SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thanks Mr Speaker. I'm going to take a short call on this effectively court safety legislation. I thought I'd just pick up on one element that the previous speaker Emily Henderson touched on. She said that the Labour Government hadn't done anything prior to the courts to enable the courts the freedom to manage their own affairs and that this was a matter of what we'd call technically comity: courts do their things; we do our things. If that argument is right then why are we doing anything at all at any time? So I thought I might just reflect that back.Look it's a relatively good bill. As Chris Penk our lead on this has mentioned we're going to support the bill through first reading and into select committee because there are a number of little curly questions that need to be dealt with and look fundamentally as others have intimated this bill—well actually they haven't intimated it; they've said it very explicitly and clearly: this bill is giving powers to the courts to run their own affairs which makes sense.I'd make the point though—actually two points: first and foremost National has beaten this drum and I think rightly so. This was something we mentioned when the COVID orders were first going through with those first bits of legislation that the Government was pushing through the House and I think rightly we opposed. This was something they should have considered back then. It is a bit of a told you so" situation. Maybe I'm not as humble as Chris Bishop who first raised it. These were very specific elements. When you look at this legislation a lot of the aspects including access to audiovisual technology was something that was mentioned previously in previous debates. The Government ignored it at the time and as has become a little bit of a habit in this place we've got to return into the Parliament to fix up if you will a piece of legislation.The second point I would make is just how far this goes. I mean we in this Parliament I think—and particularly through COVID but not singularly so—are having a bit of a habit of passing what I'd call blank cheque legislation. It's an enabling piece of legislation which then in turn allows the Minister or Ministers to basically just make any regulation they want. That's bad law and we as a Parliament have to stop doing that regardless of what political parties are in charge.But I would mention—particularly as this bill is set around COVID—and go back to a theme I often hit on which is proportionality. As we've learnt over two years how to manage COVID and as we've vaccinated people left right and centre we do have to ask ourselves how many more restrictions are actually required in the state that we are in today. So I suppose to those looking through this bill and to the courts themselves to the extent that a parliamentarian is allowed to pass comment on the courts I think the way they approach this should be with a very light touch. The ability of New Zealanders to access justice should not be too overly controlled by COVID any more. We're two years in we've learnt a lot and we've got a number of protections in place. Now as I say we're all pretty much vaccinated significantly. I would just like to see the courts take a very very light touch in managing things and not be too ruled by fear or worry.New Zealanders need to access justice. That's probably my final point which is unfortunately it doesn't matter if it's the weathertight homes court or all the way through to the Supreme Court New Zealanders are already experiencing unacceptable delays in justice so anything we can do to speed it up is a worthy cause. Thank you Mr Speaker and I commend of course the bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Tangi Utikere—a five-minute call."