Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you Madam Speaker. The Coroners Amendment Bill will amend the Coroners Act and most importantly it will provide New Zealand families with access to justice. There is no secret in the fact that our current coronial system is under pressure. The bill will help ensure that coronial cases are dealt with as promptly and as efficiently as possible while not adversely affecting the quality of those coronial findings and the judicial independence of those coroners. The key point I would like to make tonight is that this will help reduce the stress that whānau go through in that time where they are waiting for the outcome of a coronial inquiry. Most importantly from my experience working locally and on the Justice Committee it provides families with a sense of closure when they have gone through a traumatic time. So it's only right and fair that this Government should take every step possible to make sure that system is running as efficiently as possible. The second area that it will help with is to help ensure the public interest in the proper and timely understanding of the causes and the circumstances of deaths. So if understanding the underlying reason could benefit the wider public it's important that's in place. As we heard from the Minister already tonight the system is under pressure. Since 2014 coroners have struggled to keep pace with the number of cases being accepted into the coronial jurisdiction and this has resulted in increasing active caseloads and also the amount of time that each case is taking to process. In addition to this the increasing length of time that grieving families are waiting to receive the findings is causing distress. The increasing workload is also placing pressure on those officers in place and others working in the coronial system. So this bill makes four clear changes to address those pressures and to relieve some pressure in the system. The first one is establishing a new role of the coronial associate. Essentially some of the more straightforward and easy tasks in the system will be carved off and placed with that role. This will not only hopefully make things move quicker but it will also free up coroners to be able to undertake the more lengthy and intricate cases that they need to do. Secondly it will enable coroners to record the cause of death as unascertained natural causes in certain circumstances—if a coroner determines that a death is from natural causes and no further investigation is required. This will enable families to have findings sooner rather than later. Thirdly it will provide coroners with the sole discretion to decide whether an inquiry is required and they can also prevent a lengthy inquest from taking place where it's not necessary. The coroner can consider and hear in his chambers or her chambers if that is appropriate and it is not necessary to undertake a full inquest—again reducing the amount of time each case may take. Finally this bill will enable coroners to issue written findings about the cause of death only and not the circumstances of a death if they consider that there is no public interest in making the findings to the broader circumstances. Again this will enable certain cases to be concluded more quickly and give families and whānau the ability to receive findings and get that much-needed closure in difficult times. This bill is a first step in improving our coronial system and there is ongoing work in this space to make sure New Zealand families have access to justice. I commend it to the House.