Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill

I just want to—

💬 Dr Richard Worth: Back again so quickly.

Well, this is an opportunity for, and the job of, this Parliament to go through bills section by section, as we have done with another bill that was recently in front of this Parliament—in the last day or two. The nature of the role of Parliament is to ensure scrutiny. I know none of us believes in the 7-second - type bill or that bills should go whistling through. It is the role of Parliament to give this bill, and all bills, adequate and excellent scrutiny. I know members opposite will be wanting to take a call; I am sure they will.

With regard to Part 2, I want to talk about the removal or suspension of justices of the peace from office and about the issue of limited tenure. I refer members to that particular issue. There was considerable discussion about it and I acknowledge the role of the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices’ Associations in giving us advice. It had a view, and there was a body of opinion within the federation, which I acknowledge, of people wanting us to give very serious thought to the concept of limited tenure—which we did.

At previous justices of the peace conferences I have listened to the president of JPs from Western Australia, where they have limited tenure. That is a very interesting jurisdiction, because it is such a vast state. Their judicial system, without the role of JPs—particularly voluntary judicial JPs—would literally collapse because of the sheer tyranny of distance. Over in Western Australia, as I understand it—and I do not think it is the only state—there is the situation where a JP is literally appointed for a limited tenure 5-year term, then at the end of that term the justice of the peace has to apply to be reappointed and there is a reappointment process. The simplicity of that in one degree is that if someone is not stepping up to the plate, they are not reappointed. If they disappear into never-never land, they are struck off and not reappointed.

That immediately solves the problem the federation talked about of inactive JPs. The previous speaker talked about it, and certainly the federation has raised the issue. The real concern we have is with having JPs who do not belong even to their local JP branch. I refer to page 3 of the commentary on the bill, which states: “We considered carefully whether to include in the bill provisions limiting the tenure of JPs”—in our case—“to a 10-year period, but decided not to recommend this. We explored the issues giving rise to our initial consideration of limited tenure, and concluded that our concerns could be addressed outside of legislation. We were also mindful of the financial implications of establishing and managing a system of limited tenure.”

When we looked at this as a committee we asked why, if someone is not performing adequately, should we wait 10 years for someone’s limited tenure process. We also asked whether that was the best way to spend our money, because obviously a process of limited tenure would have a higher cost. We would rather put that money into ongoing training and ongoing monitoring of the performance of JPs. Certainly, if local branches and other groups really have concerns about the performance of a particular JP, then the thing is to trigger the mechanism by which that JP can be removed.

I commend to the House the revised disciplinary process. I also want to say that although we gave very serious consideration to the notion of limited tenure, on balance we did not think that that was the way to go. I know, as I said before, that it is common in some states of Australia, particularly Western Australia. I tend to agree with the Minister’s view that we look at the training we are already doing.

I sense from the amused smiles of those members on the Government side of the House that we are currently being subjected to something akin to filibustering. The Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill is legislation that the National Party supports. There is no need for the honourable member to espouse the virtues of this legislation, which are well known to us, are well known to the select committee, and—presumably—are well known to the public and to the members of the federation to which the member has spoken. Might we just get on with these events instead of this protracted process of non-advancement in terms of merit?

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 100 in the name of the Hon Clayton Cosgrove to clause 8 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.