Brown Peter: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Brown Peter: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20629] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 It was not really the intention of New Zealand First to take a call on this bill. We saw it as being a relatively straightforward bill to go to a select committee and we will be supporting it going there. But from listening to the Government speakers I changed my mind. First of all the Minister told us that the report-back date was to be October 2005 but within a few minutes he stood up and said he had made a mistake that he had read the first draft of his speech that the second draft did not contain the report-date of October 2005 and that the report-back date was open. So that gave us the impression that there is a degree of confusion in the Government ranks in terms of this bill. 
Steve Chadwick 
: He amended it. 
PETER BROWN 
: He amended it but basically it was quite an amendment to stand up in his opening speech and say that the report-back date was October 2005 then 10 minutes or so later stand up and say that there is no time on the report-back date. 
I want to make it quite clear that New Zealand First did not support the Supreme Court concept. We thought that the Privy Council based in London served this country exceedingly well over many many years and there should have been— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: There should have been a referendum. 
PETER BROWN 
: —as my colleague has just said a referendum is needed if we want to change these sorts of things. New Zealanders should have been asked whether they wanted to change from having the Privy Council to having our own Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will cost a lot more and this is a case of the nanny State thinking it knows a good deal more than the average New Zealander. 
Ron Mark 
: They think that in Labour. 
PETER BROWN 
: My colleague who has some quite close insight into how Labour thinks is telling me that Labour knows better than everybody almost all the time. But in many many cases recent legislation has proven—and the forthcoming election whenever that is will prove even more—that New Zealanders resent being taken for granted. They like to have their wishes to some degree adhered to. We have heard all the legal arguments from our lawyer colleagues on this side of the House on the merits and some of the concerns about this bill. One of the concerns that has been raised with New Zealand First is whether when the reports come out they would ever cover a person who might well be protected by the Clean Slate Bill. Would that leave an opening for employers to say: “I want to look at High Court judgments and Supreme Court judgments to see whether Joe Bloggs”—or whoever it is—“has been had up.”? It is a reasonable question certainly from a sea captain. I am not a lawyer like my colleagues. We would like to know whether this legislation will keep this thing opened up and transparent or whether there is some devious move to stop that sort of information from being tabulated and kept on some databasesomewhere. 
This is only a two-page bill. New Zealand First sees that it is an issue that should go to a select committee and we feel we would be unwise to restrict it. On that point New Zealand First will be supporting this bill to a select committee although we have some concerns.