That began an association for me with the Accident Compensation reforms that continued  not  only  in  New  Zealand  but  also  in  Australia,  when  Sir  Owen  was invited to Chair the Committee of Inquiry there that started work in 1973.    13 For me, the 1967 report of the Royal Commission on Personal Injury remains a model  of  what  a  law  reform  project  should  be.⁹    It  was  a  big  reform.    It  made massive improvements to the life of accident victims.  The reform was plainly in the public interest, and it has endured.  I wrote a long book about that adventure; the  experience  founded  the  whole  basis  for  the  rest  of  my  legal  and  political career.  The lessons about law, policy and change from that experience are with me still.¹⁰  So Sir Owen Woodhouse seemed to me then and seems to me still the very model of a modern law reformer. 14 I  came  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Law  Commission  having  spent  a  legal  career divided almost exactly into three equal parts – academic lawyer, law practitioner, and Member of Parliament.  In all these roles I have done more or less the same thing – a lot of law reform.  I won’t bore you with the details, but the fields in which I have worked on reform include Accident Compensation; defamation; the Trespass  Act;  flammable  fabrics;  jurisdiction  of  the  Waitangi  Tribunal  and  the place  of  the  Treaty  of  Waitangi;  resource  management,  other  environmental legislation  and  environmental  treaties;  the  New  Zealand  Bill  of  Rights;  the Constitution  Act;  victim  support  legislation;  criminal  and  penal  legislation;  the Cabinet system and the structure of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and  the  Prime  Minister’s  Private  Office;  local  Government  reform;  official information;  electoral  law;  reform  of  Parliamentary  standing  orders  and  Select Committee   system;   reform   of   the   State   sector;   the   state-owned   enterprises legislation;  reform  of  the  Public  Finance  Act;  development  of  the  Regulations Disallowance Act, the Racing Act, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act.  And it                                                                                                                                606; and Geoffrey Palmer Compensation for Incapacity: A Study of Law and Social Change in New Zealand and Australia ( Oxford University Press, Wellington, 1979).   9   Royal Commission of Inquiry Compensation for Personal Injury in New Zealand: Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (Wellington, 1967). 10   When  I was  leaving  Australia  after  the  experience  with  the  Woodhouse  reforms  there  in 1975,  I  was  asked  by  Justice  Michael  Kirby  if  I  would  join  the  Australian  Law  Reform Commission as a Commissioner. I told him I preferred to go back to New Zealand where law reform could actually be achieved! 6