Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Mr Speaker thank you very much and I acknowledge the comments of the Minister. I think it's clear that across the House as evidenced by the various first reading speeches there is clear agreement on the problem faced. There is agreement on the solution required at least so far as it is represented by the bill and also measures in the Budget. So I do want to acknowledge that. I think it's positive that we have a bipartisan agreement on a matter so fundamental to the civil and political rights and human rights actually of New Zealanders in this case.I do want to make just a couple of brief remarks at this the second reading to acknowledge first of all the comments of the ACT Party member. I won't steal her thunder by speaking to the Supplementary Order Paper. That's more appropriate for the committee of the whole House stage. But actually as it happens I wasn't aware of that measure that she was proposing in relation to increasing the cap when I made my remarks at the first reading that it might be that a cap at all is not appropriate. And it did occur to me that if we were to come back each subsequent year starting this year then we'd be increasing the number of fulltime-equivalent coroners as follows: 2022 2022 to 2023; 2023 2023 to 2024; 2024 2024—anyway it will be a lot and I don't think we need to end up in a bidding war against ourselves and against the population and against as the Minister said the realities of attrition within the judicial officer framework. The point that was made very well by my colleague and friend Harete Hipango regarding the delays in quantifying those by reference to those statistics she used—I just want to amplify that a little bit by noting in the form of written questions that we have seen increases across various different measurement categories. So the average age and days of completed coronial cases by year 2017 337; up to the present day 512. The percentage of active coronial cases that are more than 24 months old: 16 percent in 2018 and 31 percent in 2022 an increase of nearly double. And the percentage of active coronial cases that are more than 36 months old as at the end of February: from 4 percent in 2018 to 13 percent in 2022. I think we can all agree and it seems we do all agree that this is an intolerable situation. When the press release was provided in conjunction with the Budget documents yesterday the Minister said quite rightly—and I quote—I know the coronial system is under pressure and that is why we have introduced these measures." The question is begged therefore at what point did the coronial system come under pressure and why has it taken until now that these measures have been introduced? If it's the case that the system was under pressure—let us say in 2019 at the point that that excellent petition was put forward by Ms Taylor and accepted by colleagues in this House—why has it taken until 2022 before any measures to alleviate those problems have been put forward?The other question or rather point in relation to the press release is that the Minister has told us that officials have been working closely with the Chief Coroner on ways to reduce delays in the coronial system. And I note "ways"—plural—implies that there are a number of different measures that will be offered up. That's good news if so but given that effectively we have one way of alleviating the pressures in this bill namely the increase of coroners and more broadly coronial staff as implied in the Budget funding a point that Ms Swarbrick made quite rightly my question then would be of course what other ways does the Government contemplate and when might we see those? So I'll leave my contribution there at this point except to emphasise of course that National notwithstanding that we have concerns about the operations system more generally does continue to support this bill and the measures in the Budget in this place."