District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill

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

The bill will amend the District Court Act 2016 to increase the statutory maximum number of District Court judges by one, an increase from 182 to 183 fulltime-equivalent judges. It updates the figure in an example relating to the aggregate number of judges. The statutory cap on District Court judges includes Youth Court judges, Family Court judges, Youth Court and Family Court divisions of the District Court. It was last amended in 2019. Since then, additional judges have been appointed on an exceptional basis, through COVID-19 and other reforms, and these appointments have brought the total of full-time numbers to at near or near the statutory maximum.

Now, why do we need to do this, people might be asking as they are listening in, tuning in to the debates tonight? Why do we need to expand the cap? Well, the primary reason is to ensure that the District Court is equipped to implement the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which is currently being considered by this House, and, indeed, we hope to pass it very soon. Having an extra District Court judge will help alleviate that.

It’s worth reminding the House, just briefly, what we’re seeking to achieve with the sentencing amendment bill. Primarily that is around limiting the discretion of the judiciary to have a whole lot of discounts to sentencing that cumulatively have added up to a very significant proportion—some cases at 60 or 70 percent—so we’re going to limit that to 40 percent, and in order to restore real consequences for crime, because I think too many people are irritated by people being convicted of serious violent crimes—and through a process of many, many discounts, such as multiple times coming back in, getting a discount for pleading guilty or for being young or for a bunch of other things, lead to these discounted sentences. The idea there is to send a strong message that there aren’t.

Yes, it’s important that the courts always understand the background of offenders, but that cannot lead to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Goldsmith, can I just remind you which bill we’re on here.

Yes—yes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Context is good, but not the whole speech.

Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker. I am familiar with the bill that we’re on. We’re on the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, which increases the number of District Court judges, and I was simply making the point that we’re doing this primarily because we’re also about to pass the sentencing reform bill now, which is around restoring consequences for crime. But I don’t want to trespass on the goodwill of the Speaker, so I’ll carry on.

Alongside this change, the Government and the judiciary are also working to roll out several initiatives to improve timeliness and that will enable the cases to progress and resolve more quickly, because, ultimately, we’ve inherited extreme challenge in the justice system of long delays in the court processes. They were certainly exacerbated by COVID, but the trend was getting worse before and after. If people are waiting for years to get their disputes resolved or to have a conclusion to criminal acts and having to, three years after the event, relive it all and go through a court process and wait that time for justice, we think that’s a real problem. We’re very focused, as a Government, on reducing the delays in the court system, which is a very detailed and complicated situation.

One little element of that, of course, is increasing the number of judges; but much broader is the better use of technology; also looking at the many aspects of the legislation that it provides; and also ensuring modern, efficient case management systems are in place; changes to improve the duty law system and bail scheduling; and a whole heap of things that we’re working through consistently.

This bill is one part of that process. It’s being reported back to the House from the Justice Committee. I would like to thank the Justice Committee for their careful consideration of this bill, across the House, and particularly my learned colleague Dr Duncan Webb, and people from all sides of the House who work together to listen to the submitters who shared their views. It’s not a complicated bill, I have to say, and the Justice Committee recommended the bill proceed without any changes and that the goal is that the bill will come into force the day after Royal assent. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is the motion be agreed.

We’ll be supporting this bill. This bill was, in fact, originally intended to be associated with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill so it could be snuck in alongside without too much notice. I mean, it is a very simple bill in many ways.

As the Minister of Justice alluded to, this bill is needed for two reasons. First of all, there is a very significant backlog in the District Courts and elsewhere that the Government’s made no progress on. They’ve flailed around a little bit, they’ve changed some AVL rules—audiovisual link rules—and the judiciary have set some targets, but they have made no significant progress at all. The other reason this bill is needed, as was also alluded to by the Minister, is because the solution of this Government to the problems which afflict our society is to arrest people and throw them in jail. That’s the fact of the matter.

Now, he noted—and I wouldn’t usually raise it, but because he extensively went over the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, I think it’s only appropriate that I note that that bill was not supported by a very significant number of submitters, including the Law Society—and if I remember rightly—the Bar Association, and the Criminal Bar Association. Indeed, his own department noted it had serious concerns with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, saying it was going to lead to increases in legal challenges. The reason we need another judge is because the Sentencing Act, as amended, will be an absolute dog’s breakfast. In fact, for a Government that says they’re trying to save money—this judge might cost around a million dollars—but that reform, the Sentencing Act reform, is estimated to cost $150 million. That’s the kind of Government we’ve got.

Now, look, we’re not going to be churlish. One of the things we don’t want is people languishing in jail on remand. Incidentally, around 55 percent of people who are on remand and then go to trial are released on the day that the decision is given, whether it’s for time served or because they’re found not guilty. That’s a real problem for this Government as well, but they don’t seem to mind filling up jails; they seem to quite like it.

What we have is a Government whose justice policy is, essentially, a “lock ’em up” policy. It’s a problematic policy, and the fact of the matter is that they are diverting resources—$150 million in the case of the Sentencing Act reforms—from places where it could be much more useful, like schools, school lunches, hospitals, and so on. But, no, this Government is determined to do it.

We think that the courts need to move smoothly and quickly, and they do need good, skilled people on them. It’s right that we have a legislative cap. I note that at the Justice Committee a number of submitters were, essentially, saying, “Get away, get rid of the cap, just let the Minister appoint as many judges as is needed.” That’s actually quite a bad idea because the difficulty would be, essentially, an ability for the executive to have too much influence over the judiciary by increasing or lowering the amount of judges at a whim, and that’s clearly not a good thing. The parliamentary intervention into the judiciary and the number of judges—even though they’re appointed, ultimately, in the case of the District Court, by the Minister of Justice—is appropriate, with the usual checks. The fact that the number of them is set by legislation is appropriate.

Look, in terms of another judge, we want to see justice handed out speedily, effectively, and appropriately, and that’s why we support this bill. In terms of why we’ve got here—the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill—we’ll be debating that at length further, but it’s an absolute dog’s breakfast of a bill which anyone who knows anything about sentencing doesn’t support.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party also supports the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, because we believe that it is true that we have seen, as the previous two speakers mentioned, a backlog in terms of the current cases and the court system. Although this bill is not the most, I guess, progressive or visionary, it is a good step towards reducing some of that backlog.

I would like to first address what the Minister has raised as part of his speech, which is that this bill sends a stronger message and a stronger response to crime. I find that almost laughable, because that is not the intention of this particular bill. I think that increasing the number of judges certainly does not, in any way, send such a strong message. I have no idea why the Minister chose to mention that when discussing this particular bill.

In terms of the context of this bill, like the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, has mentioned, it was introduced into the House in conjunction with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which will be discussed separately, but I think if one is the precursor of another, it does raise the issue in terms of the legislative intent of this particular bill in response to the potentially increasing burden to the court system as a result of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill.

In terms of my particular contribution, I want to first thank the submitters and also the Justice Committee for going through this particular bill and also the select committee process. I want to mention some of the submissions as part of that process, and the number of things that the submitters have raised. One of the things that the submitters have raised which is really, really important is the unambitious nature of this particular bill in terms of the number of judges that it increases. The Minister has mentioned that the last time we saw an increase in the number of District Court judges was in 2019, when the number of judges was increased from 160 to 182.

Now, considering the ambitious nature of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which this bill has been introduced in conjunction with, it does beg discussion and it does bring thoughts for the submitters on why the increase was only one fulltime-equivalent (FTE) and not more than that, like it was in 2019. One of the submitters has asked why we are increasing the number of fulltime-equivalents for judges from 182 to 183 when we could be looking at an increase to maybe 187—and one of the submitters mentioned 200. Again, it comes to the fact that, you know, if we really want to address some of these backlogs, we should be more ambitious in terms of increasing the number of judges.

I do understand that in many ways, the number of judges and the judges’ remuneration is done independently by the Remuneration Authority. For judges, they do have the security of tenure. However, I do think that the bill could have gone further, by the feedback we received from submitters that the number could be increased by a lot more than just one FTE.

One other alternative that a submitter has mentioned in terms of this is around, rather than locking it into primary legislation, the exact number of judges could be in proportion to the number of cases that we have in front of us. A number of submitters have mentioned, in terms of the resource that has gone into both the select committee process and the resource that has gone into our having this discussion, if this particular number isn’t set as part of the primary legislation—if we were able to remove that and use other ways of benchmarking it—it would alleviate a lot of the legislative burden of us having to relitigate it every time we are looking at an increase or a decrease; well, in this case, mostly an increase, or a decrease by attrition of the number of judges.

Those are some of the key points that have been touched on by submitters, and I think in this case the argument and, I guess, the rationale that we have seen on why this was part of the primary legislation is around the fact that the long-term financial implications of the number of judges and the fact that we have seen that protections can be put in place to ensure judicial independence—but the statutory limit on the number of District Court judges provides Parliament with a degree of control over spending on the judges.

Like the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, has mentioned, while we are seeing potentially a $150 million blowout in the projected cost of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, for us to so prudishly restrict the number of judges, and having that in the primary legislation, seems to defeat the purpose, and, in fact, may also impede on the judicial independence and the principle of comity that we do have within our constitutional arrangement. I think that is a really important aspect when we are looking at this bill in terms of the increase of the number of District Court judges.

The next point I would like to come to comes down to the process itself. The bulk of this bill, in terms of clause 4 of this bill, is an amendment to section 12 of the District Court Act 2016, but as part of that, I think it’s important to mention section 11 of that particular Act, and particularly around appointment process. This is something I would like to ask for clarification on from the Minister during the committee stage, around that appointment process.

A couple of things that did pique my interest as part of the selection stage is, number one, the appointment time of the District Court judge. I think, in section 11, “The Governor-General may, on the advice of the Attorney-General, appoint [the] Judge.”, but it is not specified when that needs to be done. Although the Act would be enacted, it would be really good to get clarification from the Minister on when that appointment will be made.

The second part of the clarification I’m looking for during the committee stage is around the location and the determination of where is the most appropriate appointment for that judge. Understandably, we’re looking at fulltime-equivalents, and if we’re appointing part-time judges, they are divisible by the fraction of hours that they do have. We are potentially, then, able to look at appointing multiple judges in multiple locations, but how are they being determined and where those judges would go is going to be something we’re going to be really interested in getting some clarification from the Minister on during the committee stage.

Finally, we really want to talk about the fact that the judges themselves are not the be-all and end-all of why we’re seeing a backlog in terms of our court system. We’re seeing a backlog because of the long-term underfunding and under-resourcing of our court system. We’re seeing that because of the other factors that are associated with it, not just simply in terms of judges but other staff and background staff that contribute and support our court and justice system overall.

I think, again, if the main intention—the legislative intention—of this bill is to streamline and to progress cases in a way where things go faster, it is simply one small part of it, and we would have liked to see other factors and other funding being contributed or being increased to the court system as a result of this. Again, surely this is something that the Minister would have considered as well.

Overall, the Green Party is supportive of this bill, of increasing the number of District Court Judges from 182 fulltime-equivalents to 183 FTEs. However, there are a couple of additional things that we would like to question the Minister on during the committee stage, and I think we would also like to, again, thank the submitters, because, again, although this is a small bill, it does have ongoing and more widespread implications. With that, the Green Party supports this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak in support of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. It’s great to see that both the Labour Party and the Greens are supporting this bill at the second reading. That actually doesn’t surprise me, because the Justice Committee actually has all the parties represented on it, and I note that they all took part in the deliberations and the consideration of this bill. In fact, the recommendation for the bill is that “The Justice Committee has examined the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill and recommends that [it] proceed without amendment.” That was by the whole committee.

I also just want to address some of the points that the Green member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan referred to. Yes, there were some submissions on this—not lots of submissions. We’re actually used to dealing with lots of submissions in the Justice Committee—the most ever, on one particular bill. They did talk about this maximum number of judges, linking it to court backlog, etc. I do note that the committee actually made this statement: “We note that it would be difficult to forecast the possible effects of recent changes in the justice system. However, we”—that’s the whole committee—“consider that one additional judge would be sufficient to account for recent policy changes affecting the courts.” Again, the whole committee came to that conclusion, which was great.

I want to say that we have a great Minister for Courts, Minister McKee, who’s focused on dealing with the backlogs and some of the issues that have been raised. That is why the Government has put forward this bill: to get this extra single judge. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but that will add sufficient capacity to deal with some of these issues. Some of it is to do with case complexity, and some of it is going to be around the changes that have already been mentioned around the Sentencing Act.

I just do want to address a couple of other things that did come up. There’s been a bit of talk about some of the costs around our law and order policies. Well, actually, yes, some of these policies are going to cost additional money, but that’s what New Zealand taxpayers want their money spent on. It’s not that we’re into cutting money everywhere; what we’re into is spending money on the things that Kiwis say are actually important to them and delivering results. Law and order is one of them, and it’s great.

I really want to thank the Opposition. They have cottoned on to what our policy is: it’s real consequences if you commit criminal acts. It’s pretty straightforward, and we are very excited about that.

I noted there were some other comments about cutting costs in school lunches and hospitals. Well, you can actually cut costs in school lunches and deliver more of them. It’s amazing, I know, if you take a view of actually carefully looking at taxpayer-spending money and how you deliver it. That’s what we’re doing here with this bill: we’re going to put another judge on the bench, which will cost some money, but we think it’s money well worth spending and we also think it’s what New Zealand taxpayers want. They want to be safe. They want to have law and order issues addressed.

I’m going to end it there, because it is a fairly simple bill. We are just literally adding one judge, to make 183 fulltime-equivalent judges. I do have some concerns about some of the questions that the Greens may ask the Minister, because they actually appear to want to interfere with judicial independence by asking where judges will actually be sitting and how they’ll be appointed and distributed, but I think that’s probably best left to the Chief District Court Judge to decide those issues.

Look, this is a bill that we’re very happy to support. It fits in with our law and order agenda, some other pieces of legislation which will be coming, and I think it’ll be great to have an extra District Court judge on the bench. I will be commending it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, which addresses an obvious need in our judicial system. I’m one of the members of the Justice Committee. This bill did not have many submissions to it, so there has not been, as we just heard from the detailed—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: And lengthy.

—lengthy last discussion by Todd Stephenson. There wasn’t a lot of change, if not any change to the first reading through the Justice Committee. I’m pretty sure the chair, James Meager, will shortly detail the amount of submissions that we did receive. It’s obvious we’re only raising the number from one extra District Court judge, from 182 to 183. It’s a sensible and pragmatic response to the challenges that the District Court is facing.

New Zealand First also recognises the importance of ensuring that our courts are properly resourced to handle the case load in a timely and effective manner. The one thing we don’t want are delays in our court proceedings. We’ve also heard from the Minister in charge, Paul Goldsmith, that the reforms in the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill will place additional demands on the District Court, and that that’s the major need for this additional judge. Appointment of the additional judge is essential to ensure that these reforms are implemented smoothly, and without unnecessary delays. On those notes, New Zealand First supports this practical measure. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Aku kōrero ki te reo Māori. Tū ana ahau ki te wāhi i ngā kōrero a Te Pāti Māori mō tēnei o ngā Pire, me tāna e whakapae nei, mā roto i a ia ka whakapikihia ake, ka whakapakari ake i te taha whakahaere o ngā Kōti ā-Rohe o te motu. E tautoko ana i tērā whakahau me te īnoi kia pērā. Kia whai wāhi te Māori e noho nei i roto i ōna rohe ki te whakatinanatanga o tēnei mea te ture. Nō reira ko tā mātou he tautoko i te pire, engari tērā anō ētahi kupu whakatūpato, kei puta he āhuatanga kāore pea i āta kitea, kāore pea i āta whakaaro iho. Nō reira ēnei kōrero kua puta i ētahi o ngā rangatira o te iwi Māori, o ngā rōpū whakakao mai i ngā tikanga ā-ture o te iwi Māori, kei iti haere te wāhi ki te whakamahinga o te reo Māori i roto i ngā kōti, nā runga anō i te tangonga o ngā pūtea whakatere i ngā mahi a ngā kōti. Ko tō tātou reo Māori kei te tohe kia whai wāhi tonu i roto i ngā mahi ture o te motu. Nō reira koia tonu tētahi o ngā kupu whakatūpato, kei mimiti haere, kei mimiti haere, kei mimiti haere.

Ki te kore te tangata Māori e rangona te reo Māori i roto i ngā kōti, e kitea rānei te kanohi Māori i roto i ngā kōti, tēnā ko te whai wāhi a te Māori i roto i ngā kōti, ka iti haere. Nō reira, kupu whakatūpato tuatahi tērā, ko te reo Māori me whai wāhi. Ko ngā tikanga Māori anō hoki. Kua roa te iwi Māori, tahi me te kāwana e tohe kia whai wāhi ngā tikanga Māori ki roto i ngā mahi ture o te motu. Kāore anō kia eke ki te tauritetanga i roto i tērā āhuatanga. Me tō mātou e kī nei, nō mua mai i te hainatanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi, ko te tikanga Māori koia te whare o te ture o te Māori. Tērā wā i noho ko ngā Pākeha i noho nei i roto o Aotearoa, i raro i tērā ture a te iwi Māori, engari kei te tohe tonu tātou. Ana, ko te kupu whakatūpato o te iwi Māori, kei iti haere te whakamahinga o te tikanga.

Ka mutu ko te mea whakamutunga, ko te whai ōritetanga a te iwi Māori i roto i ngā kawenga ture o te motu. Tāku i roto i ngā uiuitanga i ngā mātanga o Te Tāhū o te Ture, arā te taha ki ngā Pirihimana, te taha ki ngā Whare Herehere, me te taha - kei te mōhio te tangata ki aku kōrero - me te taha ki Te Tāhua Ture, ko te Māori te hunga ka aupēhia nuitia whānui te katoa, tokotoru nei.

Nō reira kia kaua rā ērā āhuatanga e piki ake, kei te kī atu ngā mātanga o te iwi Māori kia āta haere i roto i ngā mahi whakatikatika i ngā whakahaeretanga kei ngaro te reo, kei heke iho te whakamahi o te tikanga Māori, kei kore, kei whāiti rānei te whai wāhi o te tangata Māori me ngā whānau i roto i te kōti.

Nō reira ahakoa kei te tautoko ake a Te Pāti Māori i te tirohanga whānui me kī o te pire, tērā ētahi whakatūpato a te iwi Māori, nāku kua hora, ana, ka waiho ake ki reira. E tautoko ana i tēnei wā, engari tāria te wā kia hoki mai tātou ki te wānanga.

[I will speak in the Māori language. I will deliver the Māori Party’s opening address about this Bill, and its assertion that it will promote and strengthen the organisational role of District Courts of the country. I reaffirm this assertion and hope that this will be the case. That Māori have a role within their regions to participate with this thing called law. So we support the bill, with a word of caution, to be careful in case something hidden arises that may not have been considered. These are the same warnings mentioned by the Māori leaders and the groups who collated various customary Māori laws, lest we see a drop in the use of the Māori language in the courts, due to the loss of funding that expedites court proceedings. Our Māori language is still fighting for its place within the laws of this country. Therefore, this is one of our warning messages: that it not diminish, that it not lessen, that it not reduce.

If Māori do not hear the Māori language in the courts, or do not see Māori faces in the courts, or see Māori participating in court proceedings, then the language use will diminish. This is our first warning, that the Māori language needs to be present. Secondly is the place of customary law. The Māori people, alongside the Government, have persisted that customary law has a place in the law of the land. It has not yet reached equal status. We also assert that since long before the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, customary law was the citadel of Māori law. At that time, even Pākehā who resided in Aotearoa were governed by the laws of the Māori people, and yet we are still disputing it. Therefore, the warning of the Māori people is that the use of customary law may be reduced.

The last message is that the Māori people should have equal powers within the legal proceedings of this land. When I took part in interviewing the experts of the Ministry of Justice—that is, the Police, Corrections; you all know who I am talking about—it is indeed Māori who are oppressed the most, in these three areas.

Therefore, we do not wish to see an increase in this. The experts of Māori contend that we need to be careful in our corrective measures, lest the Māori voice be lost, lest customary law be used less, or Māori participation be extinguished or lessened in court proceedings.

Although the Māori Party supports the overall aim of the bill, there are also warnings from the Māori people that I have laid out here and leave it here. For now, we are in support, but await the time when we return to deliberate further.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. Like others have said, I commend the work of the Justice Committee in evaluating this bill, and I thank submitters for the contributions that they have made. I particularly thank submitters who have made contributions that helped broaden our holistic analysis of the context, often, that the bill is coming into but just our court systems more broadly. I think that it’s really important to enable submitters to be able to present that deep analysis and feedback, so ngā mihi.

The bill, as many have mentioned before, looks simple on paper, but the context in which this bill is coming is a little bit more complicated. The bill in and of itself will increase the number of District Court judges that can be appointed at any time by one, from 182 to 183 fulltime-equivalents. Other speakers have noted that we have seen larger increases in previous years, and I think those conditions are really valid to repeat because this bill is coming in in the context of other reforms—namely, people have noted, the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill. That, compounded by the fact that there is already a pretty big backlog in our justice system of people actually waiting for some form of justice, and there are questions about whether the current system can generally deliver that. The truth is that, when we look at the explanatory note in and of itself—of the other bill that has been referenced: the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill—it does raise concerns as to why this bill is considering increasing the number of District Court judges by only one. I think that that is a genuine conversation to be held.

I think it’s interesting as well to hear contributions from other parties in relation to the use of resources, particularly when you think about how low-income people are often criminalised. Having just come from the Social Security Amendment Bill select committee process, where people were talking about that, I think it’s important to put it into the context of how some of this backlog includes people who have lived in poverty and who have been criminalised by poverty in and of itself, which has now created the conditions for our Government to be implementing bills that in and of themselves have way higher costs—yes—compared to this one. If you take into account the total cost of this bill and the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill which this bill references, it’s not insignificant, and I do think it raises questions as to whether New Zealanders want to back a Government that is not investing in addressing the root causes of criminalisation—namely, things like poverty, exclusion from people’s culture, etc.—or whether we want a Government that is throwing massive amounts of resourcing into issues that do not address the root causes of crime.

Make no mistake: of course we support having more District Court judges. It’s important for the judiciary to be well resourced. It’s a really important arm of our country, and, at the same time, I note, I guess, the complex contributions and nuances of the fact that the legislative wing still has quite a bit of control over the number of judges and, therefore, the resourcing in and of itself, which is something that was noted in the briefing that the select committee itself received.

I think, to me, the way in which we can avoid this massive backlog which requires more District Court judges—and the way that we can avoid the big price tag that comes with these two bills that we are, basically, referencing and debating in the process not as one, but as part of the debate—is to actually make the necessary investments into adequate housing, into ending poverty, and into Tiriti justice so that then our District Court judges can focus on delivering genuine justice, and not dealing with a Government that is simply going to worsen the huge backlog that exists in the criminal justice system.

With that, we commend this bill, but we do not commend the direction that has prompted this bill to come to the House, in and of itself.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, we are a Government which takes a whole-of-system approach to the justice sector from start to finish—a cluster-based approach, a pipeline of justice approach. Whether that is addressing the causes of crime through our Social Investment Agency and the investment that Nicola Willis is making into our most vulnerable or whether that is through the support of victims through the criminal justice process, rehabilitation in the corrections system, and, of course, post-release support for our incarcerated, we are taking a whole-of-system approach. I wholeheartedly welcome members across the House to support that approach by not only supporting this bill but by supporting the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill and other bills that the Government is bringing before the House.

This is a very simple bill. It increases the number of District Court judges by one. The select committee considered this alongside the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, as Minister Goldsmith referred to earlier on as being the driver of having to account for some of the increased workload on the District Court judges—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): At length, Mr Meager.

He did, and there’s no need for me to repeat that all any further.

What I would like to discuss in the short amount of time I’ve got remaining is, of course, just to acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee and the seven submitters who made a written submission. I think, given that it was a relatively small but quality number, it would be decent to just acknowledge those individuals: Andrew Masters, Chris Nicholls, David Hopkins, Gary Durey, Ronnie Amir, Sam Somers, and Rex Landy. It’s interesting that we get a short amount of quality submissions on quite an important bill which is going to form a crucial part of our justice system.

I’d just like to talk about the main theme that came from those submissions that was around submitters who thought that this may be a waste of time or a waste of money. Others thought that the number of judges should be increased by a significant amount more. Of course, Dr Webb has explained at length as to why it’s appropriate for Parliament to maintain some control over the expenditure in the District Court system.

Look, it’s a very, very simple bill. It makes a very, very simple change. I look forward to its unanimous support through the House, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As has previously been noted, Labour will be supporting this bill. It’s a very simple, straightforward, largely pragmatic bill that seeks to offer a solution to a problem.

As we’ve acknowledged tonight, the backlog in the court system is a very real problem. It’s something that influences and impacts on people and whānau in various different ways and there is certainly a lot of work to do to redress that and to make that better. Increasing the District Court judge by one is a very small measure—and I emphasise the “very small” part of that—toward making that a reality, but yet this is the bill before us, so we are happy to support it.

As the previous contributor, James Meager, mentioned, we heard this bill on the Justice Committee, alongside the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill—that bill is a much more problematic partner than this one is. It is full of issues that I think we traversed during the select committee process and that we have certainly discussed as a caucus on this side of the House.

The District Court is New Zealand’s busiest court and it conducts most of the jury trials and, as we’ve said, there is often a backlog and that has a real impact for real people. The cap was last increased in 2019, raising it from 160 to 182, so we find ourselves here in the House tonight because, as of October last year, the number of District Court judges was sitting just below that cap at 181.2.

The long-term financial implications of appointments obviously need to be balanced against the need to adequately resource the court, whether this bill suffices as so far as it just simply increases it by one, or we find ourselves going through what is a relatively expensive process, as all processes in Parliament are, to have to do it again, according to—on one hand, the Government seems very confident about their tough on crime stance and the impact that will have on the criminal justice system; on the other hand, they’ve decided to increase the number of judges by one.

Never mind, the Government laments those long delays in the court processes, and whether or not this is the answer to that solution is yet to be seen, but we do support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thanks for the opportunity to speak on this bill this evening. As a newly minted member of the Justice Committee, I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues as we progress bills like this through the select committee.

This bill this evening is focusing on the addition of one District Court judge. I’m sure that additional District Court judge is going to love the opportunity to work in Te Puna Hapori, which is the new justice precinct being built in Whanganui, in my electorate—$100 million invested by the Government into that workplace for this new District Court judge, potentially.

I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank our District Court judges for the work that they do across our country. This bill supports their work and supports our campaign promise to restore law and order to this country.

I hope that this bill’s collegiality that we’ve seen in the House this evening, the support across all parties—I hope that we’re going to have a similar moment when we think about supporting courts and the work that our District Court judges do, and judges in general, when my bill, the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill comes to members’ day very, very soon.

This bill is focused on ensuring that we support the fact that judges have had an increased workload and complexity in their workload, and so this bill, combined with the implementation of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, will go a long way to ensuring that we practically implement the changes that will enable us to deliver on that election promise of restoring law and order in this country. This bill is short and simplistic, and I commend it to the House.

Helen White—split call.

Thank you. This bill is just going to increase the number of District Court judges by one, and while that is a really good thing, we do have a real problem in the country with delay in the District Court.

The District Court is dealing with all sorts of things, and some of them really do require delays. The greatest delay, I think, is about 176 days, as an average, for a criminal matter. Even under the new protocols, it can be about 15 months before something quite complex goes before a jury.

When people are in that system, they’re not working, they’re not connected with their families, they’re often hanging out with people you wouldn’t want them to hang out with, and they’re a bit at a loose end, so our judges—and getting cases before them—are incredibly important to the movement of people through the justice system and, hopefully, out the other side to something better, whether that be the kind of rehabilitation that we hope people get, or back into the community. We do have to remember that, in some of these cases, these people aren’t going to be imprisoned, either, or they’re not going to be subject to any kind of scrutiny in that period other than through the process at that time.

I’ve got a lot of friends who do this job. It’s a really complicated job, and I’m always impressed by the level of conscientiousness of the judges in the system. There are people who have gone through and been very senior lawyers. They’ve done a lot of work and they’ve had a breadth of work and they go in and they pour their hearts into this work. I think we’re very lucky with the quality of the judges that we have in our system but what we do know—and I know this from my work with other professions, like midwives—is that, if you put too much pressure on a job like this, if you make people work under too much pressure, they tend to leave, and it tends to compound the problem. We have that with midwives, where we really have people just leaving the profession hand over fist because it’s become one of those jobs—it’s just not fun to do anymore. It’s not pleasant to do, and it’s too stressful.

This is a job with a huge amount of, by its nature, judgment, so it is really important that we have a good number of judges in the system. I’m a little bit concerned this is a low number, given the issues in our society and the need to put them before judges. I’d love to see some more work go into supporting our Chief District Court Judge and some of his very interesting schemes for broadening what the judges would do and what the courts will do for people. Those were highly successful, very interesting kinds of schemes, and while we put boot camps to no scrutiny whatsoever, we have put those schemes to the test, apparently, of “You have to prove it works before we’ll even go near trying these things.”

We also have these wonderful courts, which are the drug and alcohol courts. The drug and alcohol courts, if anybody in this Chamber wants to go and visit, will welcome in people to see them in action. Judges in those courts are doing incredible work, and they are getting great results by looking at people very personally; not letting them become, really, part of a factory. They are making sure that they wrap around services. The thing that’s letting them down, those judges, is that there just aren’t enough of those courts at the moment, and they haven’t got the drug and alcohol services supported financially enough, so there are large queues.

There are lots and lots of challenges in the system; I don’t envy the people I know who do this work, but I do admire them. They’re good people, and we probably need a few more if we’re really going to take the issues in our society seriously. They’re skilled, they come from the right place, and they do, for the most part, an absolutely wonderful job. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As a relatively new member of the Justice Committee, I didn’t have the privilege of being a part of the work the committee did through this piece of legislation, but it’s a pleasure to pick it up and talk about it here at the second reading.

I was just reflecting on the upgrades we’ve got taking place at the moment at Tauranga District Court, and credit to the previous Government, who allocated the funding and initiated that progress to happen to our court—credit where credit is due. The $208 million redevelopment will enable Tauranga to increase the amount of courtrooms that we have from 10, to 13, and enable us to have the provision to have High Court cases. For the fifth-largest city in the country not to have a High Court operating in it—this is a step in the right direction for us, as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country as well, so it is a really good step.

This relatively simple bill could have been brought in alongside the other pieces of legislation at the same time, around what the Justice Committee did on capping discounts for offenders—the Sentencing reforms they’ve had there. There was the opportunity for this to be done at the same time as that piece of legislation, so let’s just set the record straight: there was an opportunity for that to be done at the same time. It could have saved the House the opportunity to have to debate this bill in the first place, but the members opposite said no.

💬 Hon Member: Not the noes!

Yep, the “no” team, sitting on that side, said no—the “no” police. They said, “Absolutely not going to do that. There’s no fun in doing so. We’re not going to allow you to make the pragmatic decision and have two bills run side by side in that space.” They said no.

For those watching at home, thinking, “Oh, this is a rather technical piece of legislation that’s just adding an extra District Court Judge. Why do we need to go through this process and have it completely debated as a separate bill?” The reason is those on the other side said no to allowing it to be debated alongside the sentencing reforms that we’re bringing in—capping discounts for those that commit heinous crimes here in New Zealand, so that if they commit the crime, they serve the time. This is a great decision, well led by the Minister of Justice, and I commend it to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, which is going to give us one more judge.

We support this bill because we think we need one more judge. We look forward to the other piece of legislation, and while that member who’s just resumed his seat, Tom Rutherford, might be new, you also need to know about parliamentary procedure in this place. Technically, when you’re amending legislation, if you’re doing more than one thing, you need more than one bill, and so that’s why it’s not correct process if they’re in two different areas. That’s why this was separated out. It’s interestingly a point that with a majority on the Justice Committee, if they were right by the rules, why didn’t they use their parliamentary majority on that select committee to simply vote it down? The reason is that there are good technical reasons advised by the Clerk, and highlighted by us, why this was separated into two separate bills.

I do wonder with the legislation coming whether one judge will be enough. There’s going to be a suite of changes that will impede upon the independence of the judiciary that we’re having to see in that secondary bill. That’s going to take quite a bit more time in the courts as well. We know we have a significant backlog in the courts. We know that programmes, like audiovisual links (AVL), and also the work under way under the previous Government for Te Ao Mārama, which was using different ways of using our court system to work with communities, that’s been paused as well under this Government. Those initiatives that I guess are slightly more ambitious or illuminating than just appointing one judge were in place, and so it’ll be interesting to see the debate when we get to that second piece of legislation, that curtails the ability of judges to weigh up the facts in front of them and rule accordingly.

The reason why we do support this bill is we know that the District Court in particular has been seeing increased delays and pressure to resolve the high number of cases we’re still seeing, and the high number of serious cases. A backlog of cases we know was exacerbated through the COVID pandemic, and also some of the extreme weather events we saw around the country, where we saw big backlogs coming. We did some work on this in terms of enabling police prosecutions to be able to work longer, to do some extra work, and there was funding under the previous Labour Government to enable that to happen. That work has been doing well, but we still need to be able to clear that backlog, and it will take more than one judge.

The District Court is the busiest court, and it conducts most of our jury trials. The heavy workload and backlog places far more stress upon victims. I think this is an important point that we haven’t really had highlighted in the debate to date. While it’s great to have one more judge, we also need to be reminding ourselves that, when there is a backlog, it’s actually the victims of crime that are the ones who have to wait, who have their lives put on hold, who have a far more negative experience of our justice system by the fact that they have to continually wait. I would also encourage those in Government, as well as just having one more judge, we could further increase the use of modernising our courtroom so victims don’t need to come into contact with the accused or their family—modernising our courtroom so we can have increased use of AVL, and so people can deliver the evidence in a way that doesn’t further re-traumatise victims of crime. It also enables people, if they did have an experience through the court process, to be more likely to report a crime.

That’s the key we really want in New Zealand. We know that a significant amount of violent crime and sexual violence crime remains unreported. All the research demonstrates that a key reason that victims do not report crime is that they’ve either had a previous experience with our justice system, or they know someone who’s had experience with the justice system, and that’s been a negative one. If we are really serious about increasing reporting of crime, about having cases that have good, strong victim statements, and good, strong evidence that’s able to be prosecuted and get a conviction, more investment and more time needs to be placed in understanding how the current justice system does not serve victims of crime, and does not serve us getting good outcomes, and providing safer communities. When those things are in place and we do have a stronger justice system, it provides for people to feel safe in their communities, and for people to understand that our justice system is working effectively.

The Government’s timely justice plan and reduced violent crime delivery plan is there, but whether one additional judge is able to deliver on these is actually quite questionable. The three-strike sentencing and the additional funding in the last Budget by this Government provided more funding specifically for court time for gang patch prosecutions and time in court. It’s interesting to note that there is no additional funding, really, for victim advocacy, or victim voice, or an ability to change the courtroom structure, or the courtroom processes to enable victims to be better supported in time—but there is additional funding for those things. I would question whether the choices this Government is making are the right choices to make our community safe, and whether those choices are actually giving New Zealanders the outcome that they’re wanting.

Nicole McKee stated that, “We suspect there’s going to be an anticipated rise in the section 27 reports, and we’ll be interested to see how it has an effect on court timelines as well. But at the end of the day, we have assured our communities that we do respect them and their safety, and we do want to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, and our approach that we put will be taking I suspect an influx of court proceedings, but we think that we have budgeted to manage for this appropriately.” She has stated that in the past. I still don’t think that one judge is going to meet those expectations. This Government has promised quite a big game in terms of being able to deliver that, and I think that if people are tuning in tonight—if they are—and see that a bill is delivering one judge, how is that really going to meet the expectations that were given to people in New Zealand at the last election?

I’d just like to finish off by talking a little bit about Te Ao Mārama. The chief judge who was in that space said it was a fundamental part of reforming our justice system so it’s functional and it gets good outcomes for our communities and makes our communities safer. That has been frozen and delayed. There has been no additional work done on that programme. I think it’s being reviewed, and all funding has been stopped while that review is still under way. Some of the evaluations done for Te Ao Mārama demonstrated that some of the most positive outcomes we’ve seen in reforming our court system in New Zealand—it really enabled communities to engage, and for far better and durable outcomes to be seen within those communities. While that’s been shelved, we’ve got a judge, so we’ll take it, and we’ll support your bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as the final speaker in the second reading of this bill, the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. It’s a bill that reinforces the kōrero that we talk about a lot when we’re canvassing the subject of law and order and this Government’s approach to that, and that’s that we are victim-centric. Yes, it’s one District Court judge that this bill, when it passes, will increase the total number of District Court judges, but one effective District Court judge can help a lot of victims get through the pain and the suffering and the grief that they’re going through as they’re waiting for their case to be heard.

I had the pleasure and, rightfully, the privilege to accompany our justice Minister—the excellent justice Minister—Mr Paul Goldsmith when he visited Manukau District Court. Manukau is indeed in South Auckland, in my patch—not in the Takanini electorate; in the Manurewa electorate—but a lot of my neighbours in Takanini, if they find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to go to court, are sent to the Manukau District Court. What I really appreciated about the justice Minister during that visit is that I saw, even more, how important it is to him that we address the very real problem—as has been mentioned a number of times tonight—of court backlog.

We and he took the time to converse with various people that work in those different departments in the District Court over there, from a District Court judge, duty lawyers, bail support services, and other staff as well, and really probed into what the issues are that are leading to backlog. I saw it very clearly that that was his main focus for that visit: addressing backlog. What I realised is that, yes, we’ve got a real problem with delay, and the Minister has acted without delay. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.