Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Madam Speaker. I'm delighted to hear as I'm sure other members in the House were from the previous speaker Glen Bennett that he doesn't imbibe when he's on the parliamentary precinct but I couldn't help but wonder whether he maybe consumed some of the more famous herbal products from the beautiful Coromandel electorate maybe. To give a speech of that sort is truly remarkable.I want to give a chocolate fish—a virtual chocolate fish award—to my ACT Party colleague Nicole McKee who gave probably by a hair's breadth the longest contribution to this debate tonight. That's actually saying something because this is a bill that whilst short in nature actually doesn't have an awful lot of detail to go around it in terms of filling out a debate slot. So Nicole McKee gets the virtual chocolate fish award for her contribution tonight.But other members have spoken widely and extensively about the judicial officers who will be covered by this piece of legislation and the changes that it makes. But many of them have not spoken about the fact that this is actually an omnibus bill and not only does it seek to provide a formalisation of a very important concept within our constitutional framework in New Zealand—that is the separation of powers and the absolute independence of our judiciary—but what this bill also does is it amends several other statutes including amongst them the Disputes Tribunal Act 1988. The amendments are also made to the District Courts Act 2016 to the Human Rights Act 1993 to the Immigration Act 2009 to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and to the much maligned and already many times amended Resource Management Act 1991.So not only are these judicial officers now going to have their remuneration and pay rates established with a degree of separation from the Cabinet process—and I think that's right and proper. In some ways I'm relatively surprised that maybe this action hasn't been taken some time before but now that it's here I guess that better late than never is probably a good thing.One of the judicial officers that is to have their remuneration established under the new regime will be the community magistrates of the District Court. I want to—in the time that's available to me tonight—put on record my grateful thanks for a group of New Zealanders who perform judicial duties and hold judicial office but receive no remuneration. That's of course our hard-working volunteer justices of the peace of whom there are about 10000 I think around the countryside. I have the privilege of being one of them. But I also had the privilege recently of attending the annual general meeting of the Hauraki Justices of the Peace Association. They were in good heart doing good work but for no remuneration at all—entirely voluntary unlike the judicial officers in this piece of legislation.So I want to give them a shout-out because I think that justices of the peace actually provide a remarkable foundation stone—the framework upon which our entire judicial and legal system is actually formed because if it was not for the work that they do our judicial and legal system would come to a grinding halt. Much of the work that they used to do sitting in District Courts is now being done in a paid and remunerated way by these community magistrates who sit in the District Courts. I'm not 100 percent convinced that the old system of having volunteer justices of the peace who did not want to be remunerated at all—maybe they were given a small allowance for lunch and sometimes reimbursed for their parking expenses but that was about the only cost. They did it voluntarily and they did it with keenness and vigour and huge attention to detail.I think our judicial system has lost something from having so few volunteer justices of the peace actually filling roles that are now being filled by people who are commanding pretty good levels of remuneration in this legislation. So look maybe we'll get a chance to tease that out at select committee. National will support this to first reading. We do want to hear what people have to say. On balance we think it's probably a good piece of legislation.