Adams AmyCORONERS AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I move That the Coroners Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill improves the coronial system by making it more efficient and more responsive to the needs of grieving families. The coroner's role is to establish the cause and the circumstances of a death and to identify any lessons that can be drawn to prevent similar future deaths. In that role coroners have been said to speak for the dead to protect the living. Coroners work with families when they are traumatised and vulnerable and they do so with professionalism and sensitivity as part of a coronial system that operates throughout New Zealand 24 hours a day. Our Chief Coroner 16 coroners and those who support them are well-respected participants in our legal system. Having myself experienced the death of a loved one where the coronial system was involved I know that no one wants official processes associated with these deaths taking any longer than they need to.The bill makes a range of amendments to the Coroners Act 2006 to ensure that coronial processes are more efficient that bodies are returned to families as soon as possible and that inquiries and inquests proceed without delays and duplication. Around 5700 deaths are reported to coroners every year. Coroners accept jurisdiction in around 3200 of these deaths. This tells us that there is a degree of unnecessary reporting and that there is uncertainty about reporting obligations amongst those who must report deaths. The bill clarifies the requirements for reporting deaths to coroners such as deaths that occur during medical procedures. The bill provides that such deaths have to be reported only if they would not reasonably have been expected by a medical practitioner competent to perform the procedure who was familiar with the deceased's medical condition before the procedure began. The bill also clarifies and reduces the need to report deaths where it is unlikely that a coronial investigation will contribute to determining the cause and circumstance. This includes where historic remains are discovered or when a body is returned to New Zealand following an overseas investigation.Once a death has been reported and a coroner has accepted jurisdiction the usual step is for the coroner to direct a pathologist to perform a post-mortem. New Zealand has a very high rate of coronial post-mortems at about 90 percent. By comparison in Victoria which is a jurisdiction to which we look for examples of good practice the rate is only about 50 percent. Post-mortems are costly raise cultural and religious issues for some families and delay the release of bodies back to loved ones. That is why this bill enables preliminary inspections of bodies using medical-imaging technology to ensure that unnecessary post-mortems are avoided. At this point I would like to acknowledge the pathologists who support the coronial system by performing both post-mortems and soon preliminary inspections. Their work provides crucial scientific evidence to coroners who in New Zealand are lawyers not medical experts. The bill also formally recognises forensic dentists who play a crucial role in identifying bodies in mass casualty situations as they did so commendably after the February 2011 Canterbury earthquake.The Coroners Act currently requires coroners to investigate certain deaths regardless of the circumstances including deaths that occur while the deceased was in official care or custody. Mandatory public inquests are held into such deaths even if they were plainly due to natural causes and the facts would not have warranted an inquest. Most deaths in official care or custody once investigated turn out to have been from natural causes. The bill restores the discretion of coroners as independent judicial officers to decide whether such deaths require the cost and time of an inquest or whether an inquiry on the papers is sufficient. Importantly those with an interest in the death including family members will be able to ask the coroner to hold an inquest if one is necessary.The bill provides that coroners should not investigate the deaths of New Zealand Defence Force personnel occurring overseas as a result of hostile action unless the Attorney-General directs them to. Coroners have not traditionally investigated such deaths. Quite apart from the potential for such investigations to stray into matters of both national security and tactical decision-making in the heat of battle coroners are not well placed to inquire into military deaths on distant battlefields. Where investigations are needed they will occur. There will also be the option of using the court of inquiry process established by the Armed Forces Discipline Act. As I pointed out in my second reading speech the requirement for the Attorney-General's direction is modelled on the provisions of the Visiting Forces Act which govern deaths in New Zealand of foreign service people.Turning to the coroner's recommendations the bill does not require agencies that received them to respond to them although I note that the evidence shows that most agencies already do so voluntarily. Such requirements are not common internationally although some comparable jurisdictions require only Government agencies to respond. I do not consider that there is a good case for mandatory responses especially as it is clear that agencies both public and private take coroner's recommendations very seriously and respond to them if they can.The bill also implements changes to make coroner's recommendations more relevant more closely linked to the evidence before the coroner and better targeted at those with the ability and responsibility to implement them. The bill requires coroners to consult with the intended recipients of recommendations before finalising them increasing the likelihood that the recommendations will be relevant realistic and implementable.The bill deals with the difficult topic of suicides and their reporting in the media including discussions by ordinary New Zealanders on social media. As we know New Zealand has a tragically high rate of suicide especially among our youth. Our country is also unique in restricting the publication of certain details of suicides in the media. This is based on the well-established evidence that certain kinds of media reporting of suicides can spur further suicides. I acknowledge concerns that the restrictions limit the right to freedom of expression that is enshrined in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I believe that this is a justified limitation especially in light of the overseas experience of the kind of media reporting that can occur in the absence of restrictions. My officials have highlighted a recent example of media reporting of a 13-year-old schoolgirl's tragic suicide in the UK. The reporting was not sensational and it appeared in a respected British broadsheet but none the less there were detailed descriptions of the circumstances and the method as well as a prominent photograph of the site where the suicide occurred which itself left no doubt as to the method. This is the kind of reporting that serves no purpose and which the bill seeks to limit.The bill clarifies and eases the current restrictions by focusing on preventing reporting of details that are most likely to spur copycat behaviour these being the method and anything that implies the method. Media will however no longer need to use euphemisms such as no suspicious circumstances". They will be able to describe a suspected suicide as such if the facts support this before the coroner has made any finding. These changes will help foster responsible discussion and reporting of suicides by both the traditional media and the wider community before and after any coronial investigation.The bill reflects the outcomes of the Ministry of Justice's review of the Coroner's Act which was completed by my predecessor as the Minister for Courts the Hon Chester Borrows. The review found that the principal Act and the major reforms that it instituted were generally working well overall. I want to acknowledge the work of my predecessor the Justice and Electoral Committee those who made submissions to the review and those who have worked on developing the bill. I certainly believe that it will improve our coronial system and I thoroughly commend it to the House. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It is a strong convention in this House that Ministers giving third reading speeches are entitled to read their speeches. [Interruption] This is not a debate on that."