Penk Chris; Sio Aupito WilliamCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Madam Chair. I've enjoyed that exchange between the Hon Mark Mitchell and the Hon William Sio. Just to return to the point that the Minister had made before my colleague took to his feet I think that's right what the Minister has said about emphasising that the courts sit within the Ministry of Justice and need to find money to ensure that the payments are made notwithstanding that Parliament and even the Government of the day aren't in control of those. I suppose I should say for the sake of the record that there's no suggestion from National that the salaries and fees and so forth would be set in an unreasonable way that would leave the court system or the Ministry of Justice administering it out of pocket but it's an interesting theoretical question just to make sure that things line up and there's at least some kind of answer to how the system is going to manage where there's a bit of tension. On the one hand there's responsibility ultimately for the running of the country by this place but of course the independence of the courts for their operation and of course their specific decisions must be respected and maintained for reasons that we all understand. One of my final questions or it might even be my final question but we'll see—Hon Kieran McAnulty: Yay!CHRIS PENK: A popular call—I said maybe" Mr McAnulty; don't encourage me. It's just actually question that comes up when you look at the way that this legislation is shaped. There are quite a few different parts making quite a few different amendments in quite a few different primary bits of legislation and the reason for that of course is there are lots of different tribunals authorities and other bodies that exist separately from each other. They've all got their own Act of Parliament. It's quite a fragmented system. I suppose you could almost call it an ecosystem of tribunals and lower-level courts. They don't particularly relate to each other; in fact it can be quite confusing for someone who is a layperson to know which tribunal or authority to go to. They might have a dispute and they go "Well it's a relatively small amount of money."—and I'm self-conscious using that phrase "relatively little" because $10000 for example is a lot of money to most people in this country—#CostOfLivingCrisis. But actually if you think about the fact that going to court would quickly absorb $10000 worth of fees legal fees and so on then that person might naturally go "Well I've got a dispute with my builder."—for example—"I'm just going to go the Disputes Tribunal." or what was previously known as the small claims tribunal or court. We have a mechanism where someone takes something that's not going to cost so much given the amount at stake—let's say $10000. I don't know what you'd get for that building-wise these days but that's another story for another day. They might say "We'll go to the Disputes Tribunal.' without knowing that there's actually a separate authority that's the building practitioners tribunal. Or similarly there might be a dispute between a landlord and a tenant. Let's say the amount at stake is five grand. Again it sounds a Disputes Tribunal case but actually there's a specific Tenancy Tribunal for hearing those matters.So these are quite separately carved out and it's appropriate of course that this legislation which is amending a whole heap of Acts does deal with them separately. It couldn't be otherwise because of course we're amending legislation that's on the books. This is an omnibus bill as the Minister started off by explaining to the committee but I wonder therefore if the Minister has given any thought to combining some of the functions of the tribunal so that we don't have a system where all their pay is administered separately they've got different websites they've got different IT systems and they've got different administration. It occurs to me that you could have a system where the specialist expertise is maintained by the tenancy bit by the Environment Court bit by the Human Rights Review Tribunal bit and so forth but actually just make it a bit more of an efficient system whereby we don't have all these separate structures strewn across the landscape which are confusing to people and probably aren't terribly efficient. It might be for example that the Government takes inspiration from its own health sector restructuring where it said "We'll do away with the DHBs because some functions can be combined." I'm not going to get into that and relitigate that obviously but if there is value in centralising or combining—and we say that in some areas it doesn't make sense because you remove the local voice. But these aren't really local concerns so much as a demarcation of different subject areas in the law. If the Minister has given any thought to that I'd be remiss not to take this opportunity now while we're speaking with him and it's vaguely related to the bill. So I'd be grateful for any thoughts he might have on that. Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice): It's a very good question that my learned member asks but I do want to underscore that this came about in order to maintain the integrity and independence of our judiciary services and ensure those who carry out those judicial or quasi-judicial roles have the confidence and independence to carry out those functions on behalf of all of us and to respond to the needs of our community as he articulated earlier.Before I get to what I think might be the answer that might resolve some concerns in his question it is an omnibus bill because there's so much other legislation in which some of these roles and functions sits and I'm thankful that the Parliamentary Counsel Office has prepared a technical Supplementary Order Paper that corrects three cross-referencing errors and replaces the transitional provisions in the six schedules to better align with the policy intent of the bill—this is just to give you some examples before I give my final words—by replacing "terms and conditions" with "remuneration" specifically including acting appointments; simplifying the wording of the commencement provisions; updating the part and clause numbering in schedules. It did arise at one time as to how do you streamline all of these functions but here's the issue. I'm a politician and if I'm going to uphold the integrity of our judiciary I believe it's the judiciary that ought to lead in that and I believe that the work that is currently happening led by the Chief District Court Judge the Hon Heemi Taumaunu Te Ao Mārama will encompass all of that. Our judiciary system seems to sit in the archaic years of the past in that we're still using a paper system sadly. The work that has now begun led by our judiciary and supported by the ministry will include a range of things updating and bringing—Te Ao Mārama is described as bringing us out of the darkness and into the light and the case flow management system that's also being carried out also means updating our system. I suspect at some stage that the judiciary may then be prepared to provide their views to the executive of the future about how to combine some of these roles and functions because I think the driver from a policy perspective is how do you respond to the needs of the community? How do you make sure that they have access to justice and how do you make sure that they're not going to pay an arm and a leg just simply to put up a minor litigation around a traffic fine or something like that? So I think it's an important question that the member has raised. But I think we have to come back and remember that this policy is about making sure that the judiciary—those in those judicial and quasi-judicial roles—can be independent and that their salaries can be decided upon by an independent body away from the prying eyes of present and future politicians."