McKee Nicole; Rurawhe AdrianNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand to speak on the second reading of the Coroners (Coronial Cap) Amendment Bill. I think that there are some figures that have already been mentioned that do need to be repeated just to put into context the tabled amendment that I have placed on the Table this afternoon. Between 2018 and 2021 the average time to close a coronial case—it took 42 percent of time to actually close it and as was mentioned 321 days had been lifted to 455 days. In 2021 that actually averaged 494 cases and we've just heard this afternoon that it's even up on that in May 2022: that an inquiry is averaging 877 days to process; that an inquest is averaging 1451 days to process—and that is four years. We've also heard through the Justice Committee where some cases have been waiting eight years on and that is simply not good enough. As I mentioned earlier I have tabled an amendment to look to increase the cap from 20 to 30. I had outlined earlier the reasons why and that was the cap being set at 20 was when our population was at 4.2 million; now that our population is sitting at 5.1 million we actually require 24.4 fulltime-equivalents to be able to cover the workload. Now the reason why we have suggested that the cap should be increased to 30 even though the Minister wants to ensure that we can have four coroners appointed immediately—we respect that and we want that to stand—but with the 30 it's because there have been concerns about the number of inquiries and inquests that are not occurring because of the backlog within the court system. So if we do not appoint or are not able to appoint quickly in the future more coroners for the Coroners Court then there is a possibility that some of the inquiries and some of the inquests will not occur. Now it is really essential that they do occur. The reason for that is because you have families that have questions about what happened to their loved ones. They wait for an inquiry or they wait for an inquest so that officials can delve into the reasons why their loved one has passed on. So to deny them that ability to take part in an inquiry or an inquest simply because we don't have enough staff to process it is as my colleague said denying justice to the families of individuals who are already suffering. The delays will mean that there would be no inquests and no inquiries as I stated before and the stats have shown that when the bill went through last time to increase the cap they thought they would reduce perhaps the inquests and inquiries by a number of 10 if we got an overload but in actual fact it's ended up decreasing them by 10 percent not 10 cases. And that's 10 percent too many for many of our families. It stops the families from getting the answers and from being able to have full closure about the death of their loved ones. If we have enough coroners within the system we just may be able to get back to processing coronial cases within a six to 12-month time frame. My tabled amendment is not asking for the 30 coroners; it's asking for the cap to be increased. If it's not going to be accepted by the Government I hope that through the committee of the whole House stage it can be explained to everybody why. We were told that the reason why we have had an issue is we've had coroners retire and we've had coroners that get sick. I think that's an important issue for why we need to lift the cap: so that we don't get into a situation of continued backlogs and the Minister having to come back to the House for more urgent bills. The ACT Party commends this bill to the House.Motion agreed to.Bill read a second time.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This bill is set down for committee stage forthwith. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Coroners (Coronial Cap) Amendment Bill.