Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Let me begin by congratulating you on your new role Madam Deputy Speaker. I haven't actually spoken in the House since my maiden speech—and what a topic to get first up. It is an absolute privilege to take my first call on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. Having spent 25 years in the health sector getting a bill on international tort law first up has been a pretty steep learning curve—not like Duncan who lectures in the subject. So forgive me if my approach is much more simplistic in thinking about it in lay terms.Actually it's a really nice little bill and I think what it's going to do is significantly simplify the way that torts are resolved across jurisdictions—you know so things like negligence property damage and defamation. And I guess thinking What are those examples?" and they're a bit hard to find on the web but for us—if a parliamentary delegation of some of us went overseas hired a rental car involved in a car crash or if we get involved in some complex defamation that then spans borders on cyberspace. I think whatever the complexity it'll all distil down to some very key things for those involved: it's incredibly expensive it's incredibly complex and it's incredibly stressful and anything that makes it more complex is likely to lengthen the whole process. So this little bill aims to streamline some but not all of that.In speaking to the bill I'd like to acknowledge my Invercargill colleague Sarah Dowie who shepherded the bill through since she's taken over from David Bennett. Coming back to trying to distil it down into its most simple—you know for a layperson—it's about replacing that double actionability rule with that new general rule about the place of wrong. As we have alluded to in the House currently double actionability means that if something's happened overseas and you want to take it through the New Zealand court system you have to make sure that there's the legislative machinery to do that both in New Zealand and also in that other jurisdiction where the tort occurred. You need to have that in both places and that adds to that level of complexity because you have to be working across two different legal systems and understanding the complexities of both. Also there's a problem: if something's considered to be a tort or wrongful in one jurisdiction and it's not in another how do you weigh that up? I think the problem is having to weigh that all up where some people have already undergone significant harm where it's incredibly expensive and where time is money for those involved. It's really important to sort that out.So what this bill is proposing is actually to streamline that and instead of the double actionability have a new general rule that where the events happened the law of that jurisdiction should generally apply. In general it's called the place of wrong rule. The bill though still preserves the ability of the affected parties—if they want to put the case about which country's law applies then it still allows the courts to make a determination as to if and when the parties can choose to make that request. It also talks about providing that ability to have guidance when we might have that place of wrong rule being displaced. For example if it was more relevant to another country—for example if we were a parliamentary delegation going somewhere else would it be more relevant if we got injured to have that under New Zealand legislation versus the legislation of the country where we had our injury? So it allows that flexibility if there's a closer connection to the circumstances of another country when you're weighing up that. The other thing though is that this bill will bring us into line with many other countries—the UK Australia and Canada—because they've already abolished the double actionability rule and they've put in place the place of wrong approach. So it just lines us up with those countries.Just looking at where we've been on the bill since the first reading there's also been another few changes to the bill not substantially but just specifying more detail and making it a bit clearer in terms of the relevance in the New Zealand context. The first thing is about being very specific about personal injuries and the fact that it's the law of the country where that injury occurred that should take precedence and putting extra definitions in around what a personal injury is so it's much more closely lined up to our own ACC legislation. What we need to make sure of in this country is that ACC and our ability to have no-fault compensation are absolutely preserved. It is essential. So it's really reassuring to see that that work has been done just to tidy that up and make it clear that that's covered.There were also some additional clauses added to specify that the legislation applies not only in overseas countries but also in New Zealand. I mean it may seem really obvious but I guess that's the other thing—for example if the parliamentary delegation from Australia came over to New Zealand and thinking it through in that context. So you know it's really just tidying that up as we bring the bill forward.The other thing when reading it through is first it's also really encouraging to note that our own principles of public policy are preserved. There's nothing in the bill that allows for the laws of other countries to override our own public policy protecting the freedom of debate that we have in this House and making sure in terms of things like defamation etc. that that can't be overridden by another jurisdiction. There is also the note that nothing gives effect to laws that would not otherwise be enforceable under New Zealand law. So we can't come in and have other overseas countries overriding our own laws and creating new ones over the top. It is reassuring that our laws are protected in the current context if there is a conflict with other jurisdictions.So as I said it's a nice little bill and for my first entrée into international tort law it was a nice short bill. It was really quite nicely laid out.Chris Bishop: Don't go too far into that.Dr LIZ CRAIG: Well I could understand it anyway so whether that's a litmus test—but anyway in summary it significantly simplifies the rules around how torts are resolved across jurisdictions by ensuring in most cases that the law of place of wrong applies. It also gives us sufficient flexibility that when there's a case that's much more closely tied to another country then we can use their legislation. I think what it does is it takes that level of complexity out of that process in which a lot of people have already suffered a harm. It's very expensive and it's time-consuming and this just steps back a little bit in terms of making that bit more streamlined. Also there's protections there so that our own legislation our own public policy and our own ACC are protected so that the principles of public policy prevail. So I therefore commend this bill to the House."