Mapp Wayne: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2548] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I must confess that I am tempted to yield my 10 minutes to the previous speaker. I think it is worth noting on the record that Dr Richard Worth member of Parliament was also the winner of the Sweet and Maxwell prize at Auckland University for being the most prominent graduate of his year and that he was a member of the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting for many many years. 
I think we saw that depth of expertise being reflected tonight as he explored the principles of firstly how to write a law report and secondly—for the benefit of members on the other side—how to read and understand law reports. After all unless law reports are accurate and unless they sum up in the ratio of the case the little headnotes that the previous speaker was talking about it would be impossible I suggest to understand the development and structure of the law. 
I know that lawyers are sometimes criticised for going on about the common law and its development over many many centuries. But the fact that we can stand here on the summit of centuries and centuries of legal decisions is of enormous benefit to our country. The principles that we are all so accustomed to in this country: the rule of law the protection from the powers of the State and the fact that people can be detained by the police only after they have been arrested as opposed to simply being hauled off the street and summarily dragged off to jail which would happen for instance under Saddam Hussein’s regime—something that no doubt the Greens would applaud—are due to the development of the law by our judges. 
 Let us imagine that we did not have decent law reports. How would we know what had been decided not just last week last year or a decade ago but literally centuries ago? It is absolutely crucial to our system of law that we have good law reports and that they are accessible. Indeed people like the Clerk of the House David McGee who has written a superb book on the procedures of the House have provided that enormous depth of precedents that we all value and rely on when we read the law and understand its practical application. How often have I heard a member of the Green Party for instance talk about the importance of being protected against the State talk about civil rights or talk about the importance of the individual? I know that I have heard members speak on those topics many many times. None of the precedents would exist without the work of judges and those precedents would not be available to us unless they had been written—unless in short they had been reported. 
I also want to put one other point on record because I am not sure that Mr Chris Finlayson will have the opportunity to speak tonight although he has spoken previously. He was shabbily treated by the current Attorney-General I might add and members on the other side of the House ought to reflect in shame at the political interference that occurred which meant that proper recognition of his skills of advocacy was not able to be made last year. So I want to put that on record because it was a shabby little thing done by the Attorney-General—a lack of understanding really of the importance of advocacy. It would do well for members on the other side to understand that it is not uncommon in fact in other jurisdictions for people to be elevated to the level of Senior Counsel—as the title is now—while in Parliament. 
The point I am really making here is that amongst Mr Finlayson’s many achievements he was also a member of the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting for many many years and that needs to be put on record. We actually have in this House today two members of Parliament who do not just have a general knowledge of the law who did not just practice the law who are not just learned and esteemed in their profession but who have had a direct and material connection to the development of the  
Law Reports 
. 
I turn now specifically to the bill which primarily allows the reporting of Supreme Court reports. It is an interesting little oversight is it not? Because Government members rushed through the decision on the Supreme Court and because they did not bother to ask the public of New Zealand what they thought this bill is actually a correction of an oversight— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Another one. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
:—another oversight. A Government worth its salt would have included in the initiating legislation the ability to report the decisions of the Supreme Court but it was not even thought about. Why? It was a matter of: laziness I guess; incompetence I imagine; haste I dare say; lack of consultation— 
Kate Wilkinson 
: Ignorance. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
:—and ignorance as my colleague Kate Wilkinson has suggested. All those factors had a role to play. So here we have had yet another repair job where the Government has come across to the Opposition and said: “Help us out by voting for this legislation.” Opposition members are having to do that on a regular basis—helping out the Government to repair its botched jobs for the benefit of New Zealand. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: He goes on for a long long time. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I tell the Minister for Courts who needs to reflect I guess where he will fit in the sequence of seniority for justice Ministers that this bill is not a fine reflection on him or on his Government. The Supreme Court has now been in action for 2 years—the court did not even get a permanent home until just recently and that will take years and years to actually become reality—so finally we will get the decisions of the Supreme Court published. 
I want to conclude on a particular point—again an issue that Mr Finlayson raised and I acknowledge that the Minister has taken it on board—that is the reporting of the decisions of the Maori Appellate Court and the Maori Land Court. They have been very badly reported in the past. There is no easy way currently to access those reports. One can go into any lawyer’s office or for that matter into any law school or into any Government department and one will not find decisions of the Maori Appellate Court or the Maori Land Court on the shelves but one will find reports from every other court easily accessible. 
The Government must ask itself why the United Nations sees fit to say “Well frankly in some areas you haven’t done the job properly.” I guess that this is a little example is it not? And to be fair I do not just blame the current Government. As a nation we have been neglectful of giving proper reporting of and indeed respect to the decisions of those two courts. 
National will be supporting this bill and members have heard the very learned dissertation from the winner of the Sweet and Maxwell prize—the top law student in his year at Auckland University—on the challenge facing law reporting. How does one work out what is the stare decisis of the decision and the reasons for deciding that? What is the obiter dicta? What kind of guide will be given not just to us in this Parliament not just to contemporary generations of law students but to students who will be sitting in their high-tech law schools a century from now? They will be reading the decisions of 2005 and saying “Actually that court made a fine decision.” or “How is it that the reporter made an error there?”. So we are doing an important part of repairing the legal tool kit but again National has had to come and rescue the failures of the Labour Government by voting for this legislation—albeit 2 years after it should have been passed.