Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : I move, That the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill be now read a third time. I endorse what Mr Hide said; I think this bill is the result of political parties working together to find a solution to a problem. It is not the result of any one individual, it is not the result of any one party; it is the work of Parliament.
The sequence of events leading to this third reading goes something like this. On 2 September the Supreme Court gave its judgment in the Hamed case. It was suppressed, so applications needed to be made so that suppression orders could be varied. The decision to lift suppression on most of the judgment was finally issued on Thursday 15 September, 3 weeks ago today. From that point the Government worked as fast as possible to find a solution to the problem. After a week of consultation by me when the House was in adjournment, a paper went to Cabinet on Monday 26 September. The bill was introduced on 27 September, and was reported back on 3 October. This afternoon this Parliament will hopefully have solved the problem in the 3 weeks since the judgment was unsuppressed. Some have suggested that the Government has moved too fast to fix the problem. I reject the submissions of some of those who said that this Parliament is “the fastest lawmaker in the West.” If members want an example of fast lawmaking, they need only look at the Westminster Parliament, which in July this year passed the Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011. That bill was a legislative response to a problem presented by a court decision that changed a longstanding law concerning aspects of bail. The legislation reversed the judgment. It started and completed its Commons stages on Thursday 7 July. It also had its first reading in the House of Lords on 7 July. It passed all these stages with the support of the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats. Its effect was fully retrospective; it was not a temporary measure. That is not what is happening here; this is a temporary measure. I believe it is an example of Parliament working well, and I endorse the excellent editorial in the New Zealand Herald today in that regard. From the time the judgment was unsuppressed, we have approached this situation with an open mind. I have tried to include the other political parties and groups in discussions. I acknowledge the assistance of the Acting Leader of the House, who gave me tremendous assistance to ensure that this bill could finally go to a select committee.
There are a number of members in this House who deserve credit for getting us to the point we are at this afternoon. First, I acknowledge my colleague Chester Borrows and thank him for his chairmanship of the Justice and Electoral Committee. I also acknowledge Keith Locke and Te Ururoa Flavell, two members for whom I have enormous personal respect. Both Mr Locke and Mr Flavell have been troubled by this bill, and it is apparent that their parties will not vote for it today. They are both principled members of this House who have engaged in arguments on policy. Neither is interested in self-promotion, and I say to Mr Locke that I shall miss his contribution in this House very much. I thank my colleague the Hon Peter Dunne, the member for Ōhariu. As it turns out, I met him a number of times after the decision was released. I valued his advice and contribution, particularly on the sunset provisions.
I also thank my colleague the Hon Rodney Hide. He is another principled member of this House. From the outset it was clear he had problems with the bill. He was prepared to support it to a select committee. His first reading speech, I thought, was very sincere and eloquent, and it rightly received a lot of praise. He played a very constructive role in the select committee, and I thank him for it. Like the Criminal Procedure Bill, which passed the other day, the bill we are debating is testament to his tenacity and his intellectual input. I acknowledge and endorse his generous comments about the Law Society, and other individual submitters like Associate Professor Andrew Geddis of Otago University.
I thank the Hon David Parker who, in all my dealings with him, for example on legislation concerning the foreshore and seabed, and on this sort of bill, shows himself to be entirely trustworthy. I think he is a genuine parliamentarian. At an early stage he recognised the importance of the situation that faced the Government and this Parliament. I believe that Mr Parker is a tough, principled opponent, who always maintains personal confidences and observes parliamentary conventions. I think he is wrong on section 7, but, as he said, on the section 7 report, that task was assigned to my colleague Kate Wilkinson, and the report concluded that section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was not engaged.
The bill we debate today is, to all intents and purposes, the bill sent to the select committee. The difference is that certain elements of retrospectivity have been removed. I say “elements”, because I do not see how the barring of appeals from people already convicted can be anything other than having a retrospective element, although I do say to Mr Locke that it could also be categorised as a legislative stay of proceedings for a period. The Search and Surveillance Bill does not contain those provisions, so it will have to be looked at again when the new Parliament is convened; that may give him some comfort. The important point is that this is not a new bill, as I emphasise; it is not a victory for any one political party. As I said, I agree with Mr Hide that it is a bill that is a product of this Parliament—it is a credit to this House. I was pleased that the evidence submitted supported the Government’s original contention that elements of the Search and Surveillance Bill could not be plucked out in some kind of hotchpotch fashion and rearranged into some new scheme. That idea was never going to fly. I think everyone now recognises that those complexities were too large.
In conclusion, I thank all those officials for their hard work on the bill. I particularly acknowledge John Pike, general counsel at Crown Law, and Elizabeth Grant of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, for their hard work and effort on the bill. I believe that they are examples of the first-class public servants we have, and it is right and proper that their efforts are recorded in Hansard. As is now tolerably clear—and, again, I am sure this will give Mr Locke some comfort—it will be the task of the new Parliament to pass the search and surveillance legislation into law. I commend the bill to the House.
There are a number of members in this House who deserve credit for getting us to the point we are at this afternoon. First, I acknowledge my colleague Chester Borrows and thank him for his chairmanship of the Justice and Electoral Committee. I also acknowledge Keith Locke and Te Ururoa Flavell, two members for whom I have enormous personal respect. Both Mr Locke and Mr Flavell have been troubled by this bill, and it is apparent that their parties will not vote for it today. They are both principled members of this House who have engaged in arguments on policy. Neither is interested in self-promotion, and I say to Mr Locke that I shall miss his contribution in this House very much. I thank my colleague the Hon Peter Dunne, the member for Ōhariu. As it turns out, I met him a number of times after the decision was released. I valued his advice and contribution, particularly on the sunset provisions.
I also thank my colleague the Hon Rodney Hide. He is another principled member of this House. From the outset it was clear he had problems with the bill. He was prepared to support it to a select committee. His first reading speech, I thought, was very sincere and eloquent, and it rightly received a lot of praise. He played a very constructive role in the select committee, and I thank him for it. Like the Criminal Procedure Bill, which passed the other day, the bill we are debating is testament to his tenacity and his intellectual input. I acknowledge and endorse his generous comments about the Law Society, and other individual submitters like Associate Professor Andrew Geddis of Otago University.
I thank the Hon David Parker who, in all my dealings with him, for example on legislation concerning the foreshore and seabed, and on this sort of bill, shows himself to be entirely trustworthy. I think he is a genuine parliamentarian. At an early stage he recognised the importance of the situation that faced the Government and this Parliament. I believe that Mr Parker is a tough, principled opponent, who always maintains personal confidences and observes parliamentary conventions. I think he is wrong on section 7, but, as he said, on the section 7 report, that task was assigned to my colleague Kate Wilkinson, and the report concluded that section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was not engaged.
The bill we debate today is, to all intents and purposes, the bill sent to the select committee. The difference is that certain elements of retrospectivity have been removed. I say “elements”, because I do not see how the barring of appeals from people already convicted can be anything other than having a retrospective element, although I do say to Mr Locke that it could also be categorised as a legislative stay of proceedings for a period. The Search and Surveillance Bill does not contain those provisions, so it will have to be looked at again when the new Parliament is convened; that may give him some comfort. The important point is that this is not a new bill, as I emphasise; it is not a victory for any one political party. As I said, I agree with Mr Hide that it is a bill that is a product of this Parliament—it is a credit to this House. I was pleased that the evidence submitted supported the Government’s original contention that elements of the Search and Surveillance Bill could not be plucked out in some kind of hotchpotch fashion and rearranged into some new scheme. That idea was never going to fly. I think everyone now recognises that those complexities were too large.
In conclusion, I thank all those officials for their hard work on the bill. I particularly acknowledge John Pike, general counsel at Crown Law, and Elizabeth Grant of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, for their hard work and effort on the bill. I believe that they are examples of the first-class public servants we have, and it is right and proper that their efforts are recorded in Hansard. As is now tolerably clear—and, again, I am sure this will give Mr Locke some comfort—it will be the task of the new Parliament to pass the search and surveillance legislation into law. I commend the bill to the House.
