O'Connor GregJusticeVANUSHI WALTERS (Chairperson of the Justice Committee): Thank you Mr Chair and it's a pleasure to kick off this debate on the justice annual review. Before I do as a member of Parliament for Upper Harbour in Auckland's north-west I do also want to acknowledge that there are many people going through what is a very difficult evening and also to acknowledge our emergency responders who will no doubt be busy this evening as well.I do want to thank the committee members for their engagement during the annual review to thank the clerks and also to thank Mr Kibblewhite and his team for the robust discussion we had with the Ministry of Justice staff. I want to also recognise that this is a complex area of policy that often does require a careful balance.We heard through the review process that in April 2022 the ministry created a new sector directorate and the aim of the directorate is to strengthen the ability of the justice sector to collaborate and align strategy performance and investment. The directorate is leading work on a cluster approach to Budget bids. It also supports the justice sector leadership board which is composed of the leaders of six justice sector agencies and is chaired by the Secretary for Justice.We heard in the review that in March 2022 the Government established Te Puna Aonui which is the interdepartmental executive board for the elimination of family violence and sexual violence. The Ministry of Justice hosts Te Puna Aonui and a significant part of its work is to empower and support community groups and providers that are already working toward the goal of eliminating family and sexual violence. We look forward to seeing the outcomes framework for the programme which will track the achievement of outcomes in June 2023.In terms of access to justice we heard how in Budget 2022 the ministry received funding for appointing more interpreters and to support the engagement of specialists to produce medical reports mental health assessments and other information to support the courts. The ministry noted that these additional resources improve access to justice by helping parties to present their cases and tell their stories in court. Also the Secretary for Justice and the Chief Justice have partnered to support the development of the national strategic framework for improving access to civil justice in New Zealand.While we did note that there have been some delays in accessing the courts we discussed with Mr Kibblewhite's team the Criminal Process Improvement Programme (CPIP) which is a cross-agency effort to reduce the backlog in the criminal justice jurisdiction of the District Court by establishing best-practice court procedures. The programme is led by the judiciary the Chief District Court Judge chairs its steering committee and it's managed by the ministry. In October 2022 several CPIP pilots began in a selection of courts and the ministry told us about the following cross-agency priorities and initiatives to reduce delays.Firstly they told us about the designation of liaison police prosecutors who work with duty lawyers to try to ensure that a meaningful court event takes place on the first day that a person appears in court. They also told us about checking for bail addresses more frequently and checking for multiple addresses to reduce adjournments caused by failure to identify a suitable bail address. They also told us about the focus on providing pre-sentencing reports to courts in a timely manner to avoid adjournments during the sentencing process and they spoke about the establishment of a sentencing-ready team at the Department of Corrections that works with all parties to a proceeding to ensure that the necessary information has been prepared and is available to the court on the day of sentencing. The ministry also spoke about the goal of the judicially led Te Ao Mārama model for the District Court which is to take the best practices from therapeutic courts such as the sexual violence and rangatahi courts and essentially deploy them more widely throughout the court system.So once again I would like to thank my colleagues at select committee for robust discussion at select committee and I do look forward to the continuation of this debate here this afternoon.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Just before I call the Hon Paul Goldsmith just for members' guidance if they want to make a longer five-minute presentation with a number of questions the call is more likely to go to another member. If they want to do it in short blocks of questions I'm more likely to try and stick with one member to exhaust that member's questions. So it's up to members but that's how I intend to chair these meetings.