Coroners (Coronial Cap) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Coroners (Coronial Cap) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I do want to genuinely thank members for the commentary afforded from across the House. As I’ve said before, this bill will increase the maximum number of coroners that can be appointed at any time to 22 fulltime-equivalent coroners. This will enable the implementation of Budget decisions to fund an additional four coroners. An amendment is being made under urgency to enable the recruitment of the coroners to be begin immediately. The new coroners will be appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Attorney-General.

The coronial system has been under pressure to keep pace with the number of cases being accepted into the jurisdiction, and this has meant that whānau and families have had to wait longer to receive the findings from coroners. The additional coroners provided through the Budget and enabled through this bill will support coronial cases to be considered more quickly and will alleviate some of the distress felt by families and whānau who are grieving the loss of a loved one in difficult circumstances, but that is only one part of a more comprehensive approach so that the solution is lasting. I commend this bill to the House

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Thank you to the Minister Aupito William Sio. Thanks to all who have taken part in what I think’s been a really constructive and collegial debate.

So far as I’m concerned, as National Party’s courts spokesperson, we’ll always be open to supporting measures that are made in good faith and will have a positive effect on the court system, including in this case, as we’ve said, a step in the right direction—albeit a small one—to reduce the backlog in the coronial system. We’ve talked about the implications for Kiwis of the current backlog: the emotional, financial, and social problems caused by those, and indeed, the distress to those caught up in the system who have lost loved ones suddenly, unexpectedly, and who deserve answers as soon as reasonably possible.

The National Party has made its position “tolerably clear”, in the delightful phrase of my friend and former colleague the Hon Christopher Finlayson QC. And having made that tolerably clear, I repeat only for the sake of the record at this, the third reading, that we think that increasing the cap is worthwhile. Perhaps removing it altogether would be even more helpful, and we support the increasing capacity—not only the appointment of additional coroners but also coronial staff, to use that shorthand, as implied by the Budget funding announcement of yesterday.

This is not the end of the matter in terms of what is needed to improve the coronial system. It is not even necessarily the beginning of the end of the matter. It might be, at least, however, the end of the beginning, which is to say it’s a good start, the National Party supports it, and we look forward to further discussions with the current Government and any other players who wish in good faith to improve the lives of Kiwis in this regard. We commend this bill to the House.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Greens, of course, will be supporting this legislation this evening. I just want to, once again, put on record a huge congratulations to Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust, and to Corinda Taylor, who, of course, tabled a petition on this issue amongst a context of many others around the coronial system and the support for particularly suicide-bereaved families and whānau back in 2019.

Again, I want to acknowledge that they did that immense amount of advocacy and work to try and make the system work better for those who are grieving while they themselves were occupied with that grief and with those delays in the coronial and the justice system. The point made by my colleague Harete Hipango about how justice delayed is justice denied, I think very much continues to echo throughout this debate.

It’d be remiss of me not to address the points that were made in the committee of the whole House as we wrap up this debate tonight. I just again emphasise that what we’re talking about with the Coroners Act is a piece of legislation which is quite unique in that it limits how many people in this country can have the job of doing these kinds of inquests and inquiries. That’s quite unusual in that it doesn’t come with a floor or a minimum that is required to be funded by any given Government of the day.

This sits alongside, obviously, the Budget legislation, which empowers the spending to do the things that this legislation seeks to do in terms of increasing fulltime-equivalents (FTEs). But, once again, I think it is a lost opportunity not to be looking at potentially benchmarking the number of coroners in this country to, for example, a proportion of the population or increasing the cap—as proposed by my colleague Nicole McKee—to 30, given that that initial FTE allocation in the original Act, which we’re of course amending tonight, was set when the population was 4.2 million.

It is the case that under Budget urgency, and urgency in general, we’ve just gone through the entire process of passing a bill through first, second, committee of the whole House, and third reading—bypassing the select committee stage—in less than two hours. The process for a bill like this usually takes somewhere between six and 12 months—sometimes even longer if we have to take serious consideration through select committee, engage with the Business Committee for extensions and officials to work through this process.

So I want to, and we need to, acknowledge the Minister and for his mahi and obvious advocacy around the Cabinet table for increasing the amount of coroners in this country. It is still the case that it feels like quite a lost opportunity when, in future, we are going to need to amend this again and there’s going to be a lot of delays again.

So I support this piece of legislation. It goes quite some way to addressing the concerns of those who have been so let down by the justice and the coronial system—not, I think, for—for any lack of trying for those who exist inside the system, but because a lack of resourcing to get through the immense caseload that sits on their desk.

Just in closing, again, need to acknowledge those who’ve been advocating for this for so long now. We’ve done it. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin my third reading speech by acknowledging the Minister and the work that he has been doing to ensure that we can actually get this backlog completed, or at least processed in a very timely manner. I would have hoped that, as my colleagues have suggested, we could have been able to make a maximum number rather than a smaller amount, to increase the cap, or to make it increase with population. That would have been a way that we could futureproof the processes going forward.

I do acknowledge that the Minister has said there is a bigger piece of work that is coming in this space. Minister, I do hope that you will reach out to the parties across the floor here, because you will realise, after today’s debate, that you have our support to make sure that we can process any future legislation to ensure that we can give families some closure as quickly as possible. Because if we are able to support a good initiative, we most certainly would like to. At the end of the day, it’s about our communities, it’s about our families, and when they’re grieving for up to four years through an inquest, up to eight for some others, we need to give them that closure quickly.

I don’t want to take up too much more time, but I’d like to hope that any future legislation is looking at futureproofing. What we will be seeing, especially if we have another pandemic or a flu go through—if we have more deaths we don’t want to be coming back to this House to have to do this again.

Back in my early twenties I worked for the coroner in Rotorua. His name was Roger Brewster and he was with the firm East Brewster, where Paul East, who was a former member of this Parliament, and Roger Brewster worked. Back in that day it was absolutely horrifying to be putting together a lot of the documents that the coroner needed, and I know and felt the suffering of so many families as they went through that process. I’ve been quite passionate about this particular one, because to think that some are waiting up to four years to go through that inquest, I can just imagine how heartbreaking it is.

Minister, I commend you for making a start, for doing it under urgency, and for having four coroners ready to go and work on that backlog. I thank you for that. I just hope that in the future we don’t have further delays, and perhaps in the next part of your work we can assist you to ensure that that does not occur. We do commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Members, before we finish, can I just acknowledge all members for the work during urgency. In particular, can I acknowledge the Opposition whips and the Government whips for keeping the presiding officers informed of progress during urgency, and can I thank the Office of the Clerk and the Chamber staff and Hansard.

Nō reira, kia koutou katoa. Ka nui te mihi atu ki a koutou. Tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House stands adjourned until Tuesday, 31 May 2022.

The House adjourned at 5.26 p.m. (Friday)