Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise as we come to the end of this bill before it becomes a law, before it becomes enacted in the history of legislation. I was sitting here before the break, when we heard members from the other side joking and mocking the substance of this bill. It saddens me because, essentially, what they are mocking is our support of seniors. We’re all supporting this bill. Thankfully, many people came to their senses, but what it said to me was “We’re mocking the idea that our senior citizens still have a role to play in civic duty.” Well, that’s not a joke to me. It’s not a joke—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Because you could do it under the old law.

RIMA NAKHLE: Someone said, across the House, “Why didn’t the Minister make a revision bill.”, and something or other, and it made me think about Dr Duncan Webb’s bill that’s in the ballot box right now, the regulatory standards repeal Act. Not only that—I say this fondly—but Dr Duncan Webb has really got this reputation from us on this side of the House as opening a bar called “Webb’s Whine Bar”. Quite simply, this just fits into it. He wants to whine about things that are good, but what has he shown in response? I digress, and I don’t want to digress too much, because this is a very important subject.

What we’re doing here, in essence, is we are amending the Juries Act 1981. That’s the principal Act that Mr Carl Bates, the excellent local MP for Whanganui, is aiming to change with his member’s bill. I reflect on how Mr Bates spoke to us about where he got this idea to submit a member’s bill where we change the age of excusal—the automatic age—from 65 to 72. I remember quite clearly my colleague and friend Carl Bates explaining that it was when he accompanied the Hon Paul Goldsmith to a district courthouse—district courthouse—

Carl Bates: High Court.

RIMA NAKHLE: —High Court—and he listened to the staff talk about what changes we could make as a Government—well, actually, they answered questions along the lines of what changes we could implement as a Government to make things work more smoothly and to help them with their court load, because that is something that’s very important to our Government. Since we came into Government two and a little bit years ago, we’ve been focused very much on how we work on the court load that we have, which has been colossal. We’ve been making excellent changes there that have resulted in excellent results. Lo and behold! Mr Carl Bates, my colleague, who is a very good listener, heard their pleas—well, it’s pleas to them—saying, “Please, this is something that you can do because we need more people to be there for jury duty.” What was happening is that our fellow citizens at the age of 65 were able to have automatic excusal from jury duty.

Now, we’ve heard across the House about what effects this has had. Different people have shared different stories and different opinions and opinions about things that are not even about this bill in substance. These staff members at the High Court alluded that this would be something that would help with the workload. Mr Carl Bates thought, “You know what? Let’s make this into a member’s bill.” Yes, this type of change can happen in other ways as well, but one of the avenues available to us backbenchers is members’ bills. To his good fortune, it was pulled out of the ballot, just like mine was pulled out of the ballot in the beginning in the early stages of 2024, where we changed the rules around people in jail contacting the victims of their crime. Yes, that’s a small change, with a ripple effect. This here today, what we’re going to be passing—and thank you for the support across the House—will be a small change with a ripple effect, as Carl Bates heard from the staff themselves at the High Court.

Now, as I was saying earlier, this bill amends the Juries Act 1981, and, interestingly, before the changes in 1945, if I recall correctly, to change the age to 65, the age of excusal was 60. It just goes to show how we’re following the trend where we are changing and adjusting with the modern world. Life expectancy has gone up. In 1981, when I was one year old—but Dr Duncan Webb was probably 103 in 1981; no, no, he’s 27 at heart—the male life expectancy was about 70 years old, and for females, it was about 76 years old. Fast forward to today, and men live to approximately 80 years old; women to approximately 83 years old. As we’ve heard Carl Bates mention a number of times, life expectancy is changing, and so we should change with it. New Zealanders are living longer and are living, for the most part, healthier lives, and so we should be encouraging our older and wiser New Zealanders to contribute to their communities well beyond what some people think is the traditional retirement age.

I think of my beautiful mother. She’s about 73 years old right now, and, just over the weekend, when it was St Valentine’s Day, she was, once again, in the family florist going hard, preparing flowers for about a week for that special day. Our older people’s lives and contributions to society do not stop at the age of 65, and that’s something, for me, that is really important. Honouring our seniors and respecting and valuing our seniors is something that’s extremely important to me, and something I’ve learnt through this journey is that it’s extremely important to my colleague Carl Bates as well.

Now, the MP for Whanganui said in his third reading speech today, and has mentioned before, that this bill does not compel anyone between the ages of 65 and 72 to serve if they have valid reasons not to serve. Under the Juries Act, the principal Act, individuals may still apply for excusal or deferral for health reasons. They may seek excusal due to their caregiving responsibilities and due to employment hardship. These all remain valid grounds. The discretion is with the registrar. This bill, as we’ve tried to encapsulate a number of times, simply removes the automatic entitlement to opt out of jury service at the age of 65 and lifts it to the age of 72. The expectation becomes participation unless there is a legitimate reason otherwise.

In thinking about what I’d like to contribute on this bill and in this reading, of course, one goes to the history of juries and jury service and what it means in our society. It really is something to be proud of. We are part of a system where jury service is one of the foundations and the cornerstones of our justice system. If we were to zoom out and think about it in a practical way, it, essentially, ensures that serious criminal matters are determined by a cross-section of our community. Some of us in this House have been around in those legal arenas where we’ve witnessed, ourselves, when jury members are chosen. It’s quite interesting, and it’s quite fascinating, the different components that are taken into consideration when different members of our society are being chosen to contribute to jury service.

This is a good bill. This is a simple bill that goes a long way. This is not about compulsion; it’s about expectation. For me, it’s a lot about saying I love our seniors—I make no secret about that. I learn a lot from our seniors, and they can contribute a lot to our civic society with their civic duty. Congratulations to my friend Carl Bates, and I commend this bill to the House.

I have two brief points to make on this bill. We fully support this bill. It’s a good bill; we’re in strong support of our seniors being more involved. But if there’s anyone out there who’s over 72—73, 74, 75—get out your pen and paper, type up an email to carl.bates@parliament.govt.nz and write him a letter and ask him why he’s being age discriminatory against those 73-, 74-, 75-, 76-year-olds—80-year-olds. My dad’s real sprightly; he could definitely get on a jury. I reckon there’s a whole lot of people out there that should write a letter to Carl Bates and ask him to widen his bill.

The second point is—Rima Nakhle said: what changes can we make to improve lives? Well, I think they could do better—I think they could do better. There are many older people out there—people over 65—who can’t afford a doctor right now, who can’t afford to buy food right now. There are many pensioners right now who live on soup and they don’t have decent nutrition because they can’t afford to feed themselves under this National Government and this cost of living crisis that they live under. They can’t maintain their own properties because of the increase in climate change and the inability to pay for insurance—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): As it applies to this bill.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: —on a fixed income. Those are the problems that seniors are facing. But don’t worry: if they’re worrying about that, they can sign up to a jury and it’ll be good as gold!

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to contribute to the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill in the name of Carl Bates, MP for Whanganui. The bill changes two aspects of the Juries Act 1981. It allows for the registrar to move the age of excusal from age 65 to 72, and it changes the age of excusal from 65 to 72. For those people who are just tuning in to Parliament TV live, they would probably have experienced someone in their families or they themselves would have been summoned for jury duty.

The changes that this bill makes accomplish a few good things. One of them is that it recognises the value of our seniors in that it shows the belief in seniors that they can continue to perform jury duty and contribute to the civic duty of being engaged and involved in the process.

The bill also enables the system to access a wider range of people, which allows for a more diverse jury in situations where they are needed. The idea of excusal, essentially, is that, by age alone, people who used to be 65—now it’s moved to 72—could ask to be excused from jury duty. It does not mandate that they must excuse themselves—for people who continue to want to be involved and contribute, they can always do so. But the changing of the age allows for people to continue to be involved. I think that’s an important thing for seniors: to have that opportunity to continue to be involved and contribute. At the same time, it allows them to also consider to be excused by valid reasons that they may have, but not have to explain and just use their age to excuse them from jury duty.

The change also simplifies the complexity of the summons process, where people who are summoned may be summoned beyond the age of excusal—which used to be 65—and then they would just return and say, “I am not able to go because I’m already 65.” The sending of a summons will become far less complicated because it will widen the age where that excusal will not be as quickly used and as simply available to everyone. It also makes the process much more stable in the sense that people can be relied upon to be able to carry on and be involved and contribute in a jury, even if they have already reached 65.

That openness to a larger pool of jury members will be good for the system, and it will facilitate the hearing of cases with this wider pool of jury members. This is a good bill, it makes good changes, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, congratulations to the member. It looks like your bill’s going to get through and it is one that we support.

I did just want to note that at the Justice Committee there was a lot of conversation about whether we were discussing a right or a duty. Of course, this is one of those areas where it’s both. But in truth, this bill doesn’t create a new right—there was always the ability of people to serve beyond 65. What it does do is impose a new duty on our older New Zealanders, and so I do think we need to recognise that that is indeed what this bill does—for all those older New Zealanders who might want to write to Mr Bates. Potentially, the other issue here is that there might be an additional administrative burden for those people between 65 and 72 who now need to go to the trouble of persuading, essentially, that they have a health-related matter by which they should be excused. It is a new obligation that’s being put on our older residents, and one that might result in more administration.

I’ve said I’m voting in favour of this bill. There’s a reason for that. For me, there was a time in 2024 when the Government considered increasing the threshold for juries. That’s because we already have a large number of people serving—we have an increased amount of time that people serving on those juries are there for, so we do need to solve that issue. This is one of the ways in which we can do that. While it is an increase in duty, I do think it’s warranted. Again, congratulations to the member, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s with great pleasure that I rise to take the final call on this bill that was brought into the House by my very good colleague Carl Bates, the member of Parliament for Whanganui. It’s a great achievement, mate. It’s quite an achievement to get a member’s bill through the House.

But in the bill, obviously, the official name is the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. Well, I kind of was thinking, actually, I’m just wondering if it’s really more about a “Bring Back the Boomers” bill. Honestly, we’re finally going to be able to get a broader range of very successful, intelligent contributors to our society on juries.

Tom Rutherford: Back to the committee stage.

GRANT McCALLUM: We’re getting a lot of advice here from behind me, over my shoulder. The member of Parliament for Mt Maunganui—it will be, shortly—Tom Rutherford, who is—you know, I just have to correct a few things. He was alluding to the fact that we would be struggling to contribute. But really, actually, the boomers are the ones that have built this country, right?

I want to give some examples of the sorts of people that are now going to be eligible, potentially, or will go onto juries and contribute—some really, really famous people. I mean, probably one of the most defining moments of our boomer generation was I think it was called the under-arm experience, when a bloke called Brian McKechnie—he would be great. Just think what he’d be like on a jury. He was a man under pressure. He had to face a ball under-arm, made huge headlines around the world, and it was great to see. He would be outstanding on a jury.

Another thing, actually: Brian McKechnie was involved—how good would he be—in another very famous incident for his generation to add to jury service, because he was the man who kicked the winning penalty against the Welsh in 1978 after Andy Haden dived out of the line-out. Another great boomer experience—great boomer experience.

But actually, I googled famous baby boomer politicians, right? Unfortunately, for some reason, my name didn’t make it. There must be something wrong with the Wikipedia search. But anyway, if you were going to put together a jury of famous baby boomers, I mean, just imagine this for a jury, right? We would have Dame Jenny Shipley, the first female Prime Minister of New Zealand. What a great achievement. What an absolutely outstanding achievement. She would make a great juror—she would make a great juror.

But then, actually, the next quite famous lady—it would be interesting to see how these two would get on in a jury—would be, of course, Helen Clark. I mean, the Opposition would have to acknowledge that she wouldn’t be too bad on a jury, right? She was number two off the rank in terms of being female Prime Minister, right?

Then another famous politician that would fit that bill would be a bloke called John Key. He wouldn’t be bad, would he? What a great Prime Minister he was. He would be a great juror to add to show why this bill is so important. It’s so great to be able to extend that age to allow people like Sir John Key to contribute to a jury service.

Then you would have Bill English, of course. Bill—the guy that actually knew how to run an economy. He would do a great job of running a jury, unlike some finance Ministers of more recent times who had no idea about running an economy.

But then the person to unite the jury who had that special skill of uniting groups of people is a bloke called David Cunliffe. His name’s popped up as famous. Just imagine him trying to unite and work together in a jury situation. Now, that would be interesting. That would be quite a mix.

That’s quite a collection. In all seriousness, though, it’s important that we allow people with experience and knowledge to be on juries and that’s what this bill will do. I must commend my good colleague Carl Bates for that, because when you’ve got some tough decisions to make, some of the people I’ve mentioned with that life experience would be invaluable to bring to jury service, to actually really consider and think about it. I mean, it would be outstanding, actually.

Actually, it’s interesting: some of the people that have shaped our society more than anyone are famous baby boomers. They might not qualify, they’re from overseas, but a couple of people called Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. Their ability to bring these sort of things to the jury would be amazing, but unfortunately they don’t qualify.

I just wonder, as we work through passing this bill—it’s really going to allow people in this country of that age group to continue to contribute to society, which I think is really, really important—really, really important in a way that helps make great decisions around people who turn up in front of juries. I think it’s really important. The whole purpose of it is outstanding.

One person I would like to mention is a colleague of mine who seems to take a lot of pleasure in denouncing my contribution in his radio show. That’s a bloke called Jamie Mackay. When I went to see him the other day, I actually mentioned this bill. I thought he would make a good juror, Jamie—a very good juror—but unfortunately—

Rima Nakhle: The jury was out.

GRANT McCALLUM: Well, actually, the jury just might be out on him at the moment because he then proceeded to give me a hard time on his radio show because when I went to stay with him, I unfortunately wasn’t able to actually deliver him a nice bottle of pinot gris, which is his preferred drink, but I did give him a screen cleaner. These are very useful things. Baby boomers were the first to bring these into the House and utilise them—absolutely outstanding pieces of addition. That would be very helpful in a jury space when you’re in there and you’re trying to work through all the evidence and your screen got a bit dirty and you could have one of these screen cleaners, right?

Suze Redmayne: Show us how they work.

GRANT McCALLUM: You want to know how they work? The member for Rangitīkei—it’s very simple. See, only boomers can do this. So you squirt it on and then you wipe it off and it does the job beautifully for you, OK?

Look, I really do feel that the member for Whanganui has had a really great achievement with this bill—great achievement. Many people will go through their time in Parliament and actually never get a bill drawn out—never get one drawn out at all. Unfortunately, it’s not very fair. But the member for—where are you again? Is it Upper Harbour? He’s got a life jackets bill. Congratulations to him because that’s a very, very good bill that really does need to be proceeded through because society will benefit hugely from that.

I just remember the really good opportunity here for those people who have got time to give themselves and contribute to juries—that boomer generation, the ones that really have helped build this country. When you think about it, it was the baby boomers who have done so much for this country. After the war, they helped rebuild it with all the various great sporting achievements, all the great economic achievements. The baby booming farming generation have done a fantastic job. I mean, after all, back in the day, it was all about the sheep’s back and shearing, and then we moved into the dairy booms and that kind of lines up—the baby boomers helped lead all that. They’ve really helped define our country’s success and they deserve the opportunity to continue to serve, if they wish, on juries, which I think is a really, really good thing.

I’m looking forward to the day when I might even get invited to be on a jury. I’ve never been invited to be on a jury. I’m very disappointed. I heard that my young colleague, at the back here, Tom Rutherford made it on to a jury. That was a great achievement, Tom. Just imagine how much better your decision making would have been if you were a boomer. Just imagine that. You would have made much better decisions.

Look, ultimately, thank you to my fellow colleagues, thank you to the Justice Committee who clearly did a great job with this bill—an outstanding job—to bring it into the House and pass it all the way through. We’ve now got the situation where we’re about to pass this very important bill. Some of the members on the other side actually made fun of it. Well, for those of us who are boomers, this is a serious matter. It gives us the opportunity to actually contribute to the legal system because we can bring that level of common sense and knowledge and experience all the way. It is with great pleasure that I commend to the House the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That was a very long bow, Mr McCallum.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Sales on Anzac Day Morning, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day) Amendment Bill

Second Reading