Parker David: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19738. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour):Thank you to the Attorney-General for his contribution then. For those who are listening to the radio the man who just made reference to pettifogging on this cold Wellington day has not got his fingerless gloves on although rumour has it that he is still sort of busy trying to finalise those appeal documents for Alldyce v Alldyce which of course was the famous case in Bleak House.I am not going to go into the detail of the Parliamentary Privilege Bill at the Committee stage. I agree with the Attorney-General that these issues as to detail in the bill have been well traversed. I want to make a brief contribution about the overall principle because I think that is what lies at the heart of why the Privileges Committee has thought it necessary to codify parliamentary privilege.The relationship between the courts Parliament and the executive is a very very important one. In my opinion history shows that the way we do that in Westminster democracies like New Zealand’s democracy is the best way it is done in the world. We do it through having respect for the limits on the respective jurisdictions of the different arms of democracy or the different institutions that between them uphold democracy and ensure that democracy endures. Occasionally one part of democracy rubs up against another in a way that the other part thinks goes too far. As I said in an earlier contribution I like the fact that we do not try to codify everything because when those things happen if you have a mature jurisdiction that has respect for the traditions the conventions we have the rule of law human rights and the separation of powers you can effectively find a path through—not negotiate your way through but find a path through—that is wise and that everyone can live with.On this occasion we are dealing with a situation where in the opinion of Parliament the judiciary went too far to limit the rights of the privileges of Parliament. In support of that logic we go back to the 1688 Bill of Rights when these divisions between what was then the King and Parliament—and also at around the same time the relationship with the courts—were being formalised and they have stood the test of time for over 300 years since. One of the principles in the Bill of Rights is set out in article 9 in very brief form and it protects the freedom of speech we have in Parliament. It says “That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament:”.In respect of two decisions the Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh and Buchanan v Jennings Parliament thought that the court was constraining Parliament’s rights under article 9 with those decisions in a way that was undesirable. It has been said in earlier stages of the proceedings that those privileges do not exist to make life easy for parliamentarians. That is not their purpose. They exist in order to protect the ability of Parliament to do its work for the sake of democracy. We all know—or I think everyone in this House accepts—that democracy is such a complex web of settings not all of which can be written down in constitutional documents but when taken together that complex mix of ingredients means that you have a peaceful happy prosperous society that is fair to the people who live in it.As a consequence of the decision in Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh Parliament believes that the advice that ought to be available to Ministers as they prepare for question time—and that was the subject matter that lay behind Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh—should be all of the information that officials have and can bring to bear. We do not want those officials to edit what they know because they might fear they could be tied up in some proceeding. We do not accept the view that because they might have qualified privilege as officials they would not be less open with Ministers than if they had absolute privilege.We in this Parliament think that it is important to protect the information that comes to Ministers for question time which therefore ensures that the public gets an unedited view as to what their leaders who have been elected to Parliament can say in respect of issues of public interest. If that is defamatory of the rich and famous in society well so be it. On occasions that is right. On very rare occasions a member of the public may suffer an injustice by being defamed by a parliamentarian and have no recourse for it because it happened in Parliament and was absolutely privileged. That might have been occasioned by an official within the Government giving advice to a Minister to that effect. That is the price that we pay to have an open democracy which enables us—through this Parliament which has freedom of expression—to actually make transparent things that might be going wrong in society and therefore to make sure for example that corruption does not creep into our system.We have actually seen events in recent years where we have had some very wealthy people—in particular in relation to Hanover Finance—where many hundreds of millions of dollars were lost by New Zealand investors in finance companies and allegations were made as to improper behaviour on the part of some of the directors. Those people who made those allegations outside Parliament were—and are being—subject to legal suit. Indeed Mr Brian Gaynor is one of those who notably as a financial commentator in the New Zealand Heraldhas been sued for defamatory comments.Those same sorts of allegations ought to be able to be made in this House without risk of defamation. That sort of information if it is held by a public official—and they are often the ones who look into these things—should be able to be passed to a Minister and be used in this Parliament and if it is used by a Minister in this Parliament it should be absolutely privileged. This bill addresses that situation by returning us to the law as it was before the decision in Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh.We think that a mistake was made imputing into parliamentary processes these doctrines of necessity which seem to be in part taken from the point of view of us in Parliament from a view that defamation concepts should be imported into our parliamentary privilege law. It is actually one of the reasons why in terms of the drafting of the legislation as to the principles behind it at the select committee we took out reference to the defamation language in the bill to make it clear that this is not actually about defamation; it is about parliamentary privilege.The second part of it is Buchanan v Jennings. I am not going to cover that in detail except to say that I think that most people thought it was silly that a member of Parliament could say something privileged in Parliament and could not say outside the House: “Well I don’t resile from that.” if asked the question: “Do you resile from that?”. Obviously if a member of Parliament repeats the defamatory statement outside Parliament it is a new defamatory statement and they ought to be able to be sued in defamation. But for a member of Parliament to not be able to say “Well I don’t resile from it.” outside Parliament and for the courts to effectively link “I do not resile from that.” which is not in itself defamatory to statements made in Parliament and to make “I don’t resile from that.” a defamatory statement was actually again a misunderstanding of the privilege that we allow the courts to refer to things that happen in Parliament in a way that actually we did not originally.So we are again returning that law to where it was before the decision in Buchanan v Jennings and I think again we will be protecting the reputation of democracy. In the end we need people to respect politicians and what we do in this House if we are to have respect for democratic institutions of which we are an important part. I think it made politicians look foolish if they could not say outside the House: “Well I don’t resile from that.” because otherwise it looks like they do resile from it when in fact they do not.I think this is an important piece of legislation. I thank again all of the officials and I thank the Attorney-General for bringing it to the House. I have nothing further to add.