House sits late

Press, 28 July 1976, Page 6

House sits late

PA Wellington. Parliamentarians adjourned at 12.40 this morning after the Opposition stonewalled the passage of the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill, repealing the law suppressing an accused person’s name. The Opposition spokesman on justice. Dr A. M.

Finlay (Henderson) declared his intention to move four amendments to the bill shortly after the House began clause-by-clause consideration of the measure. His first amendment would suppress the name of an accused person when he or she appeared in a Magistrate's Court. If the Government would not accept this. Dr Finlay then proposed to make the suppression apply in cases where an accused was to go for trial. His name would remain suppressed during the preliminary bearing. A third alternative would be suppression in the case of a court order for adjournment or remand, and a fourth suggestion was to cover cases w here the facts had not been fully explained in court and the police were still investigating. The second reading debate on the legislation took

nearly four hours, after the Opposition sought to have it referred to the Statutes Revision Committee for consideration. It lost the division on this issue, 46-27. Immediately afterwards the Government moved to cut off the second reading debate. When the votes were counted it was found that two fewer Government M.P.s had voted, and the margin was 44 to 28. The Government iVLP.s who did not vote but had voted earlier were the Minister of Education (Mr Gandar) and the Minister of Tourism (Mr Lapwood). Mr J. L. Hunt (Lab., New Lynn) wanted to know if their failure to vote indicated a split in the National Party. But the Chief Government Whip (Mr W. B. Birch) said in an interview outside the chamber that he had sent the Ministers home to “get some sleep” after the first division.