Courts Matters Bill, Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill

I move, That the Courts Matters Bill and the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

At the outset, I want to thank my ministerial colleagues of the coalition Government and support partners for working constructively with me and my staff to ensure that the necessary policy changes were made to improve these bills and to approve the necessary funding that’s going to be required to implement the changes that this bill will entail.

I also want to acknowledge the efforts of the Justice Committee members in examining the bill. I want to thank the committee members for their hard work in ushering this particular bill through the select committee stage. The committee received 48 written submissions and heard 15 oral submissions. The submissions came from the judiciary, professional organisations, interested groups, and individuals. I want to thank those who took the time to present to the committee. I want to thank them for their energy and for sharing their experiences. I believe that, by sharing their experiences, they were able to add value to the final outcome, as presented to the House this evening.

People’s experiences with courts and tribunals shape their views of the integrity of our justice system. Some of the legislation governing the courts and tribunals system is outdated and does not meet public needs and expectations, and, therefore, it needs to be changed. These two bills contain relatively small but important changes to the courts’ and tribunals’ powers and processes.

The Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill, which I will hereafter refer to as the “tribunals bill”, amends the powers and procedures of 21 tribunals which the Ministry of Justice administers. These tribunals include the disputes tribunal and the Tenancy Tribunal, which almost 30,000 New Zealanders accessed in the 2016-17 financial year. The tribunals bill will also disestablish the defunct Birdlings Flat Land Titles Commissioner, the rarely used Health Boards of Appeal, and the Maritime Appeal Authority. The District Court will hear any future cases of the latter two tribunals.

I will highlight some of the changes to the tribunals bill that the Justice Committee has recommended. I consider these will improve the bill’s effectiveness. One of the most significant changes being made through the tribunals bill is a result of the actions that this Government has taken to address the backlog of cases at the Human Rights Review Tribunal. The Human Rights Review Tribunal provides important services for people who may have had their human rights, rights to privacy, or health and disability services rights breached. Since 2015, the number of claims filed with the tribunal has exceeded its resources. A significant case backlog has developed over the past several years. Between the 2014-15 and 2016-17 financial years, the number of new cases received by the Human Rights Review Tribunal grew by 92 percent. This led the number of backlog cases to grow by 144 percent—from 52 cases, as it was at the end of 2014-15, to 127 cases at the end of 2016-17. As of 30 June 2018, there are currently 135 active cases before the tribunal.

Following advice from the Ministry of Justice, including that of submissions made by the public and, notably, by the chairperson of the Human Rights Review Tribunal, Rodger Haines QC, I took a paper to Cabinet to get agreement to amend the Human Rights Act 1993 to enable the appointment of deputy chairpersons to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. I want to thank the Minister of Justice, and also both New Zealand First and the Green Party, for working with me and my office to reach agreement quickly so that we can collectively work towards a solution that will address the backlog of these cases.

The Justice Committee has incorporated the Government’s proposal to reduce the case backlog at the Human Rights Review Tribunal. The tribunals bill now authorises the appointment of one or more deputy chairpersons to this tribunal instead of a second chairperson. The new deputy chairpersons will be able to perform the same functions as those of a chairperson. This will help to reduce the unacceptable backlog, because much of this tribunal’s work has to be undertaken by the chairperson and will provide people with greater access to justice. The tribunals bill will now also include procedural changes to help further reduce the Human Rights Review Tribunal backlog. For example, the chairperson or deputy chairperson will be able to decide minor matters on the papers instead of a hearing being held.

The reported-back bill has amended the procedures governing the awarding of compensation for financial losses arising from a real estate agent’s unsatisfactory conduct. This amendment will reduce duplication of effort. In addition, the bill now clarifies that compensation for financial losses caused by a real estate agent’s poor behaviour must be an order that a court could make. There are currently no constraints on the nature of the compensation that the Real Estate Agent Disciplinary tribunal can award.

The amended bill has also addressed other anomalies. For example, the bill has authorised the enforcement of fines, fee refunds, and compensation that the Legal Complaints Review Officer has ordered. It is currently unclear if these orders can be enforced. This bill has also removed the requirement for these orders to be enforced in the High Court if the amount is more than $12,000. In future, orders of up to $350,000 will be able to be enforced in the District Court. Enforcement in this court is simpler and cheaper.

The reported-back bill has authorised insurance companies to be represented at disputes tribunal hearings by agents as well as by employees or officers. This will achieve a better alignment with the way that insurance companies operate. Insurance companies are party to around one-third of disputes tribunal cases.

I will now turn to the amended Courts Matters Bill, and I will highlight some of the changes the Justice Committee has recommended to this bill. The Courts Matters Bill amends 15 Acts that govern court security, fines enforcement, and criminal and Family Court procedures. The reported-back bill makes further amendments to criminal court procedures. This bill is now amending the Courts (Remote Participation) Act to enable judges to allow any participant in a criminal procedure hearing to appear via audiovisual link technology, or “AVL” as it is commonly known, if AVL is available and it’s use is not contrary to the interests of justice. This will enable participants such as counsel witnesses to appear by AVL during criminal procedural hearings. Currently, defendants who are in custody must appear in criminal procedural hearings via AVL if it is available. AVL can be used in criminal sentencing hearings or in civil proceedings.

The committee has removed the amendments for the Court Matters Bill that authorise the Minister for Courts to extend the scope of the Courts Security Act to include further courts and tribunals through a Gazette notice. Instead, these decisions will continue to be made by regulations. I plan to progress regulations to extend the scope of the Act to include further tribunals that the Ministry of Justice administers.

The committee has recommended changes to the Care of Children Act to limit the release of psychological report writers’ material so that a party can only obtain information about themselves. The court will be able to impose any conditions concerning the release of the information it considers necessary. This will give judges greater powers around the release of this information. I note that the psychological report and any associated materials belong to the court. The committee has recommended this House consider further changes in the committee of the whole House to entirely prohibit the release of psychologists’ notes and other materials. The Minister of Justice is leading a review of the 2014 family justice system reforms. We’ve discussed this matter and are in agreement that this important issue is better dealt with in the review. This will enable consultation with the Family Court judiciary, the report writers, and the Law Society to ensure that changes made are the right ones. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to begin the contribution on this side of the House in relation to the Courts Matters Bill and the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill, taken as a cognate debate, of course. I will say at the outset that my party supports the intent of this legislation—and, indeed, the legislation itself, I should clarify. Indeed, it was originally from our side of the House, or at least our party, when in Government, that this legislation was proposed, so I acknowledge Minister Adams, as she then was, but also the current Minister and his colleagues, who have seen the continuation of the legislation to this stage.

There are a number of different purposes of these bills, and I intend to step through those now rather than delve into the detail of each those two specific bills. No doubt my colleagues on this side of the House and, indeed, the other will get into that detail—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: This will be fascinating.

It is a case very much that the devil is in the detail. I don’t know what brought that phrase to my mind when I looked up, but perhaps the interruptions coming opposite put the word “devil” into my mind.

There are, as I say, a number of different purposes of the bills, and I think perhaps, at a sort of a higher level, it would be appropriate to talk about those each individually and then see where we come to terms of time, whether we should get into, perhaps, the Courts Matters Bill at that stage.

The first thing is that the bills will reduce the time that it takes to hear and resolve matters. That’s an important aspect of our justice system, of course. It’s a well-known phrase, to the point of being a cliché or perhaps a truism, that justice delayed is justice denied.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s right—well said.

That’s right. I think that the reasons for that are many, the first of which is actually a practical reason. It’s harder to determine the truth of a matter some time after an offence or a possible offence or an act or an omission in a civil context have actually taken place, so the sooner that matters are able to be heard by our courts and, indeed, our tribunals, the more likely it is that we will have a just outcome.

The second reason is that the players of the game, those involved, whether litigants—again, in a civil context or in a criminal context. For their sake, it’s important that these matters are heard quickly, and so the bills, to the extent that they are able to reduce the time that people are affected by our justice system, to the extent that these bills do achieve that purpose, they are very worthy changes. Similarly, in terms of reducing the costs associated with the service, the administration of justice, this too is a worthy aim because, naturally, the State—and, indeed, it is always the State involved in these matters when a dispute of some sort does reach our courts. It’s to the benefit of the State and therefore the citizens of the State that these matters are heard quickly and efficiently.

Finally, the stakes are increased, often, when matters are delayed, and so in a civil matter, for example, if a matter is not resolved quickly, there might be interest, for example, applied to an amount that’s in contention, and so the longer a matter goes on—the more time, in other words, that it takes to be heard by our courts—the harder it will be, perhaps, for a resolution to be found. I’ve heard from a very good lawyer who’s a friend of mine that a bad lawyer can delay a case for weeks but a really good one will delay it for months. So, perhaps, in that spirit, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek involved, I note that it is in the interest of almost all players in the justice system to have speedy resolution of their cases—

💬 Greg O’Connor: Are you extending or delaying this debate?

So I move now, to the relief of all present, no doubt, including even Mr Gregory O’Connor, to the second purpose, which is to improve users’ experience of the courts and tribunal system. It is an intimidating process to be involved in, no doubt, for many, and so, to the extent that these bills can provide some relief and some remedy in relation to the substance of the case but also relief in terms of the process and the smoothness of that, again, we regard that, on this side of the House—and I think they do on that side of the House, too—as a very positive thing indeed.

Third, to enable a greater use of modern technology. This is pretty well self-explanatory, so I shan’t dwell on it any further, except to say that efficiency and effectiveness, which I might define as the passage of a dispute in the most expedient way possible, and effectiveness meaning, on the other hand, the most robust process possible to achieve the right result in any given case, and timeliness, which I’ve already touched on and I do not intend to belabour that point further.

The fourth is that we will simplify and standardise the statutory powers and procedures of various offices by passing this legislation, albeit that it’s subject, of course, to a further reading and, indeed, a committee stage, at which some changes might be made. But I do acknowledge at this point that the select committee, the Justice Committee, has paid considerable care and attention to the legislation that had come to them after the first reading. Many submitters gave their time very freely and generously in suggesting amendments, and so it is I think that, in terms of simplification and standardisation, we have a better result now for that process having taken place. No doubt colleagues, again, on both sides of the House, will have an opportunity to set out some of those changes that they agreed to, actually, in their select committee report, and as reflected in the departmental report, often as a direct result of various key players in the profession and in the industry, if I may use that word, as to the reality on the ground for these different courts and tribunals.

Finally, to provide better consumer protection and redress and greater access to justice. So much for the purposes; as to the substance, I won’t go through it all in detail—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why not?

—and, indeed, I would’ve if time had allowed, but it certainly doesn’t. Some of us are on a tight time frame, Mr Peters. We don’t have the luxury of as much time as you seem to take to get things done. The Courts Matters Bill amends—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

—excuse me, Madam Assistant Speaker—no fewer than 14 Acts—

💬 Chris Bishop: How many?

Fourteen, that’s right—that’s right; no fewer. Courts security, criminal procedure, fines enforcement, and other court processes. So there’s a lot in there, obviously, and the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill naturally relates to tribunals, as the name would suggest.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Do tell.

The clue’s in the title; it does what it says on the tin. And I shall tell. I shall at least tell to the extent of saying that there are 21 tribunals that are affected, and there are even more pieces of legislation than that on our statute book that will have consequential amendments. Of course I won’t go through them all, but they range very widely from the Accident Compensation Act, Customs and Excise Act, Immigration Act, Social Security Act, and Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act. I’m sure that many members of this House and, indeed, the vast number of New Zealanders who are watching this debate will be able to think, in each of those cases, of specific tribunals that relate to each of them.

It’s a measure of the nature of the bill, I think, that the departmental report on the Courts Matters Bill alone contains an entire page of acronyms and abbreviations. Any piece of legislation that includes a CSA, a CDA, and a CPA I think is a force to be reckoned with, and we’ll continue reckoning with it in this House by grappling with its subtleties, its intricacies, getting these things right, because they are important for the people of New Zealand.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who wrote this?

Who wrote this stuff, Mr Peters asks. It’s all up here, sir—it’s all up here. Yes, sir, it is. Mr Peters, I don’t know where Mr Peters gets his speech from, but I think I can guess.

With that note, I will draw my speech to a conclusion. I look forward to hearing other members’ contributions and, indeed, to the legislation continuing its passage through this House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m very happy to take a short call on this bill and to follow the member Chris Penk, who certainly did take the bait that was laid out for him. Look, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the Hon Aupito William Sio, for bringing this bill back to the House in the state that we are seeing it today. It is a vastly improved bill than when he took over as the incoming Minister. What we have is an important piece of legislation, and what we are doing is updating and modernising—

💬 Chris Bishop: He’s had literally nothing to do with it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! Mr Bishop—[Interruption] Order! I cannot hear the member delivering her speech.

💬 Chris Bishop: You’re not missing much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Bishop, settle.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. This is important. This is where over 30,000 New Zealanders accessed justice last year—

💬 Greg O’Connor: A new rival arrived in the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr O’Connor, you are not helping.

The previous Government had allowed a backlog to build up within our tribunal system, and it had not adequately resourced them. So I congratulate my colleague, the Hon Aupito William Sio, for actually making the necessary changes.

It is clear to see that some of these needed updating. When we have a look at one of the bodies that—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! [Interruption] Order! I apologise to the Minister—[Interruption] Order! Now, when I ask for order, I expect it straight away. I cannot hear the member delivering the speech. I will ask for members to interject if it is witty and relevant, but not for a general barrage across the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and I understand this is important legislation, but it’s good to see what lights the Opposition’s fire—that this is what brings them down to the House tonight to get them so riled up in terms of that. But as I was saying before I was so inadequately interrupted by the Opposition, actually, it was obviously time for some modernisation for some of the tribunals on our book. I would like—given the member sitting next to me, Kris Faafoi—to make special mention of the Birdlings Flat Land Titles Commissioner, who is being disestablished under this bill. He was telling me that this was a favourite place of his as a child to go surfcasting. So a proud Cantabrian could not stand by and watch that.

This is important legislation. These are the tribunals where ordinary New Zealanders do access justice. We need to make sure that we do adequately resource them, and we don’t allow the kind of backlogs to build up. When we hear the submissions such as Mr Rodger Haines QC who came to the Justice Committee and said, “For the past three years, a workload of now five full-time decision-makers has been carried out by one person, i.e. the present chairperson.”, we can see that this was just another area of neglect from the previous Government. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak to the Courts Matters Bill and Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill at their second readings. Of course National supports this bill, because it was conceived and gestated under our watch. I commend the member Aupito William Sio, who introduced it to the House tonight, but it’s got Amy Adams writ large all over it.

When I look at a thorough and comprehensive approach—which we are well used to on this side of the House, dealing with Amy Adams; how incredibly thorough she is—we see something that is worth modernising. The other side of the House, they never modernise, and this may be very fresh territory for them—an arcane and unknown territory. But modernising and getting around things to ensure modern and efficient practices are used, along with efficient courts and tribunals, are very much what the former Government was all about; so I do commend this member for bringing, in his own way, this piece of legislation to the House.

So the Courts Matters Bill alone, as Chris Penk mentioned earlier, amends 14 Acts.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: He said that!

The Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill standardises and modernises—something that would be unknown to Mr Peters. Modernising is something that he probably couldn’t even spell, let alone deal with on an intellectual level—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order!

So we have legislation that deals with that across 21 tribunals. It has been alluded to before. It is such an important area that I’ll bring it up again: the Birdlings Flat Land Titles Commissioner. Now, this has been noted by the Opposition as a job that has been finished. It has now moved on; so the authority will be disestablished. These are good things. This is why National supports it. The Health Boards of Appeal and the Maritime Appeal Authority also are probably unknown to members of this House because they were seldom used, and their functions will instead be taken up by the District Court.

So when we work through some of the extraordinarily rich detail of the amendments—I could dwell, for example, on the Real Estate Agents Act 2008, but I choose not to; I would rather look at the Disputes Tribunal Act and the clarification of the Chief District Court Judge, who is wholly responsible for rostering and training disputes referees. Others may mock the detail of this legislation, but it’s extremely important to the smooth workings of our judicial system.

I think that updating the range of legislation that fails to keep pace with modern practice is something that the former National Government concentrated on a lot. Coming up to speed with the 21st century practices is something that the Hon Amy Adams was devoted to. I’m glad that the Government is now picking up on it, because they are slow to acknowledge and embrace consistency, transparency, and efficiency in everything, including the courts. So it is good that they’ve picked this up.

I think the Government has made a number of recent reforms to our justice system that will make that system far easier for people to deal with. There will be fewer backlogs and there will be fewer people waiting. The flexibility and responsiveness and transparency of our court system depend on this piece of legislation going through. I know the Hon Mark Mitchell is right across the detail of this bill and will speak to it with a level of conviction that will astound and astonish this House, because it is really something that he believes in implicitly and to his core. He’s had a lot of experience in this, unlike other members on the opposite side, who have not.

My colleague Chris Bishop had pointed out that the Justice Committee worked long and hard on this and with a lot of intellectual rigour and grunt—“grunt”, do I dare say that word in this House?—and have done tremendous things. My colleague is now nodding sagely, having spent much of his youth embracing the changes that this piece of legislation is about to usher in. It is very important that we modernise and that we are thorough and comprehensive.

I see, unfortunately, that my time is almost up with this call. Although I’m being robbed of, you know, a longer dissertation on the many, many arcane and fascinating elements, I can see someone poised on the opposite side of the House, like a coiled spring, with venom exuding from him, about ready to pounce. So I will commend this bill to the House because it came from us, it makes sense by us and for us, and it’s good for New Zealand. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I move an extension of time, because we like a good joke over here, and that’s been the most comedic half-hour I’ve heard for a long, long time.

That’s very generous of the honourable member, but I don’t think we’ll be taking up that offer.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was actually looking forward to coming down and speaking on this bill tonight because it’s quite an important bill—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Was that the New Zealand First call? This is the second New Zealand First speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Actually, it wasn’t. The honourable Acting Prime Minister was actually making a request on behalf—he was actually seeking a procedural motion.

💬 Hon Member: Was he doing it under a point of order?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): He didn’t call a point of order, but he sought the will of the House to make an extension to the Hon Maggie Barry’s call.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Like I was saying, I was actually quite looking forward to coming down and speaking in this House, not necessarily because they are very, very important bills but because I wanted to hear what the Minister had to say in bringing these changes that have been made to these bills in the previous Government, and about the very good changes coming through. But the excitement actually dissipated from me when I had to hear from the Hon Maggie Barry and the ridiculousness that was coming out of her mouth and the viciousness—the venom that was coming out of her mouth in regards to the insults coming across to this side of the House.

You know, I have been known once in a while to be a bringer of fact. It’s not a nice job, but some people have to do it in this House. Obviously the speeches in the House from the National Party tonight have been absolutely and totally bereft of fact, but the reason why it is absolutely necessary for this legislation to be brought to this House—not only that, but the changes that have needed to be made by the Justice Committee and by this side of the House. Here are a couple of facts: as of June this year, there’s been a backlog. There has been a backlog 135 people to the Human Rights Review Tribunal—135.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many?

One hundred and thirty-five, but that’s just the start of it—that’s just the start of it. This incompetent National Party, when they were the Government, the incompetence was palpable. One of the facts in regard to this topic was the fact that between 2014 and 2017 the backlog jumped 144 percent.

💬 Hon Member: How much?

One hundred and forty-four percent. So we can hear all of the nice one-liners that they seem to want to repeat, because they hand around the speech notes that they’ve been given because they’ve run out of speechwriters for them because they’re in Opposition right now. They want to start talking about the one-liners: how it was the Hon Amy Adams who brought this to this House and how it was the National Government that brought this important legislation to this House. Well, that may be true—that that member who said she did actually did. That may be true, but why was it nine years? Why did it take nine years? If this was such an important piece of legislation that those National Party members have been standing up and saying was so essential and that it was the National Party and the previous National Party Minister that had the initiative to bring it to this House; why did it take nine years? Why did it take nine years? Not only that fact, but the stats that I’ve read out were from June this year and 2017. You can’t get any more current than that. If it was one of the reasons why the Minister brought it last term, it was because of the reactionary nature that that Government was producing for the people of this country.

These are a couple of bills that are very important, and that is why—and they’re very similar bills. For those that have been watching that have heard the term “cognate bills”, it’s because they are similar in nature, but very, very important. One of the major reasons is because of the technology that, obviously, this country and society, and Western society in general, especially in our courts, have needed to update, but over the past 10 years there has been under-resourcing and neglect from the National Party to be able to achieve that. That’s what this piece of legislation is going through right now in the House and it’s taken us less than nine months to do so. We are willing, as a Government, as a coalition with the support of the Greens, to make sure that our courts and our justice system—and that includes the police, Mr Mitchell—are all fully resourced to ensure that the continuum of the justice system is 100 percent working for the people of this country.

There are a couple of things that I just want to point out before I finish on my short call, and it’s quite important. We’ve been hearing that these bills do one major thing and that’s speed up the process: saving time or reducing the time and making sure it flows for the people of this country. As you all know, the foundation of a robust democracy is a functioning, fair, and accessible justice system, and that’s what this piece of legislation does. But I think it’s very important to point out that even though one of the main intents and objectives of this bill is to speed up the process, it needs to be ensured that it’s balanced with the process being fair and robust. I think that this bill does that.

Lastly, I just wanted to go through the report. Unfortunately, I’m not sitting on the Justice Committee at this point. I would love to dearly, but I’m just going through the report of the Courts Matters Bill, and one of the most important things—and there’s many points that have been pointed out from all of the speakers in the House today; that it’s quite a detailed bill of smaller changes, but I think one of the most important ones that I’m interested in is about Youth Court proceedings.

At the moment, as the legislation stands, if a conviction of a young person has come to its conclusion in the District Court, that conviction would stand even if there was a filing error and that young person shouldn’t have been in a District Court in the first place; that young person should’ve actually gone through the Youth Court, and, at this stage, the conviction was found. That is clause 40, and the recommendation from the Justice Committee is that it be removed, because we feel that that is wrong.

I’d just like to finish there, and I’d like to thank the Minister and the Labour - New Zealand First coalition Government for bringing this forward in such a timely manner—with the support of the Greens. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: “Deputy Dawg”!

I call the Hon Mark Mitchell, and I will just caution the member Kris Faafoi to remember to use a member’s proper name.

Oh, he’s been waiting for this all night, Madam Assistant Speaker. Let him have his fun.

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the second readings of the Courts Matters Bill and Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill. Can I acknowledge the Associate Minister of Justice, Aupito William Sio. I’m sure he felt that all his Christmases had come at once when he saw the quality of this bill and he realised that he was going to be given the opportunity to actually shepherd this bill through the House. He wouldn’t have seen work like this in his nine years in Opposition, and he came into Government and he thought, “Wow, look at this—the quality of the bill.”

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: Madam Assistant Speaker, I’m leaving!

No, stay, please—don’t go! I’m only just getting started. I just want to acknowledge the Minister and also the ministry staff that have worked on putting this very good bill together.

In all seriousness, it is very important, actually, especially for victims. Going to court can be a pretty traumatic experience; so any work that can be done around making sure that that experience is actually eased for them a bit more is actually a very good thing.

I just wanted to talk, too, about the tribunals briefly. I want to talk about the disputes tribunal, because I actually brought a private member’s bill to this House back in 2013, I think, and it was around the disputes tribunal, and it was about raising the threshold from $15,000 to $30,000.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: What happened?

Well, the reason why I did that is because—well, it got taken up as part of this bill. It’s now in this bill.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Really?

Have you read the bill?

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: In 2018?

Yeah, it’s right there. It’s been taken up by the Government, and it’s a very, very good piece of the bill. The reason it is is because, at no other time in the last nine or 10 years, have businesses ever needed more help than right now. The reason for that is that we have a Government that doesn’t like business. They’re implementing policy after policy, and they’re finally starting to get some of their own legislation into the House tonight. I have to go back to the comment made by Mr Ball, which I found fascinating, that, after nine months in Government, finally they’re starting to get some of their own legislation into the House. Up until now, they’ve been passing all ours; they’ve been bringing in all our legislation.

Look, I do want to acknowledge Mr Ball as well. He’s got a very good bill that he’s proposing to bring to the House. We had a meeting—myself and Mr Bishop—with him on it the other night. It’s the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. It’s an outstanding bill, because what it’s going to do—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Can we come back to this bill?

If you can bear with me for just a minute, I’ll be very quick, Madam Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No.

OK. Well, I’d just like to say that it was a great bill. I have to say that Andrew Little didn’t seem that happy about it, but certainly we support it. So, coming back to the disputes tribunal, we extended the limit from $15,000 to $30,000. It’s actually a great idea, because what it means is that, with this change, especially small businesses, which, really, had to almost give up a claim because the threshold was not high enough—so they had to give up large parts of their claim—they can now take it to the disputes tribunal. So they can stay away from lawyers, they can stay away from the costs associated with actually trying to get that hard-earned money back, and they can take it straight into the disputes tribunal. Wouldn’t you agree that that’s a great part of it?

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Why didn’t you do it while you were in Government? Why didn’t you do it?

Isn’t that a fantastic part of the bill? We have done it; this is our bill. We have done it; it’s in the House. It’s our bill; we have actually done it. I’ll tell you what, tell me about clause 40. Do you think clause—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Mitchell.

Sorry, I apologise. I get a bit over-excited with this stuff, Madam Assistant Speaker. I apologise. So can I ask the member—actually, can I ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters: do you think that removing clause 40 from the Courts Matters Bill was a good move?

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Now look, I know it’s late at night and some of those of those members over there are getting tired, but they must not bring you into the debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you very much.

So let me rephrase it: does the Rt Hon Winston Peters think the removal of clause 40 was a good decision on this bill? What does he think?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Continue with your speech.

Oh, I’m very interested to know, because he’s had a lot to say. He wanted the detail. He wanted to know the detail.

💬 Hon Member: Take another call.

Take another call? Someone take a call and come and talk to me about clause 40. I’ll tell you what: I’ll let you off the hook and I’ll tell you what clause 40 is all about. Clause 40 was taken out and, actually, I think it was a good move because, fundamentally, what it meant was that they were trying to—it related to section 380, which meant that if, by mistake, the prosecutor lodged the information with the District Court, which meant that you had a youth that should have been tried in the Youth Court taken into the District Court, clause 40 was proposing that, actually, if it was discovered during the case, then they’d have to remain in the District Court. But actually what happened was that—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s what he said.

Well, you were very silent a minute ago when I was asking you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

So I’m a bit confused—did you know or didn’t you know?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker. I thought it was polite to engage. But, anyway, clause 40 was removed because, actually, it was decided that you don’t want to remove the right for a youth to actually have access to all the support services in the Youth Court. So that was a very good decision; one that we supported, in this bill. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

The other thing that I wanted to talk about very briefly was around actually giving court officers more powers in their ability to do their job. They are now able to deal with drug paraphernalia under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is very important.

It expands the definition of “court” to include “any space between the building and the road”. I’ll tell you why this is important—and it comes back to talking about the rights of victims and the trauma that they experience when they go into court—very often you will get the family of defendants, or if it’s a gang member or multiple gang members that might be facing charges in court, they will all accumulate outside the court. They do that for one reason and one reason only: to intimidate the victim or the victim’s family or the victim’s friends when they are entering the courthouse. So what it means now is that the court has got jurisdiction and control over that area, which once they did not; it was a public area between the courthouse and the road. So that means that they’ll actually be able to make it a bit safer and control that area a lot more, which means that victims are not going to have to face the intimidation that I’ve often seen myself when they are just trying to do a basic thing like get inside the courthouse.

They are also going to be able to have the power to use reasonable force when pursuing an escapee, and I think that this is—[Interruption]

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Ha, ha!

Well, it’s funny that Tracey Martin finds this funny. I don’t want to get started on her—a politician that should be in Somaliland rather than New Zealand, with her foot soldier there sat beside her, but we’ll wait for a general debate on this one. Why don’t we wait for a general debate on this one, right?

💬 Chris Bishop: How’s the inquiry going?

Yeah, the inquiry—exactly. Well, let’s wait for some other time on that one. Anyway—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

A court security officer is able now to pursue someone that is trying to escape court. Fundamentally, I think this is—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Spell my name right. Spell my name right, for goodness’ sake!

It’s very hard. It’s like nails on a blackboard. It’s very, very hard to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): It is indeed a disorderly session tonight. Can we just settle, please? We’ve only got a few more minutes till the end of the evening.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. So this is another very good change that’s being implemented in the bill, which will actually discourage offenders from thinking that they can decamp from the courthouse, because now the court officers—and many of them are ex - law enforcement officers—have got the ability to stop that. This is a very good bill. I’m very happy to have taken a call and recommend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to both these bills and leave aside the great raging dispute that’s gone on in the House tonight, between members from both sides, about who, in fact, is responsible and should be commended for bringing these reforms to our criminal justice system or justice system as a whole. Leaving all of that aside, I wanted to focus on some of the details, in terms of the Courts Matters Bill, that jumped out to me.

This is a bill that covers matters from the very functional powers of security guards to the very complex procedures that apply where a person is claiming mental impairment and fitness to stand trial. That particular process is one that I’ve got some experience of and I know was absolutely nonsensical under the previous law. I was very happy to see the procedure reversed. Previously, where a person was potentially unfit to stand trial—suffered from a disease of the mind, which is the very high standard—the court would first hear, in an actual disputed hearing, whether or not the actual crime is likely to have occurred, before that person had access to expert reports on their sanity. So, as a lawyer, where a client was potentially not fit to stand trial, it was very hard to adduce from them, for example, alibis and things like that so you could even have that hearing. So, essentially, that’s being reversed so that the expert psychological reports come first, and if the person’s not fit, then the matter is disposed of—far more efficient.

Many of the matters covered by this bill go to efficiency. One of the main ones is the procedure to use audiovisual links (AVL) in all sorts of new ways—so video linking to accused persons from where they’re held, for example, for types of hearing where there’s no need for them to attend. This does expedite proceedings, but I would just note, from the front lines of the justice system, that not all procedures, not all matters heard by the criminal courts, are actually suitable for this kind of process. So while this is available and it will help to address the backlog in our courts, it would be good to see the new funding that this Government is going to put into our justice system so that we do, in fact, have enough judges to hear things that do require a higher level of procedural safeguard, like opposed bails, for example, that actually affect a person’s rights not to be arbitrarily held. Where a person is using AVL in a process like that, they very rarely have access to counsel, who are in court and not able to speak with them via AVL.

So, moving on to the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill, I would like to focus on the effects that this will have on the Human Rights Review Tribunal. We’ve heard tonight a few mentions of Rodger Haines QC, which I was very happy to hear. He’s just been honoured in the latest Queen’s Birthday honours. He has been a world-renowned human rights lawyer, focusing on refugee law, which I wish most New Zealanders knew something about. He was the previous president of our refugee appeals authority and changed the world when he recognised the rights of the rainbow community to asylum. He is now the president of the Human Rights Review Tribunal, and the Justice Committee has heard from him about the backlog.

Now, those of us who have worked in the human rights sector know that the right to justice itself is, in fact, denied when it is so delayed that victims are waiting two years for a hearing and up to three years now for a decision. When we think about the types of cases that go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, these are discrimination cases, privacy cases, and cases that affect the disabled community.

The last one that I had anything to do with was actually involving the family carers’ case. So just to put into context the kind of cases that are coming through this tribunal and are so badly delayed, the family carers case involved family members caring for their profoundly disabled loved ones without proper financial support. Where their family members were placed into corporate care, they would get up to $70,000, but the family carers were fighting to get minimum wage. So they brought a discrimination case—discrimination based on family relationship is unlawful in New Zealand—and they eventually won. It took them years. They won and the National Government passed legislation, under urgency, to cut the family carers off from the Human Rights Act’s remedies regime—under urgency, in the dead of night, without consultation. These are important cases, these are important issues, and they are so delayed as to be waiting two years for hearing—two years, vulnerable people.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.