McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the new Minister for the coronial courts. Rino Tirikatene you've inherited a lot and it's a pleasure to see you sitting here for this the second reading of what is a very important bill that the ACT Party intend to continue to support.I'd also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the Justice Committee the officials that helped us navigate through some of the more—I don't know—the wording—Teanau Tuiono: The wording.NICOLE McKEE: —the wording of the bill and also to the submitters. There were over 2500 submissions and we heard from 35 others who gave oral submissions as well. We worked through with the Justice Committee and the officials those areas that the submitters had raised with us and we've gone on to change some of that wording within the bill as a result of their concerns. More and more I hear from communities that they feel they aren't listened to when they submit on bills with their concerns. And I hope that the changes that we've made in this bill reiterates the importance of people actually submitting giving public views on bills so that we can make changes to make our legislation tighter and relevant to the communities it's going to affect. So again I acknowledge the public's input. There's quite a backlog within the coroner's courts. It has grown over the years especially as the number of coronial investigations has also grown. Once a coroner starts an investigation or an inquiry then the delays of course become longer. This bill addresses those delays in the coroner's court delays that were first identified back in 2014. That was over nine years ago. ACT supported the Government's changes last year the ones that introduce room for appointment of more coroners to also help the system. At the time we were sceptical that the ability to appoint only two more coroners wasn't enough to address the issues. We were told that another significant change was coming and here it is. That increase of coroners was the first step in addressing the coronial delays. This bill now allows for associate coroners to help with the administrative workloads and we're happy to support these changes that continue to address and relieve the pressure on both the coroner's courts and also the families. When a coroner looks into a case they can make recommendations and those recommendations are often an attempt to identify and bring to the attention of officials and the public areas of concern that may need addressing. Concerns remain until determinations are made and at times the weight has been known to be over half a decade or more. Recommendations are important. If an investigation or inquiry is held then those recommendations are released in an effort to stop dangerous practices from happening again. So the sooner the coroner can investigate and conclude the sooner the families have relief and any potential recommendations can then be made public.This doesn't mean we rushed through coronial hearings—not at all. It means they get processed in a timely and respectful way towards the families. If we can do that we can give families closure while working on decreasing the backlog. This bill will allow associate coroners to be established within the coronial system. They would be given similar powers functions and duties of a coroner. What they won't be able to do is hold an inquest; nor will they be able to decide that an inquest is necessary. In return the coroners will be able to spend more time on complex cases or investigating on questioning or on determining causes of death. We heard from submitters who are concerned about clause 10 of this bill where the proposal was to add a section that would allow a coroner to record the death as being from unascertained natural causes". Officials assured us that this determination would only be made where they were satisfied that the death was the result of natural causes based on evidence that they had already collected and that no further investigation would therefore need to be required. Many of the submitters were worried that this particular clause would result in less thorough inquiries into some deaths. The officials assured us that the use of this clause is intended to be for circumstances where there is evidence already available that would point to a person's natural death. For example an elderly person aged in their nineties with known heart conditions who then say drops dead on the bowling green unexpectedly—they can have the coroner declare that their death was from natural causes because they had evidence to show that was the likely cause. However the concerns from the community were noted and as such we changed the wording of clause 10 to reflect the submissions and discussions that we had on it. We're therefore changing the wording from "unascertained natural causes" to "presumed natural causes without investigation". The coroner will need to be satisfied that all the evidence he has in front of him shows that the likelihood that a person has died from natural causes is enough for him to declare that the death is of natural causes and that the coroner doesn't need any further investigation or evidence to make that determination. ACT have agreed to this change in the bill as we believe it is better wording to be used. However we have the same concerns as our colleagues in the National Party that one person alone—namely the coroner—shouldn't be left to make such a decision as it's ultimately shortcutting the process which could be detrimental to public interest. Hence ACT will be supporting our colleague's Supplementary Order Paper 327 in the next stage of this bill. We are amending section 77 of the Act to ensure that the coroner considers the views of interested parties as well as relevant factors and information that has been presented by those parties when holding an inquiry on the papers so to speak rather than as an inquest. Any interested party can express their view that an inquest is warranted and present evidence for this and that evidence must be considered. We outlined in the bill that an associate coroner cannot determine if an inquest should be held and that if on the papers they believe there should be an inquest then they are to refer that to the Chief Coroner. But in the interests of time we can't expect the Chief Coroner to look at every single case like this in a timely manner where an interested party considers that an inquest is required so we've made an amendment that when the Chief Coroner receives advice from the associate coroner that an inquest is recommended the case can then be assigned to another coroner for timely consideration. Amendments have been made to give the associate coroners the same immunities that coroners have. That's a bit of a no-brainer. If we're expecting them to undertake so many of the same duties and functions of a coroner we should make sure they have access to the same types of powers. In saying that they will also be subject to the same complaints and removal regime that the coroners currently face. Therefore the bill has been amended to also reflect that. Finally an important part of this bill is for the families out there. We heard you when you told us—sorry I'm just speaking to the families. We heard the families when they told us that coroners are often unavailable to assist families to tidy up a deceased person's affairs—accessing and closing bank accounts dealing with life insurance agencies. Generally getting one's affairs in order cannot happen without either a death certificate or a certificate of interim findings. When coroners are so busy they struggle to complete these really important documents for the families. An amendment has been made which will allow another coroner to issue the certificate for the families instead of those families having to wait on the availability of their assigned coroner.We hope that these agreed amendments assist not only the coronial courts to catch up but gives families some certainty that they won't be facing year upon year of waiting for hearings for outcomes and for closure. And in that respect ACT supports this bill."