The new material is exactly what I'm talking about and I know Poto Williams can't get her head around why retrospective law is a bad idea. It's pretty embarrassing that the police Minister doesn't understand why retrospective lawmaking is a bad thing given she's actually partly responsible for the rule of law in this country. But her performance so far as police Minister has given no indication she's got her head around those issues. But we had 28 September now we're going back to 18 August. So just with a flick of the pen with the PCO's drafting instructions and the drafter's pen the law has changed retrospectively by another five weeks. Frankly the flippancy with which members opposite treat this issue is outrageous. It's embarrassing. This is not a flippant issue. This is not a frivolous issue. This is not something to just say Oh well the National Party you know—ha ha you guys you lost and there you are just objecting. Get with the programme guys." which seems to be their attitude. This is a serious issue. Retrospective law is bad. Retrospective criminal law is appalling—and this is not criminal—but retrospective law in the civil context in the ordinary non-criminal context is also not good and there has to be a good reason for it. It was bad enough that it was 28 September 2021. Here we are legislating at the committee of the whole House stage and the Government wants to bring it back even further to 18 August 2021. I've read the submissions to the select committee and I've read the commentary of some of the law firms that have made comment about this and there is a genuine issue in question as to why the retrospective application goes all the way back to 18 August. It's a legitimate genuine issue and we need to know why the original bill said 28 September and the new SOP or the SOP on the floor of the House in relation to the amendments goes all the way back to 18 August. So I want to know from the Minister why we are going back another five weeks. Thank you."