Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm quite pleased to be following the member Darroch Ball because he has spoken after me on a couple of previous occasions as this bill has moved through the House and I think he has tried repeatedly to suggest that I and other National Party speakers have been arguing that the status quo is fine and that there are no problems. That hasn't been the position that we have been articulating. What we have said is that this bill is not the solution to the problem that Government members have been identifying and in fact we are concerned that this creation of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission will give rise to further miscarriages of justice albeit of a different type and in particular relating to victims. And I'll come back to that in a moment. I do want to commend the very fine work that the member for Helensville our court spokesman has done in leading the charge for National on this bill because it's fairly unusual for a first-term member to take the lead. He has really picked up the ball and run with it in a very impressive way and I think he articulated the National Party's concerns very clearly before so I won't cover all of the points that he made but I'll just thank him for the work that he has done.The real solution to the problems or at least some of the problems that have been identified is to improve the timeliness of the way in which courts deal with the issues that come before them. And we do have a problem at the moment that sees many people becoming victims of that old maxim Justice delayed is justice denied." Unfortunately by creating the Criminal Cases Review Commission there is a very real risk that those delays will be exacerbated adding further to the suffering of those who are seeking justice. I did appreciate the fact that in his opening remarks as the Minister of Justice moved the third reading of this bill tonight he complimented both Chris Penk and me for our contributions. I think we have had a very thoughtful debate on both sides of the House. We're not in agreement but there has been genuine engagement and a respectful acknowledgment of each other's points of view. So I want to thank the Minister for doing that. And he did at least acknowledge the fact that we have repeatedly raised as one of our main reasons for not being able to support this bill our concern that it will add further to the suffering of victims. There is nothing in the bill that acknowledges that victims have a very real interest in this matter and in fact by failing to deal with the rights of victims this bill does pose a very real threat of re-victimising and re-traumatising the experiences that victims have to go through.As is often said in this House they don't choose to be victims they don't choose to end up in the criminal justice system they don't choose to relive the trauma of going through the trial—and sometimes many trials—in order to lead to the outcome that the courts will come to. And so we should be very mindful of their concerns and not adding to them which as I say we believe is happening. And so while the Minister did acknowledge that we had raised those concerns I was disappointed that I don't believe tonight in his speech he gave an answer to them. He certainly didn't deal with the fundamental concerns that we had raised and reassure us that our concerns are unfounded. We're getting towards the end of this debate but I hope that some of the remaining speakers will deal specifically with that issue. And I know that there are many people who advocate for victims who are hoping to hear that as well. It's getting late in the piece but let's still hope it might happen. I don't need to say much more other than to say I don't doubt for one moment the good intent that is underpinning this bill and that I think is why we're having a very respectful debate. There clearly are issues that have been well highlighted by some previous speakers relating to some high-profile miscarriages of justice. The Minister mentioned some of those; so have some of my colleagues. Sadly they have occurred in the past and almost inevitably miscarriages of justice will occur again in the future. But this bill won't stop that and this bill is highly unlikely to resolve some of the most significant cases that have happened without adding further problems. It is an expensive measure that I think doesn't meet its mark and for that reason as others have indicated on this side of the House unfortunately we are still unable to support this bill."