Dalziel Lianne: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8070. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the second reading of the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. It is interesting to note the comments that were made by the sponsor of this bill Chris Auchinvole who has taken credit for the significant amount of work that he has put into it. 
I want to remind the House just in case members have forgotten that when the Law Commission reported its recommendations on the habeas corpus legislation it in fact included a draft bill within the report. I think members on this side of the House having listened to that member’s contribution would be surprised to know that it was absolutely word-perfect. Word for word it was the bill adopted from the Law Commission’s report with his name on it. That is actually the only difference. The only value-add that Chris Auchinvole has made to this bill is the addition of the words Chris Auchinvole. There has been nothing else of any substance or value offered to him. [ 
Interruption 
] I actually think my colleague here is questioning whether that is adding value and I think that is a very good point indeed. 
But I think that what the member has also failed to do is to reflect on the work that the Justice and Electoral Committee actually did because he congratulated us on considering his bill in depth as we were wont to do as we are always wont to do but what he has failed to acknowledge are the changes that we actually made. The select committee made a number of changes. I am actually wondering whether the member understands the changes that we made so perhaps I could take the House through them. 
One issue that was contained within the legislation related to time frames. There was some concern about the length of time that was being addressed in the legislation. The committee recommended that subclauses (2) and (3) be removed from clause 5 of the bill in order to retain the 3-day time frame within which a habeas corpus application must be heard. The bill as introduced would have allowed a judge of the High Court to extend this period but committee members understand that there is little evidence that the current time frame is problematic. We did receive evidence on this particular matter and we wondered why it was important to proceed with the particular changes proposed when in fact the current time frame was not understood to be problematic. 
We also noted that extending the time frame would expand the court’s jurisdiction regarding habeas corpus potentially leaving it to determine matters that might be more appropriately dealt with by another procedure. This could have had the unintended consequence of removing current rights of appeal against successful applications. So our proposed amendment would retain the status quo and protect current rights of appeal. 
I am surprised that the member Chris Auchinvole whose name this bill is in did not even mention this in his contribution to the second reading debate. After all of the work that we did at the select committee I would actually have liked him to go through this particular matter and to perhaps express his own personal view as to the nature of the changes that we made. Obviously he is quite happy with those changes. But he does not seem to understand what they were all about and I think that is a bit of a shame. What it does tend to say is that the National Government has decided that Law Commission reports that have bills contained within them ought to be given to otherwise unoccupied backbenchers to put their name on them to go into the ballot for members’ bills and then ultimately take up the time of the House in respect of members’ bills but actually let a Minister off the hook for not doing their job. 
Who is the Minister who is responsible for the habeas corpus legislation? Who would that be? Could that be the Minister of Justice? Justice. What other roles does the Minister of Justice have? The Minister of Justice might be somewhat preoccupied with other legislation that she is responsible for so she has in fact asked one of her colleagues to take over this piece of legislation which the Government could have put through quite rightly not using up the time of members’ bills which are available to members to bring up issues that are actually of passionate concern to them. And we have the habeas corpus legislation from Chris Auchinvole. I do not think that he sounded particularly passionate about this particular issue and I think that he has actually taken up a space on the members’ agenda as it were in order to remove opportunities for other members who have got lots of pieces of legislation. I know that I have had more than one bill in the ballot of late. 
It was interesting that the member said that we did not pursue particular pieces of legislation that were promoted by the Law Commission. I remember I myself had a Law Commission bill in the ballot. It was successful and the Government was so impressed with my success that it introduced legislation and passed it before the House got to the first reading of my particular bill. But it was legislation that we all agreed with. The point is that I think this member has played a little bit of a game with the House today. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee recommended the removal of clause 6. Did I hear Chris Auchinvole speak about the removal of clause 6? As introduced this clause would have allowed a judge to convene a conference of the parties to a habeas corpus application and determine how proceedings would advance including whether appearances would be made by remote means. In effect the provision restated the High Court’s existing rules regarding the power of judges. We considered this as a select committee and we discussed this. It was completely unnecessary to have that clause in the bill. In fact it was potentially confusing. That is why we recommended removing reference to these powers by deleting clause 6. 
I think that the member needs to listen up because he is going to have to go into the chair when we get to the Committee stage and there is going to be intense questioning from this side of the House as we go through the Committee stage of this bill. So he is going to have to really really swot up on this detail because the detail will really matter when we get to the Committee stage. But I do not know that Chris Auchinvole is a details man because really as I said before the only—the only—thing that he has added to this bill is in fact his name. 
The select committee also recommended omitting clause 8 of the bill and substituting a new clause to the effect that the provisions of the Courts (Remote Participation) Act 2010 apply to habeas corpus proceedings which of course are civil proceedings. Clause 8 as introduced would have inserted a new section enabling a judge to allow habeas corpus applications to be heard by video link or other court-authorised technology. In the meantime the Courts (Remote Participation) Act actually allows audiovisual links to be used in courts and sets out decision-making criteria for different types of cases. 
This Act had not been enacted when the Law Commission recommended this amendment. Chris Auchinvole would have known that if he had in fact gone through an analysis of the legislation that he had just put his name on. Putting your name on something is not good enough. You should have known that in fact the Courts (Remote Participation) Act had been passed in the meantime and that it dealt with this matter. We as a select committee would not have had to deal with this issue if in fact the member had been on the job. 
Overall Labour members of course support this legislation. We think it is an important piece of legislation. But I think that that member is going to have to do a little bit of homework before we get to the Committee stage because we certainly will be making sure that it is worthy of having his name on it when it passes into law.