Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009. Over time there has been a significant increase in the movement of goods, people and services between Australia and New Zealand, giving rise to the greater possibility of legal disputes with the trans-Tasman element involved. It should be noted that the groundwork for this bill was largely laid out by the former coalition government. The economic relationship between Australia and New Zealand has been close for many years with several trans-Tasman initiatives underway, including the Trans-Tasman Travel Agreement in 1973, the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement 1983, the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangement 1988 and the Joint Trans-Tasman Council on Banking Supervision 2005. It is within this context that in 2003 Prime Minister John Howard and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark established the Trans-Tasman Working Group on Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement.

I will now turn to the specific provisions of this bill, which streamlines and simplifies the process for resolving a significant proportion of these disputes. The Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 implements the agreement between the governments of Australia and New Zealand on trans-Tasman court proceedings and regulatory enforcement. As I just detailed, the bill came about following the establishment of the Trans-Tasman Working Group on Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement by prime ministers Howard and Clark in 2003. The working group’s terms of reference were to examine the effectiveness and appropriateness of current arrangements relating to civil proceedings and civil penalty proceedings as well as criminal proceedings relating to regulatory matters. Its membership comprised senior officials from relevant government departments of both countries. In 2007 the Australian and New Zealand governments agreed to implement the recommendations of the working group. The agreement based on these recommendations was signed on 24 July 2008 by the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, and the New Zealand associate justice minister, Lianne Dalziel.

The agreement allows civil proceedings from a court in one country to be served in the other without additional requirements. It extends the range of civil court judgments enforceable between the two nations. Judgments could only be refused to be enforced if they conflicted with public policy in the country of enforcement. The agreement provides for interim relief to be obtained from the court in one country in support of civil proceedings in another, allows the regime to be extended to tribunals on a case-by-case basis, adopts a common rule to apply when a dispute could be heard by a court in either country, encourages greater use of technology for trans-Tasman court appearances, allows enforcement of civil penalty orders across the Tasman and allows fines for certain regulatory offences to be enforced across the Tasman where there is a strong mutual interest in doing so.

Turning to the second of the two bills that we are debating here today, the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009, the purpose of this bill is to address transitional and consequential matters relating to the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009. Introduced with the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009, this bill amends the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 in relation to the conduct of trans-Tasman market proceedings, makes consequential amendments to seven acts and repeals the Evidence and Procedure (New Zealand) Act.

In conclusion, the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 implements the agreements between the governments of Australia and New Zealand on trans-Tasman court proceedings and regulatory enforcement. The agreement seeks to establish a regime for the conduct of court proceedings between Australia and New Zealand which aims to establish a simpler, more cost-effective and more efficient way of resolving cross-border disputes. The coalition supports the passage of both of these bills and I commend both of them to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009. Whilst the member for Stirling made his speech with his usual brevity in terms of delivery and content, this is extremely important legislation that will streamline court proceedings and procedures between Australia and New Zealand. It will make a big difference to the way that lawyers practice and litigants experience the court systems of both countries.

On 25 November 2009, the Attorney-General, the Hon. Robert McClelland, and the New Zealand Minister of Justice, Simon Power, met to discuss what they described as:

… a new era of co-operation in dealing with trans-Tasman legal disputes.

Before I was elected to this place, I practised as a lawyer for more than 20 years, and the law firm of which I was the senior partner was part of the Southern Cross Legal Alliance. We had law firms in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, and in Christchurch and Auckland. I regularly visited New Zealand for the purpose of having discussions on legal issues and had many cases in New Zealand over the years. I represented New Zealand litigants and New Zealand law firms on many occasions in the Family Court and Federal Magistrates Court, and my firm represented them in the supreme, district and magistrates courts in Queensland.

The legislation here will make a huge difference to the way we conduct court procedures. I often said when I was practising that if someone was, say, a contact parent and had contact with, or what we used to call ‘access’ to, their child, and felt inclined—wrongly and simply mistakenly—to try and take their child to New Zealand, for example, without the knowledge, consent and approbation of the custodial parent, it simply would not go to Christchurch or Auckland, or a place inside the jurisdiction of the country we know as New Zealand. It would go elsewhere, because New Zealand courts have traditionally taken a very benign approach to the registration of Australian court orders and certainly the degree of cooperation between the Family Court of New Zealand and the Family Court of Australia has been extremely extensive and comprehensive. It is the same with respect to child support administrative assessments and the registration and collection of child support. There has been extensive contact between the authorities in New Zealand and Australia—and so there should have been.

I sometimes wonder, with respect to the preamble of the Australian Constitution, whether our New Zealand brothers and sisters ought not to have carried on and become Australians—with the North Island and the South Island becoming states of Australia—because their law is very similar in many ways to Australian law. Certainly, the area of personal injury is very similar. Corporations law is very similar again. Defamation law, in my observation and experience as a lawyer, is very similar. Family law and child support are also very similar. They have not departed far—and, in fact, on occasions, it has been the case that New Zealand law has been more similar to, say, the law of Queensland than to, say, that of Western Australia or some of the other states. So anything we can do to make sure that our legal systems intermarry—that we can register their orders in Australia; that we do not need leave of the court, for example, to serve court papers; that their court systems can recognise our judgments and decrees—and that there is the cooperation which is so necessary in court systems, is better and more advantageous. It will make the court system that we have simpler, more efficient and more fair.

Anyone involved in litigation knows how costly it can be, how difficult the rules can be and how bewildering the whole process can be. Whilst it is true that most people do not come before the criminal courts in Australia or New Zealand, they can find themselves in circumstances, as a friend of mine did, such as being injured in New Zealand on a holiday. In addition, the number of marriages between Australians and New Zealanders and the cross-Tasman exchange of employment opportunities and arrangements and familial transfers is very frequent. Anyone who has travelled to New Zealand knows how easy it is as you go into the country and how Australia and New Zealand citizens are treated differently from those of other countries at the entrance and the exit of both Australia and New Zealand.

This legislation implements a treaty that our countries signed back in 2008, and I commend the previous government for the steps it undertook. The previous prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, the Hon. John Howard and the Rt Hon. Helen Clark, established a trans-Tasman working group back in 2003 to look at this issue on court proceedings and regulatory enforcement. In 2005 a public discussion paper was released, with its main recommendations being to create what has been described as a trans-Tasman legal regime based on the Service and Execution of Process Act 1992. Any lawyer in private practice would have had to deal with that particular piece of legislation on many occasions.

The hub of this legislation is the harmonisation of the two systems. It ensures that in civil proceedings, for example, or in contractual law disputes or personal injuries actions, where process is initiated by way of an application or writ or plaint in an Australian court, the document could be served in New Zealand without the leave of that court being undertaken. Just imagine a litigant in Australia who wants to serve a document in New Zealand issuing an application or a plaint in, say, the Supreme Court of Queensland at Brisbane and then finding when they go over to, say, Christchurch they actually have to seek leave of the court to serve the document. Most people would not believe that would be the case, but it is another country and so leave in those circumstances needs to be sought. So they have to front up to a law firm such as Parry Field in the CBD of Christchurch and ask them to actually apply to the court to seek leave to serve the documents. What we are doing here is getting rid of that process and making sure that that can happen without leave.

We are broadening the range of judgments that can be registered and enforced in Australia to include things like what has been described in the brief as final non-monetary judgments—we are talking here about injunctions and the like. It will make it easier to register those. As I say, in the areas of family law we have for a long time simply registered those judgments. I did that on dozens and dozens of occasions when I was in private practice in the Brisbane CBD. But, again, this takes time for litigants and it costs them money. Anything we can do to make the system cheaper and more efficient is beneficial.

I particularly like the provisions here in relation to the use of remote appearances. As a lawyer in private practice, it is great to be able to speak to someone such as a judge over the phone at a directions hearing on an application that someone may bring for a property settlement in, for example, Melbourne—and such a thing happens regularly—and deal with that issue without engaging the services of a town agent such as Lewis Holdway in Melbourne to appear before the federal magistrate in the Federal Magistrates Court or the Family Court in Melbourne. So it saves time and money because the litigant does not have to, effectively, engage another set of lawyers to act as town agent. That can be very costly. There is a duplication of cost to the litigant. Using audiovisual link technology for remote appearances can reduce the costs. It means that the lawyer who has carriage of a file in a particular locale can do it by way of modern technology. It will allow a party and a lawyer to appear in Australia or New Zealand, as the case may be, with leave of the court. You always need leave of the court in those circumstances.

There are many changes in this legislation and there are many litigants on both sides of the Tasman who will benefit from this. I know that the lawyers who were and still are part of the Southern Cross Legal Alliance, which I dealt with on many occasions over many years, will benefit, and their clients will also benefit. Clients in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Christchurch and Auckland, and in places in regional and rural Australia, will also benefit from the greater and closer cooperation we are undertaking through the changes in this legislation.

Avoiding the need for duplication, making sure that judgments have the same force and effect and making sure that services are conducted without leave are simple and necessary measures to ensure better harmonisation of justice systems between Australia and New Zealand. We will be able to treat disputes in the same way, whether a litigant is engaged in a dispute in Auckland or in Brisbane. For too long we have let the waters of the Tasman increase costs for Australian citizens. The legislation before this chamber is an important reform and I think it is the kind of law reform that we should have undertaken decades ago. I am pleased that the previous government took the initiative with the previous Labour government in New Zealand, and I am pleased that the Rudd government has taken up this particular measure, because I know it will benefit people involved in civil, criminal and family law matters across the length and breadth of this country.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009. The primary bill will implement the Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand on Trans-Tasman Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement 2008. It will incorporate existing legislative provisions to provide a single point of reference for rules regarding how trans-Tasman proceedings are conducted. Related transitional and consequential provisions are included in a separate bill to be introduced alongside the primary bill. Companion legislation is being developed to implement the agreement in New Zealand.

The bill will improve arrangements for conducting trans-Tasman civil disputes. Key measures include allowing civil initiating processes issued in Australian courts and some tribunal proceedings to be served in New Zealand without leave; broadening the range of New Zealand judgments that can be registered and enforced in Australia to include final non-money judgments, civil pecuniary penalties and certain criminal fines and regulatory matters; facilitating greater use of technology to enable parties and lawyers to appear remotely in proceedings in the other country; and building on the existing cooperative civil evidence regime to allow subpoenas to be issued in New Zealand in Australian criminal proceedings. The bill will also incorporate some provisions from existing legislation to provide a one-stop shop for conducting trans-Tasman proceedings. The bill will set up a trans-Tasman regime for the conduct of court proceedings modelled on the cooperative scheme established by the Service and Execution of Process Act 1992, which regulates proceedings between the states and territories.

The bill will provide simplified arrangements for serving initiating documents on a defendant in New Zealand. It will no longer be necessary for a plaintiff to establish a particular connection between the proceedings in Australia or to seek leave of the court to serve documents in New Zealand. Service on a defendant in New Zealand will have the same effect and give rise to the same proceeding as if it had occurred in the Australian jurisdiction in which the proceedings are being heard.

The bill provides for a common statutory test to apply between Australia and New Zealand in determining when a court in the other country should hear a dispute. It allows a person served in New Zealand to seek a stay of proceedings in Australia on the grounds that a court in New Zealand is more appropriate to determine the proceedings. The factors to be taken into account when making this determination will be mirrored in the New Zealand bill. The bill will allow certain Australian courts to grant interim relief in support of New Zealand proceedings to protect an applicant’s right until final judgment is given—for example, an injunction to prevent a party removing assets from the jurisdiction. This avoids the need for duplicate proceedings to be commenced in Australia.

The bill will promote a greater use of remote appearances through audio and audiovisual link technology to reduce the cost and inconvenience of physically attending court in trans-Tasman litigation. It will allow a party, or his or her lawyer, to appear remotely from Australia in New Zealand proceedings and vice versa with leave of the court.

The bill will provide for a broader range of judgments to be recognised and enforced in Australia through a process of registration. It will allow non-money judgments such as injunctions, civil pecuniary penalties and fines for regulatory breaches to be registered in certain Australian courts. Once registered, the judgment will have the same force and effect, and give rise to the same enforcement proceedings, as if the judgment were made in Australia.

The bill will incorporate the existing provisions of the Evidence and Procedure (New Zealand) Act 1994, which sets up a cooperative regime for the taking of evidence and the service and enforcement of subpoenas between Australia and New Zealand. That act will be repealed. It will also include part IIIA of the Federal Court Act 1976, which regulates the conduct of trans-Tasman market proceedings brought under the Trade Practices Act 1974, which prohibits a corporation with a substantial degree of market power from taking advantage of this power to eliminate or damage competition in the market. Minor changes have been made to aspects of these provisions to be consistent with the remainder of the bill.

Most if not all members of this place know that the relationship between Australia and New Zealand is of great importance to both our countries. At this time the relationship that Australia has with New Zealand is at its most comprehensive level ever. Not only do we have similar geography; our shared history, our common values and our like-mindedness all provide the foundation for a close relationship between our two countries. The number of our people-to-people exchanges reflects that relationship. Every year we see a million New Zealanders coming to Australia to visit and a million Australians going to New Zealand to visit. The strength of people-to-people exchanges and the strength of the nation-to-nation contact is in many respects quite extraordinary. We have a very strong economic relationship indeed.

The Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Agreement, which has now existed for over 25 years, is probably the most successful free trade agreement between any two nations. The work on building this agreement does not stop. Efforts are continuing between Australia and New Zealand to have in place a single economic market. The work on this project, specifically the practical application to making it easier for Australians to travel to New Zealand and vice versa, is underway. It is a terrific economic project that our two nations are committed to. There is no doubt that our closer economic relations agreement is a model for the world, going beyond barriers at the border to deeper economic and regulatory integration. Two-way trade is currently worth over $A21 billion. Merchandise trade has grown at an average of 6.2 per cent per annum over the last two decades. Two-way investment between Australia and New Zealand stands at over $97 billion. We continue to be more integrated, and this has direct benefits for business and the wider economy.

The most recent areas of focus have included industry policy, notably modernising rules of origin, freeing up investment rules, an ambitious new work program for the single economic market looking particularly at enhancing the regulatory environment for business, seeking to streamline travel across the Tasman, collaboration on improvements in the rules around food trade, and exploring the scope to liberalise services trade even further. Australia and New Zealand have kept up to date with biosecurity issues, the review of the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangement, and collaboration on science including climate change and areas of innovation and scientific research.

The CERA is the world’s most open and successful free trade agreement. It continues to move beyond the traditional features of such agreements to include deep and broad regulatory and administrative cooperation designed to reduce or remove impediments to doing business and facilitate the movement of people, goods, services and capital across the Tasman. Once a review is completed, the closer economic relations agreement rules of origin will be the most modern and liberal in the world. Both economies will see benefits, including efficiency gains and enhanced international competitiveness, for their industries resulting from the modernisation of the CERA rules.

In 2008 the revised Australia New Zealand Government Procurement Agreement entered into force. As a result, all government procurement policies in New Zealand and in Australia, including at the federal, state and territory levels, now remain CER-consistent, with suppliers from both Australia and New Zealand treated on an equal basis in order to support a single trans-Tasman government procurement market. Officials from both countries have affirmed their commitment to a joint food standard system, and New Zealand recently recognised Australia’s system of assuring the safety of certain foods exported to New Zealand. That decision reflects the high degree of confidence that New Zealand and Australia share in each other’s food safety systems. Australia will progress its own legislative amendments to give this reciprocal effect and both countries have agreed to work towards further reductions in barriers to trans-Tasman food trade.

Other recent achievements in the CER relationship include the signature of the updated double taxation agreement between Australia and New Zealand. This treaty better reflects the current commercial realities of trans-Tasman trade and investment. The commitment to an agreement on Trans-Tasman retirement savings portability similarly reflects existing CER realities. It will enable New Zealanders and Australians who work and live across the Tasman for a time to keep their financial affairs in order. Both of these instruments will further reduce non-tariff barriers to trade and investment and improve certainty and transparency for trans-Tasman businesses.

Our countries are working together to enhance Australia-New Zealand collaboration on climate change, and Australia has noted in particular New Zealand’s founding membership of the Australian initiated Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. Promoting sustainable forest management and combating illegal logging continue to be important matters for cooperation with other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. There is close collaboration between New Zealand and Australia on a joint bid to host a Square Kilometre Array, SKA, international radio telescope project. A decision on the location of the SKA is expected in 2012, with construction scheduled for the period 2014 to 2020. Over its estimated 50-year lifespan, the SKA will generate significant spin-offs in supercomputing, fibre-optics, renewable energy, construction and manufacturing.

Australia and New Zealand also work very closely in regional and international forums. We are close partners in the Pacific. We are close partners in the Pacific Islands Forum, and in development systems matters we work very closely together in the Pacific region. We reaffirmed our commitment to the unanimous declaration of the Pacific Island Forum leaders. We want Fiji to return to democracy on a much shorter timetable than the interim government is currently indicating. We want there to be full, free and fair participation in the political process in Fiji, which in our view is not occurring, and we remain strong in our joint commitment to see Fiji return to democracy.

We are also both strong and active Commonwealth members. At the most recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Australia joined New Zealand as members of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. For the next couple of years both Australia and New Zealand will be represented on this action group. Our two countries have shared peacekeeping and security interests. We work together in the Solomon Islands. We work together in East Timor and our joint attendance at the conference in London on Afghanistan shows we both have a contribution and a commitment to Afghanistan. We are in different provinces but we share the same commitment.

It therefore makes a lot of sense that the bill I am supporting today deals with yet another way of increasing the integration of our countries’ two economies—in this case, with civil legal matters. The increased movement of people, assets and the provision of services between Australia and New Zealand gives rise to the greater possibility of legal disputes with a trans-Tasman element arising. However, despite Australia’s uniquely close relationship with New Zealand, there are currently only limited civil legal cooperation arrangements in place. The objective of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009, and its New Zealand equivalent, is to significantly enhance current arrangements by establishing a cooperative scheme to make trans-Tasman litigation simpler, cheaper and more efficient.

The bill implements the 2008 agreement on court proceedings and regulatory enforcement between Australia and New Zealand. The reforms in the agreement are based on the recommendations of the Trans-Tasman Working Group on Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement, which was set up in 2003 to examine the effectiveness of current arrangements for the conduct of civil proceedings between Australia and New Zealand and which reported in December 2006. The bill has been developed in close consultation with New Zealand to ensure consistent implementation of the agreement in both countries. Stakeholders in Australia—including the states and territories and courts—and New Zealand were closely consulted during the project and support the bill.

The cooperative scheme established under the bill will give greater legal certainty to litigants in Australia and New Zealand and create conditions for further increased trade and commerce between the two countries. The reform will also support work being undertaken under the umbrella of the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Agreement, including the development of a single economic market.

To conclude, it is clear that this legislation is needed to improve certain legal systems between Australia and New Zealand and to make solving legal disputes between parties in both countries much easier. It comes on the back of longstanding cooperation over a wide variety of issues between our two countries. This is important legislation because it establishes this area in terms of civil litigation. Passing this bill will make sure that money will not be wasted by litigants. I commend the bill to the House.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the honourable member who has just concluded his speech on the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009 is correct when he suggests that Australia and New Zealand are two countries which have a long and close relationship, it is undeniably true that there is much more that could be done. This legislation, however, is a step in the right direction, but it is a step that goes nowhere near far enough. In the last parliament I was Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. We had a reference from the then Attorney, the member for Berowra, with respect to harmonisation of the laws among the Australian states and between Australia and New Zealand. We brought forward a number of recommendations in our unanimous report which suggested that the two countries ought to cooperate in many more areas than we currently do, including, for instance, a joint currency, a joint telecommunications market and many other changes which would integrate the legal systems of Australia and New Zealand much more substantially. I am pleased to see the Attorney in the chamber, because he gave the government response to the committee’s report—which, I must say, did not go quite as far as the then committee wanted. However, I do thank the Attorney for very seriously considering the matters put forward by the committee.

Only yesterday, Sunday, I had a very early start because I was on Q and A New Zealand with the opposition leader, Mr Goff, the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Sir Don McKinnon—he is a former New Zealand minister—and former Prime Minister Mike Moore. There had been a recent survey in New Zealand and Australia on whether New Zealand should become Australia’s seventh state. What was interesting about the survey was that, while a majority of New Zealanders clearly were against that proposition, some 41 per cent thought it was a topic worth talking about and approximately 25 per cent thought that it was actually a good idea. I put the point on the program that it was a very emotive question that was put to those people polled and what would have been better would have been to ask a question as to whether the respondents supported a higher degree of integration, harmonisation and alignment between the systems of Australia and New Zealand. In other words, we should concentrate on what is achievable or ‘doable’—not that that is a word—and we should focus on those things we can actually bring about. Sir Don McKinnon said that he felt it was inevitable that in a couple of generations New Zealand would become Australia’s seventh state. But there is a range of possibilities with respect to closer integration, from the situation which was envisaged in the Australian Constitution—namely, that New Zealand should be one of the originating Australasian colonies federating in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia—through to any other form of integration.

If you look at the countries of the European Union you will see that many of those countries spent most of the 20th century fighting one another, yet they have a level of integration which is much higher than the level of integration we have—to use a New Zealand expression—across the ditch. If the countries of Europe are able to achieve a single currency, why on earth can’t Australia and New Zealand, given the fact that we have a shared culture, a shared legal system, shared values, a shared geography, and I believe a shared future, have a joint currency? When Dr Cullen, a former New Zealand minister, actually suggested that, our then Treasurer, the former member for Higgins, rather unhelpfully, responded by saying that New Zealand was free to adopt the Australian dollar. I think a former Secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration wrote a paper suggesting that Australia should adopt the American dollar as a currency, but I suspect that suggestion would not get strong support throughout the community.

But there is no doubt that on both sides of the Tasman we pay an extraordinarily high price for unnecessary differences or a lack of harmonisation in the systems of law and government in Australia and New Zealand. For instance, in the area of telecommunications I am told that mobile phone calls are extraordinarily expensive in New Zealand. A simple solution would be to allow all Australian telecommunications companies to operate in New Zealand and for all New Zealand telecommunications companies to operate in Australia. Clearly, the consumer would be the beneficiary. We could also look at the possibility of a joint tax system and maybe a joint defence force. In fact, Prime Minister John Key and our Prime Minister last year enunciated that, within 12 months, their aim was to have a single border, namely, that people passing through immigration in Australia or New Zealand would not have to go through immigration once they crossed the Tasman. It was estimated that if that reform came in that would slice a third off the cost of trans-Tasman airfares. Mind you, looking at the websites at the present time, I see that airfares are fairly cheap as they are. But, clearly having to go through Customs, having to go through passport control (a) takes time and (b) costs money.

We also have a ridiculous situation in Australia where, if a person has an enduring power of attorney signed by a person at Coolangatta and he or she has to move into a nursing home at Tweed Heads, the enduring power of attorney dies at the border. Similarly, across the Tasman an enduring power of attorney is of no force and effect. So there are so many areas where we would be able to improve cooperation and harmonisation. That is why I am very pleased to support the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and cognate bill, because it is one small step in harmonising laws across the Tasman. I think that is very good, but I believe that we can go a lot further. For instance, if we had a single banking system, instead of Australian banks being required by New Zealand authorities to set up subsidiaries in New Zealand. That would clearly cut the cost of banking. Most of the banks in New Zealand are owned by Australian banks, anyway, so why should they not be able to operate across the Tasman in a way that would minimise costs for business? I think it is something that we ought to look at as well.

While I certainly commend the Attorney on the bills before the chamber, I do believe that these are only small incremental steps—and I am not suggesting that the Attorney himself would stand up and claim that this is a panacea for everything—and we can only achieve things step by step. The legislation before the chamber is worthy of support, but it is only one step in the direction in which we ought to be travelling. I very strongly support the principle of a single border, a single currency, a joint telecommunications market and I support a joint legal system. I would even like to have some set-up whereby the courts of New Zealand could be integrated with the courts of Australia and we could cross-vest jurisdiction. I think that would be important, but that clearly would be a little more complicated than the measures currently before the House.

In fact, the member for Dobell, who spoke previously, mentioned how we cooperate with New Zealand in trying to return democracy to Fiji and in so many other ways. We would clearly be able to shave costs, achieve better outcomes and better equip our military personnel if perhaps we had a joint military force between Australia and New Zealand. After all, the countries of the European Union are talking about some sort of creation of that nature. Again, it should be so much easier for those of us in Australia and New Zealand who, in fact, have so much more in common. I do not think it is necessary for Australia to become the west island, in addition to the current North Island and South Island, and it will not be necessary for the All Blacks to don Wallaby colours. Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, as you come from Western Australia you may not understand that the All Blacks are the national rugby team of New Zealand and the Wallabies are the national rugby team of Australia. I am not intending to reflect on you as a Deputy Speaker. But the thing is, I suspect, that what often stops greater degrees of integration are these fears, on the part of New Zealand in particular, of being gobbled up and of the loss of what they see as being essential elements of the New Zealand culture.

If we could create one market across the Tasman and if Australian companies were to get better access to New Zealand and vice versa, then obviously costs would be reduced, employment would be generated and there would be more prosperity. Of course, the advantage with respect to these matters would often be more in favour of New Zealand because they are gaining access to a much larger market. But it is only a greater advantage by degree, because the advantage to Australia in gaining greater access, access of a domestic nature to the New Zealand economy,. would in fact also benefit our companies.

Having said that, I commend the Attorney-General. I know that he is waiting to sum up, so I ought not to use all of the 20 minutes allocated to me. These bills, the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009, are very important bills before the chamber but they are only steps in the right direction. They are good steps, but I want to encourage the Attorney-General to accelerate this process, because all of us will be beneficiaries if he is successful in that aim.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 and the Trans-Tasman Proceedings (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2009. Listening to the previous speakers, both of whom have some legal background, it is very good to hear that finally in this country we are getting to a point of being able to bring together a whole range of procedures and processes.

My contribution will be short today. It will be about some of the social implications that have driven the need for these changes. I will also reflect on some of our history. These two countries, Australia and New Zealand, are very close neighbours in this part of the world, yet our backgrounds and histories are quite different in terms of how we each were settled. While the Treaty of Waitangi, one of the early indigenous treaties of New Zealand, may not have been a total success in the first instance, treaties have moved on from that time. In Australia, it took nearly 200 years to resolve some of the issues of its first settlement.

While our two countries were established in quite different ways, the early settlers of both countries were of similar backgrounds and interests. Coming forward to the late 1890s and the constitutional conventions, New Zealand was very much part of that process. As the member for Fisher said, New Zealand could have been considered a seventh state. At that time, Western Australia was not going to be involved, and there was a last minute change. The reality reflects on the close association of that period of time. In the early sixties, when New Zealand had a booming wool industry, many thousands of Australians and their families re-established in New Zealand to provide labour to those very successful mills. At a time when Australia had a changing set of circumstances in terms of our rural industries and where we were positioned in the world, New Zealand was doing very well. In fact, some of my extended family went to New Zealand and are still there today as a consequence of their involvement at that time.

We talk about our close associations with New Zealand, but the legal concerns of people who want to re-establish in New Zealand are still of concern today. While there have been many treaties, arrangements and understandings between the two countries, I applaud the Attorney-General, who is in the chamber, for his work in considering our ongoing relationship with New Zealand. If you look at our history, there is the establishment of the Anzacs. We use the term ‘Anzac’ for so many things other than to denote our military defence and our involvement in skirmishes on behalf of what we then called ‘the mother country’. The reality is that on the battlefield we were one, and in so many social situations we have been one. We have shared labour between the two countries because by the early seventies, when global considerations tremendously changed the nature of international markets, there was a move back to rural industries in Australia and we needed New Zealanders to come to Australia. To this day, a large number of New Zealanders move freely between Australia and New Zealand. So it makes sense that our legal understandings should make it much easier for the two countries to do business. Despite the legal constraints and requirements of the two countries, with their different constitutions, it will be easier to work together within that legal framework.

I have an interest in and knowledge of New Zealand. I spent many years there in different capacities. I hitchhiked around both islands of New Zealand a couple of times. I got to know the locals and the local cultures. Even in the late seventies and early eighties, there were many differences between the two countries. In terms of who the two countries looked to as their nearest neighbour, we were just a few hours flight across the sea but in those days the US had a major influence on New Zealand, as it did on Australia. When you look at some of the early infrastructure—telecommunications, banking and finance—it was very much attached to the American dominated system. But the reality is that New Zealand has been very independent in this part of the world. When you consider its small population, it is a country that has done very well and given itself a place in the world. It makes sense to have a big brother like Australia working closely together in the region through all of the arrangements we are putting in place through these bills and in our ongoing relationship with New Zealand.

It is interesting to note that, with the changes to our understanding of our Indigenous background and past, Paul Keating, in his last two years as prime minister, showed a great interest in New Zealand. In fact, New Zealand influenced Paul Keating very heavily in terms of treaties and the way we arranged our own Indigenous issues, the way we structured our country and the way we recognised land rights. It was something that gave us a better understanding . New Zealand, as small as it is and with a completely different history, was able to help Australia and influence the way we looked at resolving many of those issues. Today we almost take that for granted, but it was not so long ago that we were in the position of not having resolved some of the issues of our long past.

I recognise the business and legal frameworks we need to put in place, which are supported by these bills. I recognise the social interaction and shared history of Australia and New Zealand in terms of the establishment of our countries and our military cohesion as Anzacs. I also recognise our ongoing relationship. To bring the countries closer together for business, with a legal framework that underwrites and supports corporations, is very important. For those reasons, I commend these bills to the House.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank members for their contribution to this debate. It is an important debate. As Australia’s relationship with New Zealand becomes closer, it is increasingly important that we align our legal systems to make it easier to resolve cross-border disputes. Hundreds of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders cross the Tasman each year as tourists, or for business, or to visit family members or for sport. Over 520,000 New Zealanders live in Australia and around 65,000 Australians live in New Zealand.

Several initiatives are in fact being pursued between the Australian and New Zealand governments to strengthen our economic integration, including the development of a single economic market. The work has been given a renewed focus and intensity after Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and John Key issued a joint statement of intent in August last year. When introducing these bills I specifically congratulated and commended the work of Simon Power, the New Zealand Minister of Justice, who has been particularly energetic in this area. Indeed, I think he has moved faster than we have in introducing his reciprocal side of this legislation. The Trans-Tasman Proceedings Bill 2009 2009, along with mirror legislation introduced into the New Zealand parliament, will support these initiatives and make it easier and cheaper for individuals and businesses to conduct legal proceedings across the Tasman.

The Australian and New Zealand bills set up a trans-Tasman regime for the conduct of court proceedings. Importantly, the legislation expands the types of judgments that can be enforced between Australia and New Zealand and it also streamlines the processes in doing so. The ease of registering a judgment will give businesses operating in trans-Tasman marketplaces greater certainty that they will be able to enforce their rights if things do not go according to plan. Unfortunately, in any endeavour, whether it is industrial relations, business, family law or otherwise, we are aware that there will be disputes. These disputes will be resolved without affecting or eroding appeal rights. If a person wants to challenge a New Zealand judgment that is subsequently registered in Australia, the bill allows a person to seek a stay of the enforcement in Australia so that he or she can appeal the judgment in New Zealand.

The bill also simplifies a range of other aspects of trans-Tasman proceedings. For example, it makes it easier for a person who has commenced proceedings in an Australian court to serve initiating documents on a defendant in New Zealand. To balance the increased ease by which a plaintiff in one country can commence proceedings against a defendant in the other, the bill makes it easier for a person or their lawyer to participate in proceedings remotely by audio or video link using technologies that are being applied in each of our respective countries. They will be able to more easily utilise those technologies across the Tasman. Under the new regime established by this bill, Australia and New Zealand will also adopt a common test for determining which country’s courts should hear a dispute. The new tests will override the current rules which can sometimes lead to confusion and uncertainty for litigants and give rise to the possibility that the courts disagree about which of them should hear the matter. This is not uncommon between Australian states and territories, let alone between countries, but we think the model that we have set up mutually in our respective acts of parliament in Australia and New Zealand will assist in resolving those issues.

These reforms are also the result of significant consultation on both sides of the Tasman. I should add the states and territories, courts and select academics have also been involved over several years in the development of the proposals and have commented on the Australian and New Zealand bills. We value their contribution. I am pleased to say that the new arrangements have the support of all Australian jurisdictions and have been considered by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General, to which meetings the New Zealand justice minister attends and always makes a very sound and solid contribution.

In conclusion, these changes to trans-Tasman litigation form part of the government’s broader reform agenda to improve access to justice for all Australians. The new arrangements also stand as a significant piece of microeconomic reform. Simpler and more certain arrangements for resolving disputes will give Australian businesses greater legal security and will support greater business confidence. This bill and its New Zealand counterpart mark an unprecedented level of cooperation between Australia and New Zealand. There is of course more to do, but these are significant reforms that will enhance current arrangements and improve access to justice by making the resolution of trans-Tasman disputes cheaper, quicker and less complex. I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.