Finlayson Christopher: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19737. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General):Mr Chair thank you for your aide-memoire. I greatly appreciate it. I just do not carry these arcane parliamentary formulae around in my head.Hon Maryan Street: Why not?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well I apologise. Unlike Ms Street I am just a totally inadequate member of Parliament. That would be the first and only time I admit that.Speaking of adequacy I read my second reading speech the other day and I think that that probably covers the major structural changes that we have made to the Parliamentary Privilege Bill but there are just a couple of points that I thought should be read into the record. The first one is referred to on page 5 of the Privileges Committee report and that deals with the interaction with defamation law. What we have done here is remove defamation concepts like absolute privilege. When one looks at the restructuring of the bill one sees that the old clauses 9 to 13 and also clause 33(2) have been removed. What we have done there—and I am sure Mr Parker will talk about this later on—is remove defamation concepts from the legislation. They belong in the Defamation Act and we here talk about “parliamentary privilege”.The second point is a definition that has been inserted in clause 4 and that is the word “exercisable”. We had quite an extended discussion on a number of occasions through this bill about whether or not there were some terms we could modernise. One of the formulae referred to in section 242 of the Legislature Act 1908 which is going to be repealed by this legislation is the phrase “held enjoyed and exercised”. That is the conventional terminology. What we are doing here is referring to the word “exercisable” but in no way shape or form are we wanting to alter the meaning of the phrase “held enjoyed and exercised”. So there is a fascinating comment for the Committee.The heart of the legislation is Subpart 2 of new Part 1A and as I said and as other members said in their second reading speeches what we have done is restructure without intending to alter the meaning of what was the old clause 8 of the bill as introduced. We have broken it up into a number of clauses. We just want to clarify beyond any doubt whatsoever that our new clauses 8A to 8H reaffirm and clarify article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 in accordance with the main purpose of the bill. Also we make it clear through clause 3(2)(b) (c) and (d) that what we are doing here is altering the law in the decision of Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh and also dealing with the decision of the Privy Council in Buchanan v Jennings. So that is really the heart of the bill but I think there has been quite a lot of discussion on that so far so I will not go on at length on that question.Coming back to terminology we had quite an interesting discussion about the words “impeaching” or “questioning”. That great modernist Dr Kennedy Graham did not like the word “impeach”. He said: “Surely to goodness we could come up with a term that is more 20th century than ‘impeach’!”. I think he had Bill Clinton on his mind. So what we did was we had a very good look at it but sadly we were unable to satisfy the legitimate demands of Dr Graham and so the word “impeach” is still there. We thought that trying to fiddle around with language that goes back to article 9 could be an exercise fraught with danger.Then we had the definition of “proceedings in Parliament”. All members should take a really good look at that definition to make sure that we have covered all the types of business that really relate to the everyday business of a member of Parliament. Hopefully what we have done through that definition is make it clear beyond any doubt whatsoever that the holdings in Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh and Buchanan v Jennings are reversed by this legislation.The only other thing I think I need to say is that there is a Supplementary Order Paper. Most of the points referred to in it are so pettifogging that it would be embarrassing to go through them. There are new definitions of “District Court” we are extending the definition of “tribunal” tidying up references to article 9—Hon Maryan Street: How wonderful to have that on the Hansard—pettifogging on the Hansard. Only this member would do that that.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It is a wonderful word Ms Street—“pettifogging”. You really should memorise it and understand it because it covers most of the contributions you make in your position as chair of the Regulations Review Committee. That is pettifoggery if ever there was pettifoggery. Then there are some references to article 9 tidying up references to that and also to that wonderful piece of legislation—the highlight of Geoffrey Palmer’s reign as Attorney-General—the Imperial Laws Application Act 1988. But I am not going to go into that in any length. That is the sort of thing that probably would amuse and titillate Mr Grant Robertson so I will leave it to him.