Burton Mark: Evidence Bill — Third Reading 
Burton Mark: Evidence Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6802] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Evidence Bill be now read a third time 
. The Evidence Bill was introduced on 3 May 2005 by my colleague and predecessor in the justice portfolio the Hon Phil Goff. As a former Minister of Defence I am well familiar with the time it can take from the beginning of a project to its final implementation. But even the construction of large ships the refitting of planes and the introduction of light armoured vehicles are a mere blinking of the eye in comparison with the time of this project since its origins back in 1989 when the Law Commission was asked by the then Minister of Justice to examine the statutory and common law governing evidence and proceedings and to make recommendations for its reform. The Law Commission published its report on evidence and an evidence code a decade later in 1999 amalgamating the various aspects of the law of evidence. 
The proposals in the bill are generally based on recommendations of the Law Commission and the provisions of the evidence code. The purpose of the bill is to help secure the just determination of proceedings. It achieves this by providing for facts to be established by the application of logical rules providing for rules of evidence that recognise the importance of the rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 promoting fairness to parties and witnesses protecting rights of confidentiality and other public interests avoiding unjustifiable expense and delay and enhancing access to the law of evidence. 
While the development of the bill through to fruition has taken some time the outcome is in my view a very positive one. We now have a comprehensive piece of legislation that brings together many existing statutory and common law rules and principles relating to evidence giving this area of law clarity and accessibility of a type that it has not had for many many years. 
The bill also simplifies overly technical rules removes historical anomalies—and there are many of those that have accumulated over half a century—and brings the law up to date with current thinking and indeed current technology. 
In getting to this point we have been greatly assisted by the work of the Law Commission which spent a decade as I indicated before reviewing aspects of the evidence law publishing discussion papers and consulting widely with the justice sector including a wide variety of community groups academics officials and the legal profession and judiciary. 
 I also thank the Justice and Electoral Committee and in particular the subcommittee which was chaired by Russell Fairbrother for their excellent work. The bill as reported back from the committee contained a number of important amendments that all enhanced the operation and the effectiveness of this legislation. 
I also thank the interest groups—there are many of them—and individuals who made submissions on the bill. Because of these submissions changes were made to the bill that makes it better legislation. 
Finally and in particular I thank—as not all Ministers can do at this point in the development of legislation—members of the House almost universally for the constructive manner in which they have worked to advance this important legislative reform. 
The House should be proud of this bill. It tackles the complex law of evidence and includes reforms to the current law that are both fundamental and in my view long overdue. I am pleased to commend the Evidence Bill to the House.