O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First generally supports arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution method because it does tend to reduce the caseload of the courts it reduces delays it is usually less expensive and mostly it allows the parties to work out a solution of their own with professional assistance of course. But New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill because we doubt very much that it is appropriate to do the things that it sets out to do in relation to court proceedings concerning arbitrations. We were told by the member who is promoting the bill that there are two issues addressed by it. The first is that the bill would actually introduce a new presumption of confidentiality in relation to proceedings concerning arbitrations whereas of course as we know court proceedings are usually public and that principle is well-established in the legal system. We also understand however that parties are keen often about confidentiality because they do want to protect their intellectual property or their sensitive business information trade secrets and so on and they may well be afraid of reputational damage because of what happens during the proceedings. But we were not told very much by the member about why it is important for court proceedings to be public so I think it is a bit one-sided in the way he presented his argument for that reason. Second we were told also that the court would have the discretion in this bill to set aside confidentiality in appropriate cases but I doubt whether that would actually be enough and I would like to hear a little bit more discussion about that particular point. The second of the issues mentioned by the member concerns enforceability. The bill would have provisions that would prevent arbitrations from being set aside for procedural reasons and we are told that there are clauses in contracts about confidentiality because that is what the parties want and they do that by contract. I accept that—no problem with that. But there are almost always good public interest reasons why proceedings about such arbitrations need to be public. That should still be the main rule and that procedure should not be reversed. Just turning to the main provisions in the bill the first one actually concerns a rather narrow area concerning arbitration of trust disputes. We have all heard some quite interesting cases reported in newspapers about that and you can understand why the parties concerned would prefer privacy about that. Also they would be interested in the thing being dealt with promptly and privacy of course is something that the parties themselves usually want—not necessarily always but usually. But we in New Zealand First are very uncertain about this whole area because it appears to us that the proposals in the bill go too far in that they would tend to oust the jurisdiction of a court. We are very concerned about that—very concerned indeed—because that is a very important principle in our legal system and we think that it needs to be preserved. The other main amendment concerns the restriction on reporting of court proceedings to arbitrations—for example about challenges to why an arbitrator would be appointed or some other appeal on a question of law. But it is actually in the public interest that those things be public so that the public is aware and there can be debate not just amongst the legal community but others as well. So we have grave concerns about that proposal too. On balance we would not support the bill. It is highly technical. It has not come through a department with the benefit of its advice or the Law Commission and we think that a bill of this kind ought to do so. So for those reasons New Zealand First will be voting against it.