RON MARK
KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this
The Greens will be supporting this bill to remove the sedition laws from the statute book. Those laws are not consistent with a vibrant democracy or with our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. They prevent us from “exciting disaffection” against the Government of the day, and of course that is something that we MPs could be accused of doing in Parliament most days when we sit here. Those laws were put on the statute book to constrain dissent against the Government, and have been used for that purpose. For example, they were used to convict Māori leaders in the 19th century, notably Te Whiti and Rua Kēnana. Then, in the earlier part of the 20th century, a Catholic bishop, Bishop Liston, was charged for making supposedly seditious statements when he hinted that he supported the Irish nationalist cause. We have also had the example of three leaders of the Labour Party—Harry Holland, Peter Fraser, and Walter Nash—who were convicted of sedition for supporting workers’ struggles, for being against conscription, and for selling left-wing books.
The Greens have been pushing for an end to the legislation on sedition for years. We have been asking written questions, etc., but were getting no change out of the Labour Government. However, two events have given the sedition issue, and the getting of these undemocratic laws off the statute book, some momentum. The first was the decision in 2004 by the police to use the sedition laws, after those laws had been in abeyance for decades, really—since the first half of the 20th century. In 2004 there was the Tim Selwyn case, where a man who lodged an axe in the Prime Minister’s office window was convicted not only of criminal damage, which is a normal charge, but also of sedition because of what he wrote in a pamphlet at the time. He called, in that pamphlet, for others to take similar symbolic actions against the Government’s then Foreshore and Seabed Bill. He did not, in the pamphlet, talk about violent acts or vandalism, or ask for people to use an axe in the way he had used one; he just talked about symbolic actions, which clearly could have been of any type. But the sedition laws were so flexible in their application that he was actually convicted.
Then there was the case more recently where the police charged a Dunedin man with sedition after he put out a little pamphlet advertising the swap of a petrol-soaked couch for a crate of beer. Clearly, although no one would support the idea of burning couches, that was a student prank. Yet that Draconian law, which had been in abeyance for many years, was brought out again. The charge against the Dunedin man was later dropped, but we saw the real problem of the police starting to use that repressive law, perhaps again and again.
The other event that has propelled change was Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s Law Commission report entitled Reforming the Law of Sedition, which called for the law’s repeal and provided all the reasoning as to why it should be repealed.
The Green Party is particularly pleased with this bill, because for once we are running against the tide of what has been happening in some other like-minded countries, as they are often called, such as Australia and Britain, both of which have made their sedition laws even worse than they had been. Those countries have not taken them off the statute book; they have made them even worse, under the cover of the so-called war on terror. In most other cases where New Zealand is compared with those two countries, we have had legislation flowing in the same direction as theirs, which has been restricting our freedoms to some extent and undermining due process in the judicial system. It is great that in this case we are running in the opposite direction of Australia and Britain, and are expanding our human rights by getting rid of the sedition laws.
Australia still has seditious laws that, I think, prevent people from—again that funny phrase—“exciting disaffection” against their Government. Actually, the Howard Government in 2005 brought in some laws that expanded the sedition provisions in a worse direction than previously. One of the new offences brought in by the Howard Government makes it a crime to “assist an organisation at war with the Commonwealth”. If that Australian law had been in during the Viet Nam War, tens of thousands of Aussies could have been charged, because huge numbers of them supported the Viet Namese struggle against the American, Australian, and New Zealand invaders, and marched with banners declaring such things as “Victory to the National Liberation Front”—the National Liberation Front being the body that was fighting for freedom in South Viet Nam. Today, parliamentary delegations from Australia and New Zealand honour the leaders of that very same National Liberation Front, visit Ho Chi Minh’s tomb, and generally accept that the freedom struggle of the Viet Namese was a just cause and that the Australian and New Zealand troops, along with the Americans, were among the aggressors.
There is also in Australia a new and rather vaguely worded piece of legislation against advocating force and violence, which could be used against dissenters. For example, if the Australian Government advocates and uses force and violence against Iraqis—as it is actually doing today—I do not think that John Howard would be brought before the court. Yet if an ordinary Australian advocates violent resistance by Iraqis against the foreign occupying troops, he or she may end up being charged under that law.
In Britain new laws prohibit the glorification of terrorism. Well, no one in this Parliament, I am sure, supports terrorism, but we can see that the British laws enter dangerous territory in making such a prohibition on people’s speech. Firstly, I think it is much better that if anyone is glorifying something we greatly dislike, such as terrorism, they do it out in the open so that we can deal with it. We can combat it and we can argue against it vigorously, rather than drive it underground where it becomes even more dangerous. Secondly, as we all know, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, and Nelson Mandela is often mentioned as a case in point. There is a film in our theatres right now called Catch a Fire, which is the story of an African National Congress fighter who blew up an oil refinery. That would clearly be a terrorist act under the anti-terrorism legislation we have in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, but at the time of the apartheid regime some New Zealanders defended, publicly and in writing, such African National Congress actions. Should they have been imprisoned for doing so? I think that most people would say no. Talking about what other people are doing overseas thousands of miles away from here, or expressing a point of view or an opinion, should not in themselves be crimes. That should not be put on the same level as actual terrorist acts committed by New Zealanders.
The Green Party supports this bill, but we would have liked it to go a little further than it has gone. We would have liked it to also include removing the blasphemy provisions from the Crimes Act. Perhaps the select committee could even do that, because the blasphemy laws are just as much a breach of free speech as the sedition laws are. If we look at the origin of those laws, we see that they are often intended not only to protect religion but to protect a particular denomination—in the British tradition, the Anglican denomination—from criticism. Today I think we are in a situation where there are many denominations within Christianity and many other faiths, and where some people are not religious at all, and they should be able to have a free exchange of ideas about each other’s beliefs and religions. Hopefully, that exchange will not be done in a hateful way; of course, we are against that. But there should be freedom to have that exchange, and we are operating in an environment where there is a carry-over of the traditional State religion. I was just looking at the title “Queen of New Zealand”, which has a much longer version: “Queen of New Zealand and Her other Realms and Territories … [and] Defender of the Faith”. That is the final phrase in the Queen’s official title, the “Faith” not being the Christian faith but the Anglican faith. The Queen is head of the Anglican Church.
So our blasphemy laws go back in history, as do the sedition laws. Both are archaic and both should be abolished, but it is great that this bill will do that in relation to sedition. The Green Party fully supports the bill. The way that the four MMP parties—United Future, the Greens, ACT, and the Māori Party—have worked together to establish the momentum to get rid of this law is wonderful. We had a joint press conference, and then quickly after that Labour, when it saw the game was up, moved this bill into the House, and we have progress on it today.
HONE HARAWIRAI raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I stand to be corrected, but I think the member has already had a call in the debate.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKERI was called in the last debate, but I have not spoken in this one. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou te Whare. When Ross Meurant came to Parliament, fresh from his dastardly deeds as head thug for the Red Squad, he warned the Government in his maiden speech of a small group of Māori who, he said, had plans to overthrow the Government. Well, I was one of those he named, and he was right. The overthrow of the Government is exactly what I have in mind, and I intend to carry out that promise. Back then, of course, Meurant was trading on his reputation as a hard man to try to cast us in a seditious light. I note that the tough guy got all quiet when he was asked to repeat his charges outside of the House.
But the charge of sedition is an oxymoron—a contradiction deriving from “oxy”, or “sharp”, as in the Māori Party, and “moron”, as in “dull”, like any politician who opposes this repeal. The contradiction, of course, in repealing seditious offences is that the act of sedition—“To bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against, Her Majesty, or the Government”—should even be considered an offence at all. People who have been charged with sedition are often our sharpest citizens, passionate about their causes and patriotic about their country—the peacemakers, the protestors, and the movers and shakers of Aotearoa.
The roll of honour for those charged with sedition includes people already named; the Labour movement leaders; labourer Tim Armstrong, who published in 1916 the statement: “… the freedom that we enjoy in this country today is owing to the fact that there have been men courageous enough to defy any law that was contrary to the interests of the people and aimed at robbing them of their freedom.”; Catholic Bishop James Liston, whom Keith Locke referred to; Methodist clergyman, teacher, and former soldier, Ormond Burton, who printed a mild anti-war poem and who, for his radicalism, got 2½ years in jail; and ordinary citizens who marched and protested against the Viet Nam War.
Of course, our most celebrated prophets of sedition are Erueti Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, who in 1881 were both charged with “wickedly, maliciously and seditiously contriving and intending to disturb the peace”. It is a big jump from disturbing the peace to sedition. Despite their protests and demands for a proper trial, Te Whiti and Tohu were held in custody in New Plymouth for 6 months before being shunted off to the South Island with many of their followers. Then, in another oxymoronic and self-serving act of legislative juggling, the Government passed what it called the West Coast Peace Preservation Act in 1882, so that Te Whiti and Tohu would not be tried for sedition but could be detained indefinitely, as the Governor thought fit. Dr Ranginui Walker explained this best when he stated in his book Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End of 1990: “It was by violence that a tribal (Maori) society was destroyed in the first instance, and the (Pakeha) nation state brought into being.” The so-called peace preservation law resulted in peaceful people and peaceful prophets being assaulted, arrested, jailed without conviction, and treated like animals and herded into caves—all for daring to passively resist colonial land-grabbing. The so-called peace preservation law was in fact a declaration of war against people who were seeking nothing but peace.
And then there is the man immortalised in song and in the three-part painting series by Colin McCahon, Tūhoe prophet Rua Kēnana from Maungapōhatu who was charged with sedition in 1916 for daring to call himself a prophet for peace, for daring to call his community Hiruharama Hou—the New Jerusalem—for daring to establish a policy of non-violence, and for daring to call upon his people to hold to their faith and not enlist for World War I. The police hunted down Kēnana, killing his son in the process, and packed him off to Auckland for trial for sedition.
At the other end of the century—not too long ago—a new generation of Māori activists, including lawyer Annette Sykes and activists Mike Smith, Nick Tangaroa, Ken Mair, and Tame Iti, were accused of sedition for their intentions “to incite, procure, or encourage … lawlessness” for protesting the creeping control and ownership of Aotearoa by foreign investors, which is an issue that people are only now starting to wake up to. Mike Smith talked about targeting the 1995 Asian Development Bank conference as an opportunity to destabilise the political infrastructure and discourage foreign investment. Mike Smith also explained the concerns he had, rightly, for Annette Sykes when he said that Sykes, “who represents the respectable face of Māori nationalism” was more feared than himself for daring to be uppity while still inside the tent. He said: “Watch her lose her positions on boards like Moana Pacific and the Māori Broadcasting Authority.” And so it came to pass.
This is the nub, then, of the whole issue. Sedition has been used to quieten the natives and to suppress and oppress anyone daring to challenge the status quo. In fact, even former Prime Minister and President of the Law Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, admits that the archaic offence of sedition was too wide and too unclear, and had been used to muzzle unpopular political speech. The most recent expression of this ridiculous law, of course, came when Timothy Selwyn got charged for opposing the foreshore and seabed legislation. He made submissions, started a petition, and sent out emails, but was stymied by a Government determined to ignore due process to ensure it got its way, so was forced to take more direct action and surprise, surprise—not at all—he got slapped with the charge of sedition.
When the Māori Party first started drafting a member’s bill last year, I spoke to Keith Locke from the Greens who said he was working on a similar bill. So I asked the Clerk’s Office if the Māori Party and the Greens could co-sponsor a bill. Well, well, well, the response was a bit like getting charged with sedition: “What! It’s never been done before. That’s out of order. It’s out of the question.” Then, of course, ACT and United Future also started looking at reforming the sedition laws, so the whole notion of repeal became a lot more real. So it is good to see that, by joining together, the four MMP parties were able to have an impact on fast tracking this legislation.
In closing, we would like to honour those who have helped get this repeal bill to the Table: those who have suffered so that we can more easily see the mean-spirited, ugly, demeaning, and destructive nature of the charge of sedition; Idiot/Savant for drafting a bill and badgering us all to sponsor it; those who still speak against conscription and war; those who still speak out for their land rights and their Treaty rights; those who still speak against colonisation and foreign control; those who still speak out against injustice; and those who still speak out against violence and economic abuse of power. Theirs is a rightful freedom, and we dedicate this repeal bill to them all. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this
At the outset, I want to acknowledge the support of the MMP parties for the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill—United Future, the Greens, the Māori Party, and ACT. I want to draw to the House’s attention that we held a joint press conference very deliberately on the day before Anzac Day, to make our call for the Law Commission’s recommendations to be accelerated in their passage through this House. It struck us as ironic that although Anzac Day celebrations bring together all New Zealanders and commemorate the struggle of New Zealanders in a bygone generation for freedom, we still had legislation on our statute book that was as archaic and anti-freedom as any legislation in our history.
The stories have been told during the debate on this bill about the use to which the sedition legislation was put in earlier times, to repress the free expression of opinion, political dissent, and sometimes a broader cultural dissent. My colleague Mr Locke has drawn attention to the fact that in many other countries around the world today these laws are actually being strengthened rather than repealed, and that we stand a little bit to one side from the mainstream in having legislation before our Parliament to repeal sedition law. I say that is a very good thing.
My family has had some personal experience in earlier generations of the application of this law, because we were Irish nationalists. Were we in Britain today we would still be subject to the provisions of that law. I want to recall a couple of little stories for the benefit of the House. Thankfully, in neither case was a sedition charge proceeded with, but the threat was there. A very elderly relative of mine, who died long before I came along, was standing on the Wellington waterfront in August 1914 when the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force set sail for the Great War. Someone said to this dear old Irish lady: “You must be a very proud woman today to see your son going off with the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force.” She turned and, in a loud voice, said: “I thought I would never see a son of mine stoop so low as to fight for England.”, and was dutifully carted away by the authorities and threatened with being charged for sedition for making this outrageous utterance.
A generation later, World War II came along. The same dear old soul was still alive, and was at Addington Raceway in Christchurch. In those days, apparently, before the big racing events, the national anthems of all the Allies were played. She stood rigidly to attention during all of the Allies’ anthems until “God Save the King” was played. Down she sat and away she was carted. I tell those stories not because a sedition charge resulted in those incidents, although the threat was certainly made, but because of the sense of the time about how one was defying the established order. Even mild acts of political dissent—if those could be described as such—or adverse commentary ran the risk of the full weight of the law being put upon one.
When we look at the experience of the Labour leaders in World War I, of the Māori nationalists in the 1880s, and of Rua Kēnana in 1916, and we see how this law was applied in a way that was simply the ultimate form of gagging writ—“We will shut you up because we will lock you away.”—and then when we realise that in today’s environment that law could still be applied, and in recent examples has been applied, inevitably we come to the conclusion, as the Law Commission did, that this is an assault on freedom and an assault on free speech that has no place in a democratic society like ours. Therefore, it is good to see this Parliament moving, by what looks to be unanimity, to repeal this obnoxious, outdated legislation.
I stand here delighted to see the bill before the House, urging expedition in its passage, and looking forward to a time when the references to sedition in this country are purely historical, never to be repeated again. A country that is confident about itself and its direction does not need laws of this type to regulate its behaviour. I look forward to the third reading of this bill, which will hopefully be not too far away, when we can farewell this particular legislation to the dustbin of history, where it deserves to lie and rot.
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) Link to this
I take much pleasure in supporting this Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill, as it appears all members of the House do, but it is still important to make the point as to what the law of sedition is about. Sedition law in New Zealand is unusual in that it is an offence of use of words rather than an offence of action. Most, if not all, of the laws in the Crimes Act are concerned with actions that are committed with criminal intent. It is ironic in today’s society that words still appear on our statute book as an offence against the affairs of the State. We really need to reflect upon the Privy Council decision in Lange v Atkinson, which was a hallmark decision on the law of defamation. It took that case, which freed up the area for comment made by political journalists against the actions of politicians, for us to recognise that the day must well be nigh when the law of sedition would be removed from our statute book.
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER Link to this
Yes, it comes with age, I tell Mr Power. This is also the age of freedom of information. We have the Official Information Act and the Privacy Act, but we are essentially an open society. We are an open society that reflects global trends in that regard and, as we embark upon our free-trade economic programme, then we too must allow for more liberalisation of the individual within the State. But what gets me most, I think, is when we turn to the definition of a seditious offence contained in the Crimes Act. A seditious intention is an intention to, among other things, criticise or point out errors or defects in the Government or constitution of New Zealand.
It is one of the strange ironies that, even today, very few people in this country can tell us what our constitution is, or what parts of our constitution apply, and what instruments of the State should be considered instruments of the constitution. Of course, we in New Zealand have no formal written constitution. We have a collection of Acts that can make up part of our written constitution, and some people debate which of those Acts should be included in our constitution.
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER Link to this
The time is nigh to move from that position, I would say to Mr Power, and perhaps it is well-nigh time that we moved to a written constitution. Of course, I would expect the National Party to oppose that, because, in a free-thinking, open, and free society, some National members would have difficulty in coming to terms with the confidence that people can acquit themselves without the hierarchical tendencies of the party to which that member belongs.
But coming back to the offence of criticising the constitution, I point out that it is crazy to have on our statute book a law that makes it an offence to point out defects or errors in the constitution of New Zealand when even academics cannot decide what that constitution is. It is essential in our criminal law that there be some certainty, so that people who go about their business have an awareness of where the line is between criminal behaviour and lawful behaviour. If we are charged with a criminal offence, it is absolutely no defence to say we did not realise that what we were doing was against the law.
So this is one of the ironies. Fortunately, these provisions of the Crimes Act have been pretty dormant. Earlier speakers have identified that there have been very few cases—and certainly in recent times the case of R v Selwyn has been perhaps the only case—in which a prosecution has been successfully achieved under this section of the Crimes Act. But the sedition offences, of which there are about four or five in total, are serious offences. They are in the Crimes Act, not the Summary Offences Act, and they carry penalties of up to 2 years’ imprisonment. An offence carrying a penalty of up to 2 years’ imprisonment is considered to be a serious offence and, as Mr Selwyn found out, it is almost certain to result in a term of imprisonment if the matter is serious enough. As we move into a free and open society, it is time that we addressed the removal of this law, and it is perhaps surprising that it took until 2006 for the Law Commission to produce a report on what has clearly been a very outdated and old-fashioned law on our statute book.
Quite clearly, it goes back to the days when society was ruled by the king or queen, and the hierarchy in society was understood by people at all levels of society. It is a very British and colonial approach to life, which, hopefully, we are moving away from.
Picking up on points from some of the other speeches that have already been made, and particularly from those speakers who are more learned in the history of the struggle of the indigenous people of New Zealand—the tangata whenua—it can only inhibit the ability of those who want to advance concepts of a Māori economy, of Māori autonomy, if they have at the back of their mind the thought that they may face an arrest by an officious policeman who draws upon the law of sedition that is found in sections 81 to 85 of the Crimes Act. The debate still to be had in our country is on the way in which the indigenous people are able to express themselves politically, and that debate is not fully expressed, because the parameters of that expression are still being discovered and realised by many, particularly in the Pākehā world.
While I am on my feet on this issue, I have to say that there appears to be a great relaxation of many of the rules that have controlled the way we conduct our affairs. I reflect on the recent case of David Bain, who was released from prison following a successful petition to the Privy Council. He is a man who was convicted of a number of murders about 13 years ago, and, of course, he was not acquitted. The conviction was not quashed by the Privy Council. Its members suggested that his case be returned to New Zealand for consideration of a retrial, and they did not even comment that he should be freed on bail. I have no comment on whether that is appropriate, but what I believe has been inappropriate is the amount of media speculation as to what should be done by the Solicitor-General in this matter, because of course this matter is still before the court.
What the Bain matter illustrates as being relevant to this debate to remove the law of sedition is that even our quite clear law of what is sub judice appears to be changing in practice because the press feel free and uninhibited to venture into the area of court matters. When a charge or a matter is before the court, no longer does the press feel inhibited by what used to be the very clear and well-enforced and well-understood law of sub judice. The harm we see there, of course, is the effect on the ability of someone like David Bain in obtaining a fair trial and the Crown obtaining a fair trial, because people are wading in and ignoring those laws.
The point I make there simply is that we are in times that are a-changing, and that reflects the openness of society, which I welcome. It reflects the ability of well-educated people in New Zealand to enter into a debate on contentious matters, for people to hear that debate on contentious matters, and to react in a verbal way rather than a physical way, and not to feel defensive or threatened. New Zealand is an open society. It is my very strong wish that it become even more open than it is, and that all the people of New Zealand are able to live their lives as they are able, by their physical characteristics, by their cultural characteristics, and by their own view of what it means to be a human being in New Zealand.
So this is a bill that obviously is welcomed by all parties. It is one that will go to the select committee and I imagine that process will not take very long. I look forward to its return to this House, and when we can take from our statute book these rather grand-sounding laws of sedition, but which in effect, as we have heard already, are pernicious laws and ones that, if not directly, indirectly have a consequence of inhibiting true and open debate.
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this
I know that two of my colleagues have gone before me in respect of making contributions on the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Bill. In no way do I want to attempt to relitigate matters that they no doubt have covered during the course of their full explanations in relation to this matter. I will depart slightly from some of the matters that the member who just resumed his seat, Russell Fairbrother, covered, although I will come back to them, because I think the time is nigh for National to make a contribution on those particular matters.
I guess what we are seeing here is MMP at work. The smaller parties have got together and decided that this is legislation that needs the support of the House to progress. The two larger political parties—and New Zealand First latterly—have come to the view that the bill is worth supporting to a select committee, and that it is worth having a discussion about some of the issues that have been raised. As no doubt my colleagues who went before me on this issue have outlined, National will be supporting this bill to a select committee. In fact, as I make the count, all members of this House—although I cannot speak for the two Independent members—will be supporting this bill to a select committee. National will reserve its position at that point, to make sure that any matters that might require further attention are not buried here in the first reading and that a thorough discussion does occur in relation to the impact of the bill.
It would be a mistake for the Parliament and the select committee process to assume that just because a bill receives the full support of the House at its first reading, it will necessarily progress through all stages without proper examination and investigation. That would, of course, be quite wrong—although some of the speeches we have heard from some parties today have been, shall we say, enthusiastic in their repeal of seditious offences—because what we are looking at here is a historic series of offences that do require close attention.
Just because the Law Commission comes up with an idea does not make it right. We will come to another bill later tonight where the Law Commission has just come up with an idea and we are all supposed to fall over ourselves and say that it is perfect in every regard. As the Minister of Justice knows, there are some aspects of that particular bill that National agrees with in a wholehearted manner, and there are some aspects we do not agree with. I will indicate now that we are in for an interesting debate on that bill. But I think it is a necessary debate, because I know that the Minister, to give him his dues, has approached this matter reasonably open-mindedly and I know he will be interested to know what National will propose during the Committee stage of that bill.
But I come back to the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Bill, because it is the one we are debating presently. I am minded to remind the House that National will support this bill, and for this reason: one of the reasons outlined in the report from the Law Commission for repealing the sedition provisions in the Crimes Act is that a seditious offence can be inappropriately used to impose a form of political censorship. That is, if anybody was saying negative things about the Government or a Government department or ministry, that person could be—the Law Commission would lead us to believe—seen to be committing or allegedly committing an act of sedition.
Being a member from the Opposition who has had a couple of departments and one ministry firmly in his sights for some time, I say that I would most certainly want to avoid being charged with sedition and politically censored for making comments and bringing to the attention of the public some of the shortfalls of that ministry and a couple of departments. That is all part—[Interruption] Harry Duynhoven over there shakes his head. He is a diligent member. But that is all part of the rough and tumble of democracy. That is all part of the toing and froing, the yin and the yang, of the political process. Members opposite, when they grace the Opposition benches in years to come, will be pleased that they, too, will have preserved an ability to criticise, to probe, to investigate, and to bring to light matters that they believe to be unsatisfactory from time to time. Of course, there will be a lot less “time to time” in that set of circumstances than there currently is in this set of circumstances.
Just to reiterate, any present law that falls foul of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—and this is a serious point—does deserve the attention of the House. I am a firm believer in upholding the principles of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act wherever possible. I have to say that I think in my 7½ years here we have had only two occasions that I can recall where the Attorney-General has said that a particular piece of legislation that the Government was tabling did impinge, in the Attorney-General’s view, on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We had that debate at that time. But it is an important safeguard. The role of the Attorney-General in Cabinet is an important one in bringing that independence to bear.
With those few remarks, I say that although National will support this bill to a select committee, it is important that the investigative and exploratory processes at the select committee are used fully before the bill progresses further.