Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7332] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I would like to follow on from the points raised by the Hon Richard Prebble. The schedules of the State Sector Amendment Bill and Supplementary Order Paper 107 are all about doing away with the Department for Courts. We have a Minister for Courts and a Minister of Justice. Which of those Ministers is losing his job? Maybe it should be both of them. Certainly the Department for Courts is losing its job. What is happening with the chief executive? Which chief executive is losing a job? Who will be subject to a payout? There certainly will not be a simple technical redundancy. What we are looking at here is a Government that rides roughshod over the justice system and has no faith in it or in any sort of due process as required by law and by our constitution. I am shocked that the United Future party which I think has come out against some of the actions of the Government over the Privy Council—it is certainly still considering its position—is supporting this bill yet its members cannot tell us why. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: What do they know that we don’t know? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: One wonders what they know that we do not know. What they do know is how to have their tummies rubbed and scratched and that is not acceptable. This Parliament should have been able to debate properly what is happening with the Department for Courts and the Ministry of Justice. The select committee should have been able to debate properly what is happening with the Department for Courts and the Ministry of Justice. Certainly the public the Law Society and the submitters who would normally come to select committee hearings should have been able to make submissions. 
 What about the people who actually use the courts—the lawyers who work in the courts day in day out? Why are they being stopped from giving submissions on this bill and the schedules to it? When we look at the schedules we can see that they are very substantial and that many significant changes are being brought about to many different parts of our law. The changes are being rammed through without consultation without any public submissions without notice and without any regard to this Parliament. It is not as though the Supplementary Order Paper has been sitting around for years as the bill has. No way! It was pushed into the Chamber yesterday. The Minister tried to hide it amongst everything else. He constantly tried to hide the truth from us all. He is pushing the bill through in Committee. Who knows what else the Government will be pushing through? Who has gone through all the substantial amendments in the schedules to check that they are all right? 
One of the good things with the select committee process is that all the people on the select committee and all the staff look for any errors or problems so that we do not have to come back with yet another catch-up bill to try to fix all the problems that have inadvertently been a result of the changes brought about. That is what we are talking about in the schedules. We are omitting from columns the items “Offender identity” and “Police temporary file index”. The schedules do all those sorts of things. 
I want to know from this Minister when he will take a call and explain how the changes in Schedule 3 will affect the other bills and the law we currently have in New Zealand. I would like to hear from him why he is so dismissive of the people of New Zealand that he will not allow them to make submissions on this Supplementary Order Paper. Why is he so dismissive of it? I ask United Future members who always say they will never look at any amendment that it does not have at least 2 days’ notice of to explain this Supplementary Order Paper. It has been sitting around for only 1 day. What about that? Did United Future members give it proper consultation? Did the Green Party members sit there and say: “Let’s have a real close look at this. Let’s see what the issues are.”? No. The reason is that this Government just bullies its little partners in Government. It does not consult them properly or consider them. It certainly does not consider the people of New Zealand.