Annual Review Debate — Justice

Thank you, Mr Chair. As the chair of the Justice Committee, it is my privilege to speak, briefly, in terms of what the committee heard as part of the 2020-21 annual review of the Justice Committee.

Right, first up: members were very eager to hear about law enforcement and what work was being done particularly in that space. And it was very interesting to hear from Secretary of Justice Andrew Kibblewhite that incarceration on its own mainly just leads to further incarceration. The Secretary for Justice stated quite clearly that he believes that better outcomes could be achieved within our justice system in the long run by shifting the system’s emphasis towards lowering crime, noting that was addressing the causes of that crime, and, in particular, having greater services in the space of mental health support, drug, and addictions treatment that run right across the board. Those approaches, those rehabilitative training and drug and alcohol treatment programmes, are those that address those underlying causes of crime and, in the end, drive down our incarceration rates in New Zealand.

We also touched on some of the improvements that have been made to the Family Court. It was noted that there have been concerns with some of the delays that have been occurring in this space. The ministry stated that in 2020 and 2021 it implemented the recommendations from Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau: The final report of the Independent Panel examining the 2014 family justice reforms. To date, the ministry has recruited new kaiārahi, the Family Court navigators who inform people considering applying to the court about resolution and support options. In addition to this, they have supported faster resolution of cases by working within the judiciary to develop a new role to make the process more straightforward and to make those tasks within the court system more straightforward for those participating. And, finally, under those changes, they’ve also supported the progress of legislation to enhance children’s participation within the decision-making process about their care and to provide children’s voice in that process, which previously had not been there.

The committee also looked at how the Ministry of Justice was supporting Te Ao Mārama. Te Ao Mārama is a programme, is a vision, for the District Court to be a place where all New Zealanders can seek justice, regardless of their ethnicity, culture, finances, or ability. It draws upon the lessons of solution-orientated therapeutic courts and tries to involve the community in that process. The two pilot courts for Te Ao Mārama were the Gisborne and Hamilton District Courts, but officials also noted that Porirua’s Young Adult List court is resulting in better compliance with bail conditions. There were also examples provided of Te Whare Whakapiki Wairua ki Kirikiriroa, the Waikato Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court, which opened in Hamilton. The ministry has supported the judiciary in consulting with local iwi as well as other groups in these communities.

I’d like to also touch on the outcomes that are being seen through the joint venture. The Ministry of Justice is one of nine Government agencies in the joint venture for family violence and sexual violence, and the ministry hosts the business unit, which provides the venture’s governance secretariat. A three-year policy work programme that has been outlined by the ministry seeks to normalise therapeutic solutions for family violence and also sexual violence in District Court. It’s important to note that it employs process which involve, again, the community and iwi, and, if court process chooses to do so, also the victim. The work programme seeks to promote access to services, support workforce capability, and improve data and evidence. The programme is also aligned with Te Ao Mārama.

We also looked at the rising number of concerns around violent crime, and also there were some examples given of the changes to the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, which the ministry is leading. In 2022, the ministry will also work with police to review the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012, and that review will consider in detail the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry on the terrorist attack in Christchurch, as well as the 2017 recommendations to improve the Act made by the Law Commission and the ministry.

It was a thorough and enjoyable session with the Minister and those officials, and all members had some good information about what’s going forward. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. My pleasure to speak on this debate and inquiry, as it were, into Justice—the billions of dollars that the Government spends on our behalf in order to keep New Zealanders safe. Now, there are a number of issues we want to work with the Minister on to get a better understanding from. Of course, a lot of New Zealanders are very concerned about the rise in violent crime that we’ve seen across communities of New Zealand over the last few years, with a more than 20 percent increase in violent crime. And, of course, all New Zealanders are well aware of the appearance of young kids ram-raiding and running amok in our cities in the small hours of the night.

So the obvious question to ask the Minister is: what is the plan, if anything, to restore law and order to our streets and our nights to hold those young offenders—repeat young offenders—who are stealing cars, driving them through windows into malls, stealing stuff, and driving away? What is the plan to hold them to account in some way, more effectively than inviting them to a group conference repeatedly? And what is the plan to ensure that they are caught and held to account, and that the people who are just trying to run their businesses and stay safe are kept safe, and that their businesses are not trashed on a regular basis, and so that New Zealanders can feel safe in their communities and their homes?

When I look at the Government and its justice approach, given this situation, given the violence on our streets, given the rise in violent crime, what is the one message that the Government seems to be sending? Well, actually, that we’re too tough on the criminals. And that’s why their legislative priority is to do away with the three-strikes legislation, aimed at holding our most serious repeat offenders to account. So given what’s going on all around the country, the rise in violent crime, why is it this Government’s message that the priority for the legislation is the fact that we are too tough on criminals and we need to reduce and do away with the three-strikes legislation? And related to that is, well, what actually is the plan to deal with the rise in violent crime in our communities right here, right now?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I would like to ask you a set of questions about hate speech laws, thanks. Is it still the Government’s intention to introduce amendments to hate speech laws before the next election? Of course, a lot of the country are waiting to see what the intent of this Government is.

If so, does he intend to take any further papers to Cabinet? And, if you do intend to take papers to Cabinet, when can we expect clarification about Cabinet’s direction or decision on whether to continue with hate speech laws in this term of Government? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, we’ve diddle-daddled around this subject for a while now. We’re talking about the Māori electoral option, and we just want some hard answers tonight on the electoral option. As we know, the last electoral option was in 2018; the next one will be 2024. So the voting preference for Māori will be 2026, which, like I said, is an eight-year lockout. We’ve talked about suffrage, and I’ve heard suffrage mentioned in this House quite a bit lately, but this actually doesn’t reflect suffrage, does it? That Māori are locked out for an eight-year lockout on the roll of their choice.

The other part of this is that I believe this is probably one of the most racist laws of the electoral law here in New Zealand. We’ve got the Māori roll and we’ve got the general roll, and so why is it called the “general roll”? Because it makes the Māori roll the “other”. And then we call it the “general elections”, which actually really solidifies that particular way of thinking. So the Māori roll and the Pākehā roll makes sense to me. Māori roll and non-Māori roll—that makes sense to me.

So I have a private member’s bill that will remove these barriers. Will he adopt the key changes in my bill by allowing Māori to change between the Māori and general rolls at any time? For suffrage in local and central elections, change the requirement to redraw electoral boundaries to a set date two years after each general election? Set a legislative requirement that if someone stipulates they are Māori when enrolling, but doesn’t choose an electoral roll, they are automatically placed on the Māori electoral roll. Change the name of the general electorate district to “non-Māori”, or to “Pākehā roll”—simple.

So the three questions that follow, Minister, is that: do you agree that our electoral system locks tangata whenua out from fully participating in our democracy? Does he support a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa? To that end, will the Minister commit to supporting my member’s bill, and will he vote for continued breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the marginalisation of tangata whenua?

Can I thank members for the questions. I might work backwards, if that’s OK, and address the questions around the Māori electoral option from the Māori Party first. I think it’s clear that we asked the Ministry of Justice to undertake some consultation with stakeholders around some of the concerns that we have around the current system with the Māori electoral option to ensure that there is fairness and equality in terms of that particular roll and the general roll. I set out the principles and the values during question time that this Government holds true to our electoral system.

As you can imagine, the Government would like to see some change, I think, to ensure that there is equality and fairness. We’ve got some suggestions. As I said during question time, we’ve consulted other political parties on that, and we await to hear the response about that, as to whether they’re actually committed to the equality and fairness that they espoused during some debates. We’ll see if that pertains to other parts of the electoral system.

As I may have said to the member in a meeting that we’ve had on the multilateral option, we believe that the Government is pursuing the substantive issue that he is concerned about. So our preference is to follow our path as opposed to the path that the member is proposing via a member’s bill. But I think it’s fair to say, given the discussion and the debate since our meeting that there would be a lot of alignment in what the member has suggested needs to happen to ensure equality and fairness for all voters in that particular department.

Can I also address the questions put to me by ACT member Nicole McKee in terms of hate speech. I think it’s pretty clear, and I’ve been pretty frank in this House, that the response that we got to the discussion document outlining proposed or suggested changes to the Human Rights Act came back with a force of fury. There were 19,000 submissions—I think 15,000 of them from the hate speech union, so you can imagine what they were—all relatively form. I have said publicly that this has obviously touched a nerve amongst New Zealand, but we have committed from the royal commission to make sure that we deal with this issue, so we don’t see the type of tragedy that we saw back in 2019. So I am, and the Government is, committed to making sure that we get this process right. That means making sure that we honour the victims of that particular tragedy by making sure that we go through a process that doesn’t make things worse—in the process making things worse—and coming to a conclusion, in terms of our hate speech laws, which means it keeps everyone safe, and there’s unity around that, around those proposals as well. We are still going through that process in terms of how we do that because I do think that when we released the discussion document, that a nerve was touched and a debate was started that, I think, probably put the people who are vulnerable in those situations more at unease than we should have. So again, we are proceeding with caution but we are absolutely committed to making sure that we meet our commitments under the royal commission of inquiry.

Just in the short time that I’ve got available in this call, addressing Mr Goldsmith’s contribution in terms of violent crime and youth crime, we have seen the numbers of youth crime decrease markedly over the last 10 or so years. I think off the top of my head, it’s somewhere around 65 percent. So that is not bemoaning the current situation, which obviously there is a spike in youth offending, of which there are a number of reasons why that might be happening. The issues around young people’s home environment, whether they have a home, is obviously an issue that can contribute to the spike in youth offending, which we believe is happening now. Also, I guess, post-COVID to be disengaged from education is an issue, and the Government made some announcements on that at the weekend. Obviously, I think, social media has a part to play here as well. The level of offending that is going on being posted on social media, let’s try to egg other people on or trying to reach notoriety, is a concern. All justice agencies, whether it be justice itself, police, and other agencies, are working extremely hard to make sure we can continue the good work that is bringing down youth offending.

But at the moment, we do have an issue over the last nine months, which needs to be addressed, and the Government is addressing that, primarily via the police and making sure that we investigate and prosecute where we can, which would go against the perception that the Opposition is trying to paint: that youth crime as a whole is increasing, which, as a trend over the last 10 years, is not necessarily the case. We will work hard to make sure that we protect people and businesses from the spike that is happening now. We can do that because we have committed more resources to the front line than any other Government in the last 15 years.

Well, of course, it was very interesting to hear. The Minister came up with a lot of reasons or excuses as to why there’s been an increase in violent crime, but not much in the way of solution, other than spending more money. I suppose a question I have is: is the money going to be more usefully spent—or actually spent? If we look at a couple of examples from previous Budgets, the 2020 Budget, which announced with great fanfare a $20 million fund for helping strangulation victims and to aid with prosecutions, two years on, has delivered very little: fewer than 70 cases where they’ve helped people, rather than 800 a year. Big announcement, no follow through. If we think of the $3 million victim support fund announced in the 2021 Budget: big announcement, no follow through; nobody collecting from the fund more than 10 months after it was announced. So we just look forward to—rather than announcements of spending and announcements of good intentions, what are the actual outcomes?

The second issue that I’m very keen to get a clear sense of from the Minister is what his plan is to deal with the massive backlog in courts across the country, where we are seeing people’s access to justice denied, lives on hold as people wait for years and years. We’re seeing the 238 percent increase in time, since 2000, of cases taking more than 16 months for serious offences to be heard in the court: gone from 922 to nearly 3,500 cases waiting for more than 16 months to work their way through the system. We’ve seen the District Court times for criminal cases increase from 100 to 159 days on average—lives on hold. We’ve seen the High Court period extend from 340 days to 404 days. We’re seeing coronial matters taking a long time to be reported, we’re seeing the Environment Court—everything has ground down.

Now COVID has aided to that, no question about it, but these court delays were building up before COVID, and continue to build up. As a result, you’ve got a very large increase of prisoners on remand, which is they’ve gone to prison, often in Auckland in Mt Eden Prison, where they are not able to get any kind of rehabilitation around drug and alcohol abuse. They wait for the trial. It takes so long for the trial to occur that by the time they actually have the trial and they are sentenced, the sentence has already been served because they’ve been in remand the whole time waiting for their court case to come up. They get no rehabilitation. They’re put back out onto the streets.

And what this Minister actually achieved in terms of trying to get on top of those delays in the court system? What is the plan and why, given all the $60 billion or more spent on the COVID response, was so little of it put in the way of actually getting better audiovisual facilities in our courts so that more of the work could have been done during these long periods of lockdown? That’s one set of questions I’ll be very keen to hear from the Minister.

Secondly, I want to get some clarity around our constitutional position. We heard in the House—the Minister said today that he was all in favour of equal suffrage, that every New Zealander should have equal voting rights. And yet his Government, the Labour Government with the Greens, voted for the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill, which undermines and deviates from the idea of equal suffrage. So no wonder people are confused. He says he’s for it; his party votes against it, and then the sponsor of the bill, Tāmati Coffey, even after the Attorney-General comes along and says it breaches the Bill of Rights and it is discriminatory, today says he still hasn’t withdrawn the bill. He thinks he can change it somehow. But the only purpose of the Rotorua bill is to drop or deviate away from the idea of equal suffrage, otherwise there would be no point for the bill. So I tried to get some clarity from the Minister on actually whether he genuinely does support equal voting rights for all New Zealanders.

The third question that I want him to look at and perhaps give us some guidance from is his responsibility for the Independent Police Conduct Authority, to which his Government has allocated $3.5 million to do an investigation into the riots that took over Parliament and disrupted central Wellington, for more than 20 days, trashed Parliament buildings, and led to a violent melee at the end. Now, how does he justify spending allocating $3.5 million to a study that only does half the job because it doesn’t look into the actions of the Speaker and Government Ministers; it only looks at the actions of the police. And as we’ve seen from the actions today of the Speaker, where he’s seen fit to ban a former Deputy Prime Minister of this country from the House—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! E noho. The member well knows that if there is an issue about the Speaker that there is a correct way of addressing it. Doing it during this debate is not the way to do it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am just asking the Minister to justify $3.5 million for an—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, you commented on an earlier procedure during the House, and that is out of order.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, the—oh no, your time’s run out. The Hon Kris Faafoi.

Well, can I just start with some basics for the member, it’s called the IPCA because it’s Independent Police Conduct Authority, and they will look at the conduct of the police. So it is my responsibility to make sure that they’ve got the resources to undertake their job, and we did that. They will look at the conduct of the police and the operation here, and that is the right thing to do. So if the member thinks that I should’ve used my position to direct them to go any further than that, then he’d be in here complaining about that, too. So get the basics right, Mr Goldsmith. It’s an Independent Police Conduct Authority, and it is their job to look at the conduct of the police and no further.

There were a lot of police here. It was a controversial police operation. They are looking into the conduct of the police and no further. If you think it should go further, then you put in a bill saying that the Independent Police Conduct Authority should go further than looking at the remit that it does now. But get the absolute basics right, because that is poor form from the Opposition justice spokesperson. If you think it should go any further, then make that National Party policy, because it’s not, and you didn’t do that during the last term, because it shouldn’t—because it is the IPCA, and that’s the job that it’ll look into. So get the absolute basics, right.

I’m very proud that this Government put $50 million into making sure the delays that came about because of lockdowns were done in the 2020 or 2021 Budget to make sure that we could introduce more judge resource and the support around that to make sure that we are dealing with the backlog of cases. That has been exacerbated by subsequent lockdowns. But I want to take my hats off to the Ministry of Justice staff, to the judiciary, to the legal profession, and others in the sector who congregate in our court rooms, to make sure that they have operated our courtrooms in a safe way, to make sure that we can maintain access to justice and justice can be served. It has been a challenge.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Palmerston North District Court and walked through with some of their senior staff members about what they did to make sure that jury service could be maintained and jury trials could continue to be held. When they empanel a jury they have to call about 120 people, and maintaining safe distance and public health provisions is difficult in those situations. So I actually want to take my hat off to those people who have made that work: the Law Society, some of the staff who are to my left, and senior justice officials have maintained the operation of our courthouses around the country under very challenging circumstances. We’ve resourced them that, and they are committed to making sure we can deal with the backlog that has come about because of the disruptions of the last two years.

I want to take my hats off to them. Because of the 24/7 effort that they’ve put in, we’ve been able to get through as many jury trials as we have more recently. We obviously have a dip when restrictions—COVID restrictions—were high. But when we were able to hold jury trials, our ability to go over and above what we would usually have to make sure we can get through the likes of difficult and logistically resource-heavy jury trials, I want to take my hats off to all the staff involved, to the judiciary involved, and also to the law profession.

Minister, just going back to the hate speech law, thank you for your answers to my questions. I just wonder if you could answer whether or not hate speech is going to come back in this term of the Government before the 2023 election.

And further to the honourable member Paul Goldsmith’s questions to you about delays, I also have one regarding the delays: during the recent court safety legislation bill that was passed in the last sitting block it was discovered that nearly 30 of our courts do not have access to audiovisual equipment in order to be able to conduct judicial proceedings remotely. So, just wondering, when you’re talking about what it is that we need to do to get rid of this backlog, is there any indication that these courts will be able to operate remotely to be able to get that backlog down?

Thanks for the two questions. To the first one, Cabinet hasn’t made final decisions yet, so I don’t want to pre-empt that; that would be rather career limiting. But as I say, the intention is still there to make sure we respond to the royal commission of inquiry recommendations.

There was a debate during the kind of final passages of that bill around audiovisual link (AVL) systems. The genesis of that debate didn’t necessarily lie in fact. The numbers that were being bandied around, from my understanding—is those are courtrooms that have fixed AVL facilities within them. But a rather large majority of those that was being said that they don’t have any AVL actually have portable monitors that can be used in different spaces within a courthouse and that they do have a capacity. I don’t have the numbers on me. I think it’s as little as nine may have little or no AVL facilities at all, but a vast majority of our courthouses and other facilities that we use that require AVL do have it. It might not be fixed, it’s mobile, but they certainly have the ability to hold audiovisual link proceedings in order to make sure that it’s as efficient as possible.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and to the Minister for the opportunity to engage. I do want to ask a couple of questions about legal aid. He’s no doubt aware from various members of the profession, including to the highest levels, that they’re very worried about the legal aid system. I should acknowledge that there are longstanding issues over successive Governments, but I think it’s also fair to note that the issues have been getting worse. You know, in the time that I’ve been the courts spokesperson for the Opposition, and therefore the Minister and his colleagues have been in Government, it has been getting worse generally and then exacerbated by COVID as well and a number of other factors.

So my questions for the Minister are: whether he first acknowledges the depth of the problem with the legal aid system, first of all, and, second, what steps he has taken, if any—and if not, then what steps he intends to take—to reverse the very serious difficulties that we’ve heard outlined, even to the point that the whole system is facing collapse, with very few practitioners willing and able to undertake that work; the inability to have juniors to assist with those files; and the age, frankly, with all due respect, of some of the practitioners who are doing that work—and good on them, doing the lord’s own work in that space, but the inevitable result that they won’t be available in a few years. So, any comments the Minister can make in this space would be appreciated.

Thank you. Just to Nicole McKee, the number is 11, not nine. Close but not quite precise. So they are the number of facilities that don’t have audiovisual facilities available to them. But stressing the point: the vast majority of the courthouses at other facilities do. So, again, I think for efficient justice that is good to have those resources there.

To the question here, yes I do acknowledge the issue. I do acknowledge that it is longstanding. I’m not making that as a political point, but I do think the momentum of a long-term issue has meant that I think it’s quite precise now. I acknowledge it’s been raised as an issue probably for the last five or six years by the profession. I’ve spoken to the Chief Justice about it. The outgoing or the former president of the Law Society strongly advocated for it in her time as the president and, as my time as the Minister of Justice, obviously undertook that review or the survey that showed just how difficult it was and how much voluntary time lawyers were putting into it.

So, being an annual review, I can’t look too much further forward, but I do acknowledge that it is an issue, and also, I guess, in retaining and attracting capacity to legal aid within the legal service. I’ve heard many a story from district law societies around the country about how challenging it is to make sure that they can staff legal aid rosters, and I guess as far as issues go, it’s right up there in the top three to make sure that we’re aware of the demands.

Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. When the committee resumes at 7 p.m., we will have the Minister of Immigration in the chair.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Members, the House is resumed in committee. When we rose for the dinner break—look at everybody so keen! I’m not just quite ready for you, but we’ll get there. When the House rose for the dinner break, we had just finished with the Minister of Justice and now the Minister of Immigration is now available for 30 minutes to respond to members’ questions.

Immigration