Finlayson Christopher: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7933] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I wish to touch briefly on three issues tonight. The first issue is electronic filing the second is the strengthening of the Crown-Maori relationship and the third is keeping the law up to date—all of which are referred to in the report of the Ministry of Justice and all of which are illustrations of this typical third-term Government. It has no idealism no vision no energy and no enthusiasm. Nowhere is that more obvious that in the justice area and in the three areas I want to touch on. 
I could not believe my ears when I heard Mr Chauvel talk about electronic filing as though something had been done about it. It was real Sir Humphrey Appleby stuff from  
Yes Minister 
. The reality of the matter is that the Rules Committee which I have served on for many years has been trying to advance the issue of electronic filing and the Ministry of Justice time and time again wants to write reports on it and do scoping exercises—do everything but introduce it. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister in the chair David Parker just what he is going to do about the issue of electronic filing over the next few years. At the present time the situation is totally unsatisfactory and we are not getting any movement on that issue at all. That is why the Justice and Electoral Committee raised the issue in its report. 
The second point I will touch on is the whole issue of Treaty of Waitangi negotiations and the vomit-inducing statements in the report of the Ministry of Justice that additional resources have been provided for research and report writing in the Waitangi Tribunal and for increasing the negotiating capacity of the Office of Treaty Settlements. We all know that the Office of Treaty Settlements is not working and the disaster for the Government over the Whenuakite Station a few weeks ago shows that. A letter went from Landcorp to the Office of Treaty Settlements someone in that office simply rejected the need for the Crown to purchase Whenuakite Station then we had a backtrack on the part of the Minister in charge of Landcorp. The situation was totally unsatisfactory. The Office of Treaty Settlements is not performing well. 
The Waitangi Tribunal is hampered by lack of resources. I would like the Minister to answer these questions: who has replaced Professor Keith Sorrenson on the Waitangi Tribunal? Who are the historians appointed to the tribunal over the last 12 months? What steps have been taken by the ministry to provide additional resources to the tribunal so that reports like the report of Wai 785 can be written? As I said in this place a couple of weeks ago the final submissions on Wai 785 were heard in Wellington at the beginning of 2004 and we still do not have a report. So we have these weasel words in the report of the Ministry of Justice but we do not have performance. 
Nowhere is this hopeless situation of underperformance more manifest than in the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the law is responsive to changing needs. There are many illustrations where the law has not kept up to date. The law of limitation is one. The Government cannot even get technical things right. Study Paper 10 presented by the Law Commission in 2001 had a draft bill appended yet the Government still cannot work on that to get draft legislation into this Parliament. It is no wonder the Order Paper is so shocking. It is no wonder there is nothing to discuss in this Chamber—except the protection of trout as a commercial species. This Government has not even got the energy to open Study Paper 10—which deals with mandatory orders against the Crown and tidies up judicial review—and to print the Judicature Amendment Bill and get it into the House for debate. It is a highly technical matter; it should not take very much effort at all. 
But that is an illustration of this hopeless third-term uncertain un-idealistic Government. It has run out of ideas. Even when the ideas are presented to it on a silver platter as the Law Commission regularly does its members simply cannot get off their backsides and do the sort of work that any self-respecting Government members would do. One of the great tragedies of being in Opposition is having to look across at the other side of the Chamber and see people who are so devoid of energy and idealism—I exempt the member for New Plymouth from this— 
Hon Member 
: Oi! 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Oh no I include him—sorry I have to follow the party line. What I find so disappointing is that there is a heap of work this Parliament could be engaged in. There is non-party political but none the less very important legislation that could be worked on and this Government does not care.