Coroners Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee on the Coroners Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1.

Point of order. I seek leave to move all parts to be taken as one.

Is there any objection to that? We shall take this bill as one. The question is that Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to open this committee stage of the Coroners Amendment Bill. Can I thank the members for their contributions at second reading. I think they clearly demonstrated the depth of understanding and concern that they had, which ultimately led to some very, very sound amendments that have been made to this bill. As has been traversed, this bill aims to reduce the distress faced by families and whānau from the increasing length of time they spend waiting to receive coronial findings.

The targeted amendments to the Coroners Act made through this bill are designed to reduce the time it takes for certain types of cases to move through the coronial process and free up coroners to work on reducing the number of active cases. The bill will also help to ensure that the public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances is well served. Part 1 of the bill contains the principal amendments to the Coroners Act, together with the transitional provisions for one amendment. A big major part of Part 1 is the creation of the associate coroner’s role. That is, in essence, a role that performs all of the roles and duties of the coroner, except for the inquests—being able to approve whether an inquest is required and ultimately undertake that role. So that is a very much an important new addition. This bill is all about—as I’ve mentioned—ensuring that we deal with the heavy backlog of cases that are in the coronial system and to relieve the stress that families do face. And these are sensible amendments.

I do understand that the National Party and the ACT Party with their Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and I thank them for their SOP in relation to—I guess—the discretion that a single coroner has when considering the circumstances, and whether that should be included in the written report. As I’ve mentioned, this bill is about ensuring that we get efficient processes. We are able to put less obligations or unnecessary work on coroners to provide written special circumstances when they believe that it’s not required.

However, what I would want to stress is that this doesn’t detract from the statutory role that coroners have to do. There is a duty for them to consider the cause of death and the broader circumstances. All this bill does is provide the discretion that when they are considering those broader circumstances, to consider the public interest. If they feel that it is in the public interest, then those broader circumstances will be included in the report. So I understand the position that you’re taking. But I think, on balance, the policy intent of this bill is to ensure that we get a more efficient flow of cases coming through the coronial system.

That’s why I regret we won’t be supporting the SOP, but I’m confident that the provisions of the bill that we have before us ultimately achieve those objectives and ensure expeditious dealing of coronial cases, which will ultimately benefit those whānau who are dealing with such difficult circumstances when interacting with the coronial system.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. The Minister in the chair, Rino Tirikatene, is relatively new in his role, but he’s demonstrated the wisdom that would befit much more experience than that. He’s preempted the objections or the questions that I was going to raise with him. First time in the chair in the committee of the whole House stage—we’re not going to let him off quite so lightly as not to answer any questions at all, but we’ll do that in a reasonably light touch, because, actually, we’ve given a little bit of airing at the second reading to this particular issue, both on this side of the House—and I include in that, with gratitude, our colleague and friend from the ACT Party Nicole McKee—and the Minister has addressed the question in the sense of outlining why, on balance, he does not think it necessary to adopt my suggestion, and nor did the Government members on the Justice Committee. Of course, there must be a balance between the interests of justice in the very broad sense of maximum exposure to circumstances but also the dictates of justice as timely justice would require. So I do acknowledge there’s the tension there. I don’t think anyone in this House would say that there shouldn’t be some kind of balance struck. We’ve just ended up, I suppose, in a slightly different place about exactly where that balance lies and the weighting, perhaps, that we give on each of those respective factors.

I think it would be helpful, however, for the record just if the Minister can confirm—well, he doesn’t have to, but I’m going to suggest, and hope he will respond to my suggestion, that it should be an unusual use of a coroner’s power to say that it’s not in the public interest to report on the circumstances of a death. I think I’ve got that right—I hope I haven’t inadvertently thrown in a double negative. But my suggestion is that while a coroner will be afforded that discretion, that he or she may choose not to report on the circumstances of a death, precisely because that coroner won’t know what other decisions elsewhere might have been made similarly, and therefore the public interest in building up a pattern of risky circumstances that might lead to a death, we might lose that opportunity as a system.

So if the Minister can provide anything for the record that I think would be helpful for coroners going forward applying the law, even as it stands now, unamended by the Supplementary Order Paper no doubt, given that we’ve had an indication that won’t succeed on the Government side, then I think that would be a helpful thing to take out of this process.

I thank the member for his contribution and also restating his position on the Supplementary Order Paper. I’d just reiterate that the changes that we’re making are an administrative step that will help streamline the process to write up and publish findings. They do not reduce, however, how a death is investigated prior to the written findings being issued. Like all coronial decisions, this assessment is informed by the evidence provided to the coroner. So the Coroners Act will still require coroners to establish the circumstances that led to the death so far as possible, and the Act will still require coroners to include the circumstances of the death if they consider that publishing these details will contribute to the public interest in terms of reducing the likelihood of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances, and this is in line with the purpose of the Coroners Act. So I’m confident that coroners will continue to fulfil their statutory duties to establish the circumstances of deaths that they are required to investigate and will include these circumstances in their findings when necessary to help prevent similar deaths from occurring in future.

So, in essence, the coroners, yes, they do have the discretion. They will, as they are obliged to do, look at all the circumstances. When they feel that it is in the public interest that those wider circumstances are included in their report, then they will do that. So I’m confident that providing that discretion to coroners based on their experience, they will be able to make that judgment call around what is in the public interest. I’m sure that if it came up in their examination of not only the cause of death but also the wider circumstances, if it becomes clear that there is indeed a matter that is of public interest, they will be obliged to include that in their report writing. So I’m confident that where we are at with the provisions of this bill and the way that it has been constructed, the functions and the roles of the coroner remain the same. This is just about ensuring that we can get a more expeditious flow of cases, and where special circumstances do warrant in the public interest that they be recorded, that will be done.

The question is that Chris Penk’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 327 be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Coroners Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The Coroners Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading