District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill

I move, That the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I don’t want to delay the time of the House much longer, except to say that this bill has been exhaustively and thoroughly debated and examined by the House in its first and second readings and in the committee of the whole House stage. Without wanting to speak on behalf of the members opposite, I think the House can be thoroughly assured that the bill is justified and that the maths adds up. That is to say that when we say that we are providing for an additional 22 judges on top of 160, that 160 plus 22 equals 182. We’ve had that verified. In the illustrative part of the bill, clause 5 amending section 12, the reference to “159.5”, when we add 22 to that we get to 181.5. I think that has been verified by international experts, mathematical and otherwise.

I go back to the substantive justification for this bill, and that is that our District Court is overloaded. It has a phenomenal workload, not helped by the growing workload in the Family Court, and, of course, the jurisdictional changes in the Youth Court. So even without the changing nature of counsel and other conduct in the criminal jurisdiction, just in the Family Court and just in the Youth Court those changes there alone would have justified an additional judicial complement.

The way this bill is structured means that if following application of the now accepted judicial resourcing model in the future calls for additional judges, we won’t have to come back to Parliament for an incremental adjustment. That can be made. That said, I want to say, constitutionally it is important that Parliament determines the maximum number of judges. That should not be left up to the executive alone. That pays proper respect to the place of the judiciary and its relationship to both the legislature and the executive, and it is right that it is this Parliament that should determine the maximum number of judges. It is up to the executive to make sure that they are properly equipped and resourced. This bill does that, and I commend it to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you. On this, the third and final reading, “good morning” is the word. Can we ask: are we still in the morning? Unless we decide that we’re still in Thursday, as I think is technically the case, in the arcane ways of this place. But I can probably be relatively brief as well. I’ll just take a few moments to set out for the record, as is traditional in a third reading speech, even in a truncated process, just to place a bit of emphasis on the themes that underlie our support for the bill and also to just raise again for the record a couple of notes about our expectations about how the system can and should be improved, as we’ve, effectively, heard promised here today.

So, first, the most obvious point is that fast, effective justice is needed for society in general; in particular, those who are going through the system at any given time. I make particular mention of those who aren’t going through the system but are waiting to go through the system: that time spent awaiting trial is particularly egregious from the point of view of alleged offenders and also victims or complainants and so forth. I think that the Minister of Justice makes a good point in that regard, and that goes a long way to underpinning our support for this move.

We’ve heard about the need to reduce the courts’ backlog, and that’s something that we support, if that can be achieved by this bill. I think probably the other side of the House wouldn’t overstate the case and suggest that this would be some sort of silver bullet, but, having said that, the comments of Ms Andersen do raise the stakes somewhat. She’s laid at the feet of the last National Government the increasing backlog of cases that’s been around actually for quite some time. So my clear expectation is that she accepts responsibility if those do not reduce. While the comments of her colleague the Minister were much more measured in understanding the extent to which Parliament, or the executive for that matter, can and should influence the judicial branch, her expectation is that she and her side of the House will be able to count themselves responsible for an immediate improvement in that regard.

Of course, as is traditional in debates about the judiciary, I’ll quote Spider-Man, which is to say that with great power comes great responsibility. The legislative equivalent, of course, is that with great urgency comes great accountability.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: We’ve jumped the shark.

So with—and this is perhaps the sequel, but, spoiler alert for the Minister of Education opposite, no doubt it will become part of the curriculum soon—great urgency requires greater accountability.

With such an immediate change being made, with appointments being able to start as early as next week, perhaps Tuesday—I would suggest the Attorney-General might reasonably give himself Monday off, it being a public holiday. But with Tuesday morning seeing the start of the process of additional appointments to the bench, we can expect an immediate change in results, seeing as that’s what we’re being promised today. I do acknowledge, for the record, that the Minister has said that there isn’t a linear equation whereby we can say X number of judges will increase the speed of processing at a certain particular rate, and I think that’s a fair comment. I wouldn’t suggest there would be some sort of sliding scale that could be so applied in such a straightforward manner. But we do expect and hope and will hold to account the Government for its statements that this will be making a material effect—excuse me, a “material difference”. So for that reason we welcome those commitments and we will hold them to it. We support the bill, therefore, in hope and expectation that these things will come to pass, noting, of course, that the reason behind it is important, as we acknowledge on the side of the House.

Thank you. It is with great pleasure I rise in this third reading—just acknowledging the workload of the District Court and the fact that with that huge workload they are struggling, simply to manage these cases. I think what’s happened is that tipping point has been reached where the efficiencies have simply been lost. What we’re trying to recover here with these additional District Court judges is, really, to give them the resources to both hear those cases and manage them effectively. It’s hoped, I think, that greater efficiencies will be achieved over time, once that backlog’s been cleared, once those systems are put back in place and those hard-working judges are not simply running just trying to keep up with the workload as it is. So with this great bill, a great initiative by our Minister of Justice and our Attorney-General, as you’d expect—I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a great pleasure to take a call on this, the third reading of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree with the Minister for Court’s comments around the vigorous debate that’s taken place on this bill, but I think that we’re all united on one thing, and that is that if this makes a difference in people’s lives in terms of victims and their families getting through the court process quicker, people having justice delivered more quickly, then it’s actually a good thing to do.

I appreciate the fact, in all seriousness, that during the committee stage the Minister did answer the questions that we put to him. He did a good job of that, but we will be watching very carefully to see that the information and the stats being presented to him by the justice officials, which I know will be good—but what are the measurable outcomes? What are we actually achieving here? I think that’s going to be very important.

I want to acknowledge the chair of the Justice Committee, Raymond Huo. Although we did bypass the select committee process, he made a strong one-minute-30 contribution throughout the passage of the bill. So I want to acknowledge him. The Green Party made a valiant effort as well—we got to about two minutes—and Ginny Andersen. I want to acknowledge Ginny. She’s got a great background and she’s passionate about law and order issues. I think she might have over-egged it a little bit when she said that this is the greatest policy that we’ve seen in nine years. I’m not sure whether you should be announcing this, but maybe this is the reform that we’re waiting for.

Can I acknowledge the Attorney-General. We were lucky to have the Attorney-General in the House at the first reading, and he made a very good contribution around the technicalities in the bill that was acknowledged by my colleague Chris Bishop. Finally, can I acknowledge Dr Duncan Webb for taking a call in the third reading.

We will be watching carefully, just to make sure that the effects and the impacts that we want to see in our justice system are achieved, and there may be an opportunity to even extend a bill like this if it shows that it’s starting to have the effect and the impact we want to see inside our criminal justice system. I’m very happy to recommend this bill to the House. Thank you.

As a new graduate straight out of law school, my first job was clerking for the District Court judiciary in the Hawke’s Bay. I saw first-hand the work burden on those courts, and it’s incredibly pleasing to be able to see that this Government, under the leadership of the Hon Andrew Little, is increasing the number of judges that we will have in the courts to ensure that that workload is reduced. So I do thoroughly commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Just a brief contribution from me. It’s a funny phrase, “wellbeing”. I’m not sure what is particularly “wellbeing” about Saturday morning urgency, but, anyway, here we are—the new, family-friendly Parliament.

We support this bill. The Attorney-General has outlined for the House exactly why it is required, alongside the Minister of Justice. I think some of the comments around the Family Court reforms and various other aspects of the last National Government are mean-spirited, but, in the spirit of wellness and wellbeing, we will leave those aside—[Interruption] Yeah, that’s right—that’s right. We will leave those aside for now, and I think it’s for the Parliament to note that it’s doing the right thing here.

We on this side of the House look forward to speedier and more effective resolution of disputes, and we commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. I’d like to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell for his fantastic contribution towards this. It’s always a pleasure to be on a select committee with the Hon Mark Mitchell, but I would like to clarify that in my previous statement I did not say that this bill, this policy, was the greatest thing in nine years; what I did say was that the former National Government did diddly-squat in the nine years that they were doing it. So I think it’s a great bill. Victims are getting justice, offenders are being held to account, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.