Barker Rick: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Barker Rick: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2008. Volume:647;Page:16774. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I want to speak on the third readings of the bills that were formerly part of the Criminal Procedure Bill. Firstly I thank the Law and Order Committee for its excellent work on this legislation and in doing so I feel compelled to acknowledge in particular the work of Martin Gallagher. I also acknowledge the work of the parties across the House on this very important issue because as Dr Worth has said it is a significant and substantial reform in our justice sector. 
I will deal firstly with the issue raised directly by Dr Worth which was about advancing parts of the legislation. There was an implied criticism of the Government’s handling of this issue. Dr Worth said that the area where we could have middle-banded some cases such as those involving methamphetamine should have been proceeded with and therefore should not have been held up because this reform would have affected court pressures in the High Court. Although that is true what Dr Worth has not said is that by shifting the work from the High Court to another court we are simply shifting the work in the system and there have been no improvements in the efficiency of the system. If we accepted Dr Worth’s contention and just shifted the burden from one area to another we would not be solving the actual problem. It is a little bit like taking drugs to mask the pain—it does not effect a cure. We want to have a cure and this legislation is about effecting a cure. 
In the second part of Dr Worth’s opening lines he said that the courts were under pressure and to a degree he is correct. But what he has not told the House about is the very good detailed presentation given to the Law and Order Committee yesterday which talked about how we have significantly improved the throughput of cases in our court system. Some courts have improved by 12 percent some by 15 percent and one court has had a staggering 24 percent increase in throughput. However despite this achievement the number of cases coming before the courts has been higher. Yes Dr Worth is able to focus on one aspect—on waiting times—but in doing so he does not set out with any degree of clarity the nature of the circumstances in which our courts find themselves. Our courts should be commended for their increases in productivity. Let us imagine that in health we were getting a 24 percent increase in the number of people getting hip operations or a 15 percent increase in the number of people getting surgical bypasses. There would be substantial cheering about that. 
This Government has been able to bring about a remarkable success in our court system. The difficulty for the court system of course has been that it has no control over the number of applications informations and cases that are laid before it. These have increased at a greater rate than the rate at which the court has been putting cases through. The National Party should celebrate that because it is a reflection of this Government’s active stance against crime—more police on the streets more investigations and more cases being resolved. Under this Government there has been a higher rate of resolution than was ever achieved under a National Government. A National Government never got anywhere near a 40 percent resolution rate on crime. This Government is achieving in excess of a 40 percent resolution rate. In fact it has a resolution rate of over 45 percent. We have more police investigating crimes and achieving a much higher rate of resolution. Naturally this is leading to more people being charged and brought before the court. 
This Government has responded in a number of ways. Firstly in Auckland we have reopened the Papakura court. We have built more courts we have extended courts and we have refurbished courts. We have put new technology in place added judges added staff and increased training. I am pleased to tell Dr Worth that in Auckland in particular where the case pressures are greatest we are seeing the first signs that the rate of disposals is exceeding the rate of new filings. So we will see an improvement on the workload that is coming along. It is a very important achievement. 
The application of new courts and so on is but one part of it. We have to look at the processes that lead into the court’s work. The Criminal Procedure Bill is one of those pieces of work that does so. Work on the bill was led by the Law Commission which made some excellent recommendations. I advise the House that more work is to follow. That bill makes a number of improvements such as the exceptions to the double jeopardy rule. Middle banding is now possible if it is decided to do that. We have overcome problems with the jury system in terms of majority verdicts. We have increased the range from which people can be drawn for jury service—and so on. 
I want to highlight one area where we did not have immediate consensus and that is the area of depositions hearings. My colleague the Minister of Justice Annette King has spoken about this issue and I emphasise to the House that we have reached broad agreement on the need for reform of the depositions process. I acknowledge that some members have doubts about the merit and benefit of this reform but I advise them that the Government will examine this issue in great deal. The Supplementary Order Paper agreed to by the Committee of the whole House requires the Solicitor-General to commence a review 2 years after the oral depositions process is changed and to report within 6 months on what those changes mean. We can speculate either way on whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing but the Law Commission recommended the change on the basis of thorough consideration and in the light of overseas experience. 
Experience shows that if there is a clear strong regime for disclosure the defence will have all the information it needs prior to the case going to trial and the defendant can then decide whether to plead guilty. Some members believe that defendants are likely to plead guilty only if they are given the information orally and that somehow people are unable to comprehend the information in writing and would therefore come to a different decision. I do not agree with that view. I think that people would make the same decision regardless of how the information is conveyed to them. 
Prior to the trial there will be full disclosure to the defence and the normal regimes will apply. This change to the legislation means that victims will have to turn up to court only once and that defendants will have exercised their right to a fair trial. Contrary to what was asserted previously defendants will be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. If there is a failure in the system then defendants’ rights are preserved because after that they will have the right to appeal. They will also have the right to appeal on other levels. So we have very strong appeal rights in New Zealand. 
In my view the changes to this legislation will speed up the pre-trial process. Thousands of hours of court time are taken up in hearing oral depositions. Those thousands of hours of court time will become available for trial time and trials will therefore be able to move through the system more quickly. This will bring about a significant improvement in our court system and it will be beneficial to everybody. It will be beneficial to victims because they will appear in court only once and inevitably the trial will occur earlier. It will be beneficial to defendants because their trials will be concluded earlier and this legislation will guarantee them full disclosure of information prior to the trial. 
In conclusion I think the House has worked very cooperatively on this legislation. It is a major reform it is overdue and it will be effective in ensuring that the New Zealand justice system is as modern as we can make it. Although this reform will bring great improvements further improvements will need to be made in the future. I look forward to seeing that legislation brought before the House which will continue to be led by a very good Labour Government.