Chauvel Charles: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:21333] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I want to direct some remarks to clause 4(2) of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) which relates to the proposed modification of the defence of a claim of right. First I agree with the comments that were made by the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern. This amendment should not have gone to the Social Services Committee. I mean no disrespect to the members or the chair of that select committee or to the advisers in making this point but quite why it did not go to an appropriate subject select committee so it could be considered in the context of the other justice reforms that the Minister of Justice is seeking to advance I do not know. I can assume only that it has been wrapped up in a bill to toughen our anti - child abuse laws so that it would have the effect that it has had of the Labour Opposition not voting against it because it is a very bad proposal. I ask the Minister whether he has really thought about these amendments—in particular the amendment concerning the claim of right defence. 
I was talking to a barrister the other day who told me about a case he had taken recently. Here are the facts. His client was a young man just under the age to drive legally who was working in a hardware store warehouse. It was Christmas time and the car a customer was driving broke down in the driveway of the retail warehouse blocking the driveway and stopping all customers from coming in. The owner of the car walked off and left the car sitting in the driveway broken-down. The owners of the store were distraught. They were losing custom; they could see cars just driving away and going to the store down the road. It was Christmas time and people were at the height of the shopping frenzy. 
The barrister’s client’s employer asked the employee to get the forklift and move the car out of the driveway please. The employee said that he did not have a driver’s licence and the car was partly on the open road. He could drive the forklift and could probably operate it reasonably safely but he was not entitled to do so. The employer said that they really needed him to do it. There was nobody else who could do it and they needed the car out of the driveway because it was Christmas time. The forklift was duly operated and the car was moved out of the driveway. The owner of the car eventually returned saw a big scratch on the car where the forklift had caused a little bit of inadvertent damage and rang the police. The police charged the employee with an offence concerning which a claim of right or colour of right defence would have been available and the colour of right defence was pleaded successfully. 
That is what we are doing away with. It is a common-sense defence. It has practical application in certain circumstances. An argument should have been had in the select committee about the Government being a sore loser in the case of the “Waihopai Three” and seeking to amend the law on a blanket basis to do away with all sorts of application of this defence in this type of circumstance. That argument ought to have been had and it has not. I know because I have talked to members of the select committee and there was no such discussion. 
I hope the Minister will listen to this sort of case. This employee had no proprietary interest in the car that he was told to move and he would have no defence under the law if this legislation was passed. It is a bad idea to amend the law on a blanket basis when the Government loses a court case because what we will inevitably do is do away with the defence where it was intended to operate in appropriate cases. 
The Labour Opposition will as it happens be voting for this legislation in its entirety. No party will vote against the sort of motherhood and apple pie provisions that appear in the rest of the bill— 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: The Greens are. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I meant mainstream party. I do not want to labour the point but given that I have tried to carefully put on record the sort of case where this defence ought to be able to continue to operate and where it will not be able to operate if this legislation is passed it would be appropriate to hear from the Minister why such an approach is being taken. I would also like to hear why this Parliament is yet again at his behest doing away with the rights of the citizen without appropriate consideration.