Mooney Joseph; Salesa JennyJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in regards to the Remuneration Authority Legislation Bill at its second reading. This is an omnibus bill that amends the Remuneration Authority Act 1977 and six other Acts to transfer responsibility for determining the remuneration for a number of judicial officers from the Cabinet fees framework to the authority. Basically the purpose of this is to ensure that the remuneration of those officers will remain the same until the authority makes its first determination. However if the Remuneration Authority determines that any of the officers should be paid less than their current remuneration the Remuneration Authority Act 1977 requires that the remuneration remains at its current level. These officers would be: the chairperson and deputy chairpersons of the Human Rights Tribunal community magistrates of the District Court environment commissioners and deputy commissioners of the Environment Court members and deputy chairs of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal referees of the Disputes Tribunal and tenancy adjudicators of the Tenancy Tribunal.Maybe I should just touch a little bit—briefly I have had the pleasure of appearing before community magistrates of the District Court from fairly early in their tenure in the District Court. They were brought into place to take some of the workload away from the District Court judges who in a number of courts around the country have got a huge workload and struggle to deal with simply the volume of work coming through. I remember for example in the Manukau District Court the massive volume of work coming through with a lot of excess breath alcohol charges and other lower-level offences that the community magistrates deal with on a daily basis. They deal with a lot of the work that the duty lawyers see when they're coming through the courts and are able to deal with those lower-level offences which are a very very significant volume. I obviously saw it in the Auckland District Court I've also seen it in the Tauranga District Court and also it's been brought in more recently to the Southland and Otago District Courts. They perform a really valuable service and it's good to see that recognised as well as the other authorities in this bill.There is an important principle at play here: that this adds an additional layer of political neutrality to the remuneration of judicial officers which these are. It's an important principle of our democratic framework in New Zealand that we have this political neutrality in respect of the remuneration of judicial authority officers who make decisions that are important in terms of their impact on people's lives in this country and in that there is confidence that it's not only seen to be the case but it is the case that these officers are independent. This is important for our constitutional framework. For example here in the House in which I'm speaking now there are particular constitutional responsibilities that we have but the judicial officers are independent of the members of Parliament and make decisions independent of Parliament. They are not connected to or influenced by the decisions of members of this House and the decisions that they make. So bringing this additional layer of political neutrality to the remuneration of those judicial officers to ensure that they are seen to be independent and are independent of Parliament is important and it's a good step forward one I am pleased to be able to support on behalf of the National Party.At its core this is a straightforward and useful change which will move the decision making from the executive to the Remuneration Authority. This is especially important given that Government decisions are often examined by the courts and also by these various bodies that these judicial officers perform their functions in. The remuneration system will certainly be less susceptible to any perception of ministerial influence as it sits with the fair and independent Remuneration Authority which performs an important constitutional role in our system. It also provides more consistency to the remuneration of officials as the Remuneration Authority is already responsible for determining the fees of various officers including judges those who sit on the Supreme Court coroner's court District Courts and the High Court amongst others. So I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members this debate is interrupted and is scheduled for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 30 August 2022.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 4.57 p.m.