Parliamentary Listening

I think you're absolutely right. I read the report through. It was a hugely sensitive matter and you don't lightly remove a judge for cause unless it's overwhelming and the judgment itself refers to a couple of examples where Behaviour was regarded as particularly egregious, one that Attracting my attention was the judge who walked into court wearing a MAGA hat, not in New Zealand, I'm pleased to say, but in another jurisdiction. So, but yeah, comity between the various branches of government is extremely important. And normally it's expressed that, you know, the executive needs to show more respect to the judges. This is one instance of where... The judiciary was reminded that you have to show a lot of respect to the executive and I don't know in my time as attorney you would find that these sorts of tensions arose from time to time as a result of that case involving Trevor Mallard and that person formerly in the Ministry for the Environment. The Supreme Court put out a decision about parliamentary privilege that was. It's absolutely outrageous, and you may recall that Lockwood Smith was Speaker and he referred it to the Privileges Committee and we passed the Parliamentary Privilege Act, and it was emphasised that that committee principle was emphasised. So you're absolutely right, you need for extraordinary care and sensitivity. Two, you don't use this as a means of getting rid of... judges. And thirdly, I mean, if I'd heard what Peters was supposed to have said, I would have been tempted to interject as well. But it was a private function in the Northern Club and maybe the best thing to do is just to move on.