Graham Kennedy: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Parliamentary Privilege Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19740. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):I think it is pleasing to mark the final stages of this Parliamentary Privilege Bill. It is not often that we pass legislation of a constitutional nature through this House. As the Privileges Committee put it in our report back the importance of the bill for our country and parliamentary democracy should not be underestimated. It will form part of our constitutional framework and it will sit alongside the Constitution Act 1986.As my colleague David Parker has just said—and the Attorney-General as well—obviously the bill concerns Parliament’s relationship with the judiciary. The case had prompted the Supreme Court to define and as we saw it restrict the boundary of privilege enjoyed by the legislature based on the doctrine of necessity. That far-reaching judgment has—let us be frank—tested the principle of comity which is the fundamental characteristic of that relationship. That in turn had prompted some push-back on the part of the legislature. We were concerned to ensure that the age-old rights and powers in the Bill of Rights that Mr Parker has mentioned are not encroached upon.It was never the select committee’s intent—and it ought not be the intent of this Committee—to overreact to the decisions of the courts in the Buchanan case or the Gow v Leigh case. We did not wish to incorporate new absolute privilege protections into legislation. If we did we may have risked inadvertently extending the privilege beyond what it has historically been. Rather the intent with this bill is to restore the nature of the privilege to the status quo ante pre-2005 essentially. But this defining moment presented an opportunity to formally shape and give expression to the principle of comity in New Zealand.So the bill is essentially seeking to strike the point of optimality in the relationship between the three branches. Let us hope that the version before us is up to the task. I am certainly satisfied that the select committee has done an extremely good job and we have no further comments to add on the precise provisions including Supplementary Order Paper 482. We believe in short that it is up to the task. As it happens I believe that is due in no small part to the quality advice the select committee received from our own officials and from scholars and advisers across the country and ancillary comment from other jurisdictions. In fact we extensively revised the original version of the bill and we are now satisfied that constitutional thought in New Zealand is about to take a significant step forward.For once I think New Zealand has done itself proud in developing and articulating a major tenet of constitutional principle. It has done so on the basis of its own work without importing work from outside. The Privileges Committee has done I think excellent work overall in the last 3 years. The intrusive powers protocol and the revision of the police and SIS agreements are items of achievement. But this Parliamentary Privilege Bill is certainly the major achievement. I pay tribute in particular to the chairman the Hon Chris Finlayson and the deputy chairman the Hon David Parker.So that is the achievement essentially of the 50th Parliament. It may be that the next Parliament might be able to build on this work and perhaps undertake an even more comprehensive kind of review of New Zealand legislation that makes up the constitution of New Zealand’s Parliament. It was part of the work that was undertaken in the independent constitutional review. I think there is a general recognition that although our constitutional tenets are good and robust they should always be subject to scrutiny and review and reflection and no doubt improvement. I certainly think it would be in order for the 51st Parliament to build on the work of the 50th Parliament both in the context of independent constitutional review and the fine work that this committee has done under the chairman.