Goff PhilCORONERS AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 7 June.Part 2 Amendments to Parts 3 and 4 (continued)Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to strongly oppose clause 32 of this bill because it takes away from the families of New Zealand Defence Force personnel killed in action the right to have independent and open scrutiny of the circumstances of the death of their loved ones. This is not what the families of Defence Force personnel want and there is no justification for this clause to go into the bill. I want to quote firstly from a young woman whose name is Sarah Erb. She is the partner—or was the partner—of Corporal Luke Tamatea who was killed in Afghanistan in August 2012. What she said was that the coroner's report into his death had helped her and Luke's mother to get answers and to gain closure. She said: Without that report we'd feel quite ripped off … That's our loved one and we should know what has happened." I want to put to the Minister in the chair Nick Smith this: why should the loved ones of those who die in the service of their country be denied an open and independent inquiry into the deaths of those service personnel members? We have that at the moment. The fact that we have this amendment before the Committee is because the Defence Force took umbrage that an independent person could look into the death of somebody killed in action and maybe reflect on issues that pertain to national security or military tactics. That is not what the report that caused this particular change actually did. You can read coroner J P Ryan's report and it is a straightforward explanation of the circumstances of death of three people who were killed on that day 12 August. The families of those military personnel members have the right to have such an inquiry. Without the coroner's right to inquire into the death of somebody killed in action there is no mandatory report that is required into those deaths. What usually happens however is that the Defence Force will set up a court of inquiry into it. What is wrong with that? Well what is wrong with it is first of all it is in secret and secondly it is not done independently. Defence Force personnel members themselves fear that such a court of inquiry could be more concerned not with what caused the deaths of those soldiers but with the Defence Force protecting its own reputation. This is an inquiry by a body into its own actions or lack of action and that is exactly what the families are concerned about. Sarah Erb said that she did not receive any information back from the military court of inquiry. How can that be satisfactory for somebody who has lost the person whom they love in conflict? It is not just the families although they in my mind are the most important people in this but also former Chief Coroner Neil MacLean who said that this is a backward step. He said this proposal is out of step with other countries. I want to read to Minister Smith what Chief Coroner Neil MacLean said. He said: "It flies completely in the face of what the Australians and the English have been doing for a long time which is real co-operation with the coronial system." He said: "Next of kin sometimes aren't too happy with military investigations. For better or worse our society has said it's important to have some independent judicial officer with sufficient power say 'what is actually going on here? What are the facts? Are there any lessons to be learned?' ". He said: "The moment you start to erode that power and say that's only if it's not a combat death that's representing a watering-down [in the power] of the coroner." So I want the Minister to tell this Committee why he is ignoring the recommendations of the former Chief Coroner and why he is acting in a way that flies in the face of what the families of Defence Force members who die in combat actually want. This was not the only option in front of the Government. I have read the regulatory impact statement. I hope the Minister has because he will see in that that there was another option. If the Government is genuinely concerned about national security issues why not have the default position that the coroner will hold an inquiry and then give the Attorney-General if it transgresses into matters of national security the right to suppress that information? That would automatically allow the coroner to do what the coroner to date has always been allowed to do: inquire independently and make his or her findings open to the families the public and the people of New Zealand. That was something that the regulatory impact statement said would find an appropriate balance—a balance between the need for independent scrutiny and the need to protect national security issues. I have an amendment before the Committee that says that option D of the regulatory impact statement should be the option that this Committee votes for not the option that the coroner is ruled out unless the Attorney-General says that he can do it. When I put that to the select committee examining this bill the Justice and Electoral Committee there was on all sides sympathy for that position. That position was not adopted by the select committee because the Minister said no. Well I want the Minister in the chair to get up and publicly justify why the Government is suppressing the facts of deaths in these circumstances when that is not what the families want and it is not want the coronial system says is necessary. I think this bill is a backward step. I think this bill is not about protecting national security; it is about covering up the circumstances that might prove embarrassing to the Defence Force or the Government and that is not something that is tolerable here. The report that was given to the Chief of Defence Force which I got under the Official Information Act said that this is not even necessary. It said that concerns were raised that the issues that were driving this change are addressed by amendments in other parts of the Act. It says that this is based on one particular incident and it is not the norm. It says that this will create a negative perception from families and the media about how deaths will be investigated. This is the information being given to the Chief of Defence Force. So it raises concerns about the option that the Government has taken. It says that courts of inquiry are not mandatory for deaths by hostile action. That means that there will be no mechanism of mandatory investigation into deaths of this type. Is that a tolerable situation to have where our men and women die in combat and there is no mandatory system to investigate in any way the decisions that led to their deaths? I think there has to be such an investigation but it should not be a closed investigation by top brass in the military looking at their own decisions. How can that be independent? How can that gain the confidence of the families and the people of New Zealand if it is not even out in the public arena? This is something that deserves to be in the public arena. If we do not learn from our mistakes we are doomed to repeat them. You learn from your mistakes when you openly and transparently investigate them and make that public. Then there will be pressure on the system if there is some inadequacy. It might be that there is inadequacy in the way people are trained or in the way they are equipped or whatever. But we have the right to know that if it is our families who are being put at risk and who are dying in combat. The regulatory impact statement said that if the option I am promoting in my amendment was adopted it would find balance. So I want the Minister to say why the Government is taking away that balance. Why is it taking away from those families the right to have an independent scrutiny of what happened when their loved ones were killed? We have had from Government no answer to that question—no real justification for what it is doing. I am asking genuinely the Minister to please consider the alternative option that the Defence Force said to its Chief of Defence Force would be OK in covering some of the concerns it had and that the regulatory impact statement said found a proper balance between the needs for national security and the needs of the family to be satisfied that everything that should have been done was done so that they are allowed to know why they lost their loved ones in action."