Fairbrother Russell: General Debates 
Fairbrother Russell: General Debates 
[Volume:611;Page:8774] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (NZ Labour—Napier) 
: 
 In reply to my friend from the Green Party as to why there has been no discussion on policy recently about the lifting of the GM moratorium I say that she should read the royal commission report on genetic modification. When members ask why the Government is ignoring the wishes of so many people I say let them read the royal commission report. When a political party becomes a pressure group it loses its credibility. The more it becomes a pressure group the more sidelined it becomes in the process. 
What is scandalous about what we have heard in Parliament in the last 7 days is the diatribe delivered in the House last Wednesday by ACT member Stephen Franks. What is scandalous is that he was either deliberately misquoting the law to score a shabby political point against a sitting-duck target or the ACT party’s so-called justice spokesman is unable to read the law. For example there is no comparison between the judgment of the Chief Justice in the foreshore case and the position of Lord Hoffman 10 years ago in the House of Lords in the Pinochet case. The Chief Justice was one of five unanimous judges and you have not given one reason as to why her judgment was faulty. In denigrating the Chief Justice you denigrate the President of the Court of Appeal Justice Gault and you denigrate senior justices of the Court of Appeal without a skerrick of argument. However in the Pinochet case Lord Hoffman was one of three in a majority out of five. 
Stephen Franks 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You are being called into this debate more often than is usually attributable just to inexperience. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: Speaking to the point of order I say that I may be inexperienced but I am not incompetent in law. 
The point of the Pinochet case is that Lord Hoffman had connections that were obscure and not known to the other side. The Chief Justice in this country is well known for advocacy. The lawyers acting for the Marlborough Sounds parties in the foreshore case know of her history and not one of them took objection to her sitting on the case. The Crown lawyers know of the Chief Justice’s advocacy and not one of them took objection to the case. The ACT spokesman Stephen Franks has known for years of the Chief Justice’s advocacy and it took him 14 months to consider that there may be bias. One must ask why that is. 
There is a legal term called “champerty”. Champerty is when a party tries to influence court proceedings for some purpose beneficial to themselves. What a coincidence. When this great arguer of legal principle in the select committee loses arguments about the Supreme Court Bill he goes public with an attack on the Chief Justice on the same day the bill is released. He does not address the issues by attacking her judgment or by recognising that the principles behind her judgment were a recognition of the international law of indigenous people when they are subject to settlement by consent—nothing radical like that. No instead he comes out and links it to the Supreme Court. 
What is his motive? It is surely to encourage the lawyers for the Marlborough Sounds case and put public pressure on them to take the case to the Privy Council thereby raising for the first time the question of bias which in the public mind has now been set at large. The only purpose for that can be to slow down the Supreme Court Bill and achieve by a side wind what that brilliant legal mind could not achieve by his advocacy at the select committee. Stephen Franks ignored the experience of senior judges who explained matters in detail to him in response to his I must say rather timid questioning of the leaders of the bar—the leaders of the judiciary. Not once did he confront Lord Cooke. Not once did he tackle Sir Thomas Eichelbaum. Instead we had timid questions and reminders of when he used to work at Chapman Tripp as they may have also. We had no lion’s roaring at the select committee we had meek and mild “count me in too sir” questioning. But of course his arguments failed because of lack of logic force and support which is reflected in the 5 percent support that his party has. It is a nice coincidence with the support given to the Leader of the Opposition which is about 7 percent. He has personally attacked the judiciary. 
That tells us not just about the lack of ability of that self-described legal leader to read case law but it also tells us another thing. It tells us that the Leader of the Opposition has forsaken his responsibility to stand up as a Queen’s representative. Mr Bill English by his silence in this House has condoned the attack on the Chief Justice and the attack on our Court of Appeal and he has undermined in the public mind confidence in our judiciary.