Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to lead the debate on this side of the House in relation to the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. The National Party supports this bill. Our message and our emphasis in relation to court matters is to support good initiatives that will help to increase the timeliness of the courts' processing ability and policy and practice in that area. The Minister has set out some of the difficulties that arise for our society as well as our justice system when justice is delayed. I will only resort briefly to that cliché about justice delayed equals denial of justice and simply say that to the extent that this bill is able to help to rectify that matter then we do indeed support it.A couple of notes that I would make for the sake of providing some scrutiny to the bill: we do acknowledge that the bill arises from the line in the Budget whereby additional funding is allocated for the appointment of more judges. So perhaps that's not inappropriate as far as it goes but it does mean that there are some matters that we do need to give at least some attention to before such appointments are made in the interests of understanding how they might go some way to achieving the aims that the Minister has set out.So while we do acknowledge as I've said that this may assist to reduce the courts' backlog clearly there are other system reforms that can and should be contemplated. So we look forward whether it be in hope or expectation that there might be something forthcoming that area. Certainly the Government has made noises about reforming the Family Court system and it's currently conducting a review for that. Once those findings are known that's something that we will look forward to participating in and as needed being constructive to resolve any genuine issues there but also of course holding the Government to account in terms of what the actual results might be.So on that note it's beyond my reading of any of the documents that have been provided—which I think indicates that the information is not there but I'm happy to be corrected if that's not the case—that there isn't any kind of analysis about the extent to which this might actually improve matters. We don't know for example how much we can expect by way of reduced waiting times for people to come up before the courts and then to be processed at that point. So while the Minister does make a good point in relation to the need to reduce remand times whereby people are awaiting trial we don't know how much bang there will be for this new buck in that regard. So that's something that we would welcome ministerial or official advice on as soon as possible I suppose. I say as soon as possible" in the context of the bill no doubt being passed today.Detail that we would also like on this side of the House is on where exactly these judges might go. I think the Minister in his speech was giving some detail about the jurisdictions within the District Court. I actually didn't catch those fully so that's perhaps a shortfall on my part but I'll return to that. But of course there's also the geographical aspect of where the judges might go. I'd be interested in any thoughts from the Government's side of the House about where the need is greatest and where the priority will be in terms of those appointments.Hon Andrew Little: The Chief District Court Judge decides the allocation.CHRIS PENK: Sure. I understand of course that the Chief District Court Judge determines the allocation. That's constitutionally appropriate and the Minister points that out but of course the decision to provide a certain number must surely be based on some calculation by the Chief Judge if not the Minister. So presumably there's been some advice to determine that if a certain number are needed here and a certain number are needed there then that's why we have the total number that has been sought and indeed given in this 2019 Budget.One little discrepancy that we do have in terms of the numbers is that it appears that the departmental disclosure statement says that there will be an increase of 12 judges but the bill says it will be an increase of 22. So perhaps that's merely a typo or perhaps some misunderstanding but I will be asking the Minister at the committee stage of proceedings unless he or one of his team can advise prior to that which of those two is the correct number or if there is indeed some other explanation for the discrepancy between those.I don't need to take the full time of my contribution but I think it is worth placing this change in the context of some other developments within the justice sector. One is that there has been some increase in legal aid funding but just a one-off injection of I think $32 million. It's hard to know exactly how that correlates with the additional amount of funding going on to the bench but presumably some analysis has been done on that. I would like to think that that's the case. So that's something that we look forward to hearing from the Minister. Again the committee stage might be the appropriate time for that.So there's not much more that I need to say in this the first reading. I've indicated that we in the National Party will support the bill. We support it for the reason that reducing the backlog and processing times in the courts is a good thing but with some questions around how it will all play out and in particular what kind of accountability the taxpayer and all those affected by the justice system can expect by doing so."