Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I would like to address my remarks on this mammoth piece of legislation to clauses 167 and 401 just briefly in parts 1 and 2 respectively and then concentrate on Part 5. I am hoping I can make an additional contribution on this issue. These are the clauses that remove the requirement for the final written judgments to be published on the internet. As you have heard—and I am not going to go over this again—the bill came back from the Justice and Electoral Committee with those clauses removed. Those clauses were originally in the bill. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has put up a proposed amendment on clause 401 not to reintroduce it but to put in a time period—some time out in 2018—to allow there to be preparation for the publishing of these judgments on the internet. Of course we support that amendment.I would like to remind the Government of two things. One is its own key performance indicators (KPIs) shall we say—the Better Public Services KPI result No. 9 which is that New Zealand businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government advice and support they need to run and grow their business". The next is result No. 10 which is that "New Zealanders can complete their transactions with government easily in a digital environment". Alongside that—and we have had several references today to the Open Government Partnership—is a requirement as part of the Open Government Partnership which we are signed up to as one of 69 countries for easy digital interaction with the Government for citizens. Surely this is part of that. Taking away that requirement ultimately seems to be driven by financial considerations.My question on this to the Minister in the chair Nicky Wagner is: was the ruler put through it by the Minister of Finance who said "No sorry. It's going to cost too much."? We can see by the advice that was given by officials that there are 15300 final decisions that fall within the scope of that bill. So was the ruler put through it by the Minister of Finance and was the ministry told "Yes do it on a voluntary basis but only within the resource cap envelope that you've got." and that "You can't have any extra money."? Because that it seems to me is why the select committee has actually removed that provision.I would like to turn my attention to Part 5 which is a substantial part of the bill and a part that we support which sets out the methods to enable and govern the use of electronic technology in court and tribunal proceedings including allowing all current paper-based requirements to be replaced with electronic processes. This is not like the previous part. It is not about uploading judgments; it is about electronic processes. Although we support this and think this is a logical and necessary step to take we do want to raise a few concerns. We note that back in 2012 when the Auckland registry went electronic that there were serious delays and huge backlogs within the Family Court with the Law Society warning that it was only a matter of time before someone was seriously hurt or worse. In fact the Secretary for Justice Andrew Bridgman—I am not sure whether he is still the Secretary for Justice but this was back in 2012.Denis O'Rourke: Yes he is.CLARE CURRAN: He apologised to Parliament—and good on him for doing that—admitting that staff were not fully prepared for the change and that the Ministry of Justice did not engage enough with the legal profession early enough or actively enough. So I am just introducing a note of caution around that. I imagine that was discussed at the select committee—and how important that is. Can I in my final seconds just say that this bill does not go far enough? There is a next part to this discussion around the move to electronic processing and that is a move to an online courts system which should not be years away. It should be something that we are preparing for and thinking about now. Former District Court judge David Harvey has done a lot of work on this. I know the Minister has expressed some comments. This is happening now in the UK. It is about access to the courts system particularly for people with lower incomes and it is something that we heartily support."