Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I rise to speak to the Courts Matters Bill which seems to me to be an eminently sensible piece of legislation. I would say that because the former National-led Government made a number of reforms to the justice system in its tenure which was all about making the system easier for people to understand and about accessibility. People need to really I suppose feel that the court system is going to be flexible and responsive and the transparency of the court system is something that National has always believed is a very important element of our democracy. So when we look at the Courts Matters Bill and in particular at Part 1 which is before us at the moment and amends the Courts Security Act 1999 I think that the extension of the powers of court security officers to deny entry and to remove or detain people who possess illegal drugs or who act threateningly or accusingly—it is a surprise to me that these measures have not been in place earlier because they are eminently sensible. When you look at the overall thrust of this bill which amends 14 Acts which govern all sorts of things around court security criminal procedure fines enforcement and other court processes that are dealt with in other parts I think there would be widespread agreement through this committee and certainly on this side of the Chamber to the legislation that really brings the courts up to speed with 21st century practice. So you know things do lag behind. My colleague Chris Bishop has already outlined some of the more unusual ways that you define a court" which is going to be tidied up by this bill. I also think that the definition of a "Judge" which has been one of the things that's in clause 5 of this bill—to amend the definition of "tribunal" and "Judge". So the new definition of "Judge" is going to include the Chief High Court Judge Employment Court judges and members of bodies declared to be courts and tribunals. So I think all of this makes perfect sense.I think as well when we look at one of the things that has been common practice it has been tightened up a little in this regard. There has been through the select committee process the deleting of an amendment that would allow community magistrates to hear prosecutors of obstruction to a court security officer (CSO) as they cannot impose prison sentences while that particular offence would carry with it three months imprisonment. So it does seem to me to be very sensible to delete that amendment to allow community magistrates to hear that sort of evidence.So clearly through the select committee process which I was not a part of—although I'm on the Justice Committee much of this evidence was heard before I sat on the committee. I think that the select committee process the engine room of the House and of legislation has refined further some of the commonsensible moves. I think that when you look at for example court security officers who are currently authorised to detain only people who have committed very serious offences it is important to ensure for public safety for the ability of people to give testimony and to be heard properly that they are able to feel safe doing that. I think that courts can be very intimidating places so that Part 1 amendment with the Courts Security Act 1999 is something that I think absolutely needs to be done.So when I looked at the judge's definition I think the amendments were put in considering it unnecessary to list all the judges and members of each court and tribunal because this is an Act that will do away with the need to be that specific. It's an Act that in its very sensible overview is intended to cover the courts and the tribunals which are listed in section 3(5) which I don't have time to go into. But we do recommend and I support that recommendation within the bill replacing that definition of the judge with a more generic definition. I think that on this side of the House we are very keen on the idea of common-sense practices.I think that as Chris Bishop has said expanding the definition of courts court premises removal or disposal of alcohol the powers for the CSO to detain people—all of these make perfect sense—and I think the power to seize items as well and to use reasonable force and that is defined in this bill. I think that that will make it very much easier for the justice system and the court system to work in the way it was always intended which is to work smoothly and without ridiculous barriers that are put up. These barriers that are being removed by this Courts Matters Bill have I think been long overdue for change and the idea that possession of controlled drugs as an offence—they were allowed to be in the courtroom and so forth and people didn't have the powers to get rid of them. Change is long overdue to happen. Thank you."