Our fourth estate—to function effectively, it's important that we make sure our laws protect journalistic privilege, to ensure that our press have the ability to function and report freely without fear. That's important to this very building and how we operate as a Parliament as well. As it stands, although New Zealand's law references the importance of respecting journalistic privilege and also the case of police searches, it does, as identified, contain a gap in the law currently about how this important protection is actually guaranteed. Although the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 and also the existence of journalistic privilege with reference to protections that are laid out in the Evidence Act 2006, there is no clear description as to the processes to be followed when this issue of privilege arises, and that is what this bill does. 