O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. But before I do that I may just have to correct a tort of my own. The last time I rose to speak was for my maiden speech and I neglected to acknowledge the Chair so I remedy that tort at this moment and acknowledge the Chair acknowledge yourself and congratulate you this evening on your rise to that exalted position. Having now been obsequious enough to I hope now remedy that tort I will go on with the rest of my speech.It is a difficult one especially following those legal goliaths the Hon Chris Finlayson and Dr Duncan Webb. They leave one with very few places to go while they cerebrally dissect this bill. To assist perhaps the thousands nay tens of thousands at home who may be forsaking the soap operas the game shows and the dramas tonight to watch this I will endeavour to put this in terms that perhaps I can understand as to what this is about. It is to enable civil wrongs committed against New Zealanders in other countries to be righted here in New Zealand. Certainly that's my simple understanding of it. It's about jurisdictions. I just wonder Mr Assistant Speaker if I can just take a moment. My journey to this House has been somewhat longer than others and it's given me the opportunity to get some context to things that we're speaking about. Certainly jurisdictionally I do remember getting a lesson in how different jurisdictions come to our advantage. As a much younger man backpacking through Africa I found myself—and I'm showing my age—in German South West Africa shortly to become Namibia speaking in a hotel with a rather large and opinionated South African man on the subject of apartheid which was then of course the system of Government operating in South Africa.We disagreed strongly as you might imagine. I was somewhat critical of his Government. The next night we'd moved further south into South Africa and we found ourselves in a place called Springbok which is what you'd imagine a town in the northern cape of South Africa to look like not only one horse but unfortunately one hotel. I found myself again in the company of this same gentleman. We argued strongly about something that wasn't to do with apartheid but again he took umbrage. This time however he decided that he would have the last say and he went to the local police station to get the sergeant to come back and made a charge of sedition against me because in fact what I had been doing was criticising the South African Government for their apartheid system and that was actually against the law of the land.Fortunately the big sergeant who came somewhat nervously presumably to arrest me suddenly had a bright light go on and he said Ah! That's right; that happened in Namibia—the South West. You're right; the jurisdiction has saved you. But I must warn you this time you cannot talk about and criticise the Government in this manner." So that gave me an understanding that jurisdictionally there are opportunities for people to hide. In that case I think it was a positive that I didn't find myself in a South African jail. So when I read this bill that's the thing that I really did see—that jurisdictions can be a friend and an enemy.New Zealanders love to travel in order to work to play and increasingly to do business overseas and they are likely to find themselves in situations like I did whether intentionally or accidentally where wrongs are done to them—civil wrongs. Of course we're not talking about criminal wrongs here. So one of the advantages of course in being a New Zealander and something that I note that none of the previous speakers have brought up is the fact that we are very much a corruption-free jurisdiction in which to take cases. I stand here as someone who has just spent 40 years in the New Zealand Police. I have never taken a bribe but I might say I've never been offered a bribe either.In those countries where police officers can't say the same the judiciary and other aspects—the police cannot be corrupt by themselves; they are corrupt regimes. So being able to take these remedies in a place like New Zealand now presented by this bill without having the double-accountability factor to prove will be a massive advantage. Just before I do commend this to the House I just might just mention two terms: "lex loci delicti" which of course is the law of the place of the wrong; and "redire" which is "to return"—two beautiful terms. I don't like to show myself as being too old-fashioned but I do remember the odd Latin mass as a lad. It's good to see that Latin can be used it's still relevant and even as I prepared tonight I felt a touch of nostalgia using those terms. So I commend this bill to the House."