Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Oh he's been waiting for this all night Madam Assistant Speaker. Let him have his fun.It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the second readings of the Courts Matters Bill and Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill. Can I acknowledge the Associate Minister of Justice Aupito William Sio. I'm sure he felt that all his Christmases had come at once when he saw the quality of this bill and he realised that he was going to be given the opportunity to actually shepherd this bill through the House. He wouldn't have seen work like this in his nine years in Opposition and he came into Government and he thought Wow look at this—the quality of the bill."Hon Aupito William Sio: Madam Assistant Speaker I'm leaving!Hon MARK MITCHELL: No stay please—don't go! I'm only just getting started. I just want to acknowledge the Minister and also the ministry staff that have worked on putting this very good bill together.In all seriousness it is very important actually especially for victims. Going to court can be a pretty traumatic experience; so any work that can be done around making sure that that experience is actually eased for them a bit more is actually a very good thing.I just wanted to talk too about the tribunals briefly. I want to talk about the disputes tribunal because I actually brought a private member's bill to this House back in 2013 I think and it was around the disputes tribunal and it was about raising the threshold from $15000 to $30000.Rt Hon Winston Peters: What happened?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well the reason why I did that is because—well it got taken up as part of this bill. It's now in this bill.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Really?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Have you read the bill?Rt Hon Winston Peters: In 2018?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah it's right there. It's been taken up by the Government and it's a very very good piece of the bill. The reason it is is because at no other time in the last nine or 10 years have businesses ever needed more help than right now. The reason for that is that we have a Government that doesn't like business. They're implementing policy after policy and they're finally starting to get some of their own legislation into the House tonight. I have to go back to the comment made by Mr Ball which I found fascinating that after nine months in Government finally they're starting to get some of their own legislation into the House. Up until now they've been passing all ours; they've been bringing in all our legislation.Look I do want to acknowledge Mr Ball as well. He's got a very good bill that he's proposing to bring to the House. We had a meeting—myself and Mr Bishop—with him on it the other night. It's the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. It's an outstanding bill because what it's going to do—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Can we come back to this bill?Hon MARK MITCHELL: If you can bear with me for just a minute I'll be very quick Madam Assistant Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No.Hon MARK MITCHELL: OK. Well I'd just like to say that it was a great bill. I have to say that Andrew Little didn't seem that happy about it but certainly we support it. So coming back to the disputes tribunal we extended the limit from $15000 to $30000. It's actually a great idea because what it means is that with this change especially small businesses which really had to almost give up a claim because the threshold was not high enough—so they had to give up large parts of their claim—they can now take it to the disputes tribunal. So they can stay away from lawyers they can stay away from the costs associated with actually trying to get that hard-earned money back and they can take it straight into the disputes tribunal. Wouldn't you agree that that's a great part of it?Hon Dr Megan Woods: Why didn't you do it while you were in Government? Why didn't you do it?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Isn't that a fantastic part of the bill? We have done it; this is our bill. We have done it; it's in the House. It's our bill; we have actually done it. I'll tell you what tell me about clause 40. Do you think clause—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Mitchell. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry I apologise. I get a bit over-excited with this stuff Madam Assistant Speaker. I apologise. So can I ask the member—actually can I ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters: do you think that removing clause 40 from the Courts Matters Bill was a good move? Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Now look I know it's late at night and some of those of those members over there are getting tired but they must not bring you into the debate.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you very much.Hon MARK MITCHELL: So let me rephrase it: does the Rt Hon Winston Peters think the removal of clause 40 was a good decision on this bill? What does he think?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Continue with your speech.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Oh I'm very interested to know because he's had a lot to say. He wanted the detail. He wanted to know the detail.Hon Member: Take another call.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Take another call? Someone take a call and come and talk to me about clause 40. I'll tell you what: I'll let you off the hook and I'll tell you what clause 40 is all about. Clause 40 was taken out and actually I think it was a good move because fundamentally what it meant was that they were trying to—it related to section 380 which meant that if by mistake the prosecutor lodged the information with the District Court which meant that you had a youth that should have been tried in the Youth Court taken into the District Court clause 40 was proposing that actually if it was discovered during the case then they'd have to remain in the District Court. But actually what happened was that—Rt Hon Winston Peters: That's what he said.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well you were very silent a minute ago when I was asking you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!Hon MARK MITCHELL: So I'm a bit confused—did you know or didn't you know? ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry Madam Assistant Speaker. I thought it was polite to engage. But anyway clause 40 was removed because actually it was decided that you don't want to remove the right for a youth to actually have access to all the support services in the Youth Court. So that was a very good decision; one that we supported in this bill. [Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!Hon MARK MITCHELL: The other thing that I wanted to talk about very briefly was around actually giving court officers more powers in their ability to do their job. They are now able to deal with drug paraphernalia under the Misuse of Drugs Act which is very important.It expands the definition of "court" to include "any space between the building and the road". I'll tell you why this is important—and it comes back to talking about the rights of victims and the trauma that they experience when they go into court—very often you will get the family of defendants or if it's a gang member or multiple gang members that might be facing charges in court they will all accumulate outside the court. They do that for one reason and one reason only: to intimidate the victim or the victim's family or the victim's friends when they are entering the courthouse. So what it means now is that the court has got jurisdiction and control over that area which once they did not; it was a public area between the courthouse and the road. So that means that they'll actually be able to make it a bit safer and control that area a lot more which means that victims are not going to have to face the intimidation that I've often seen myself when they are just trying to do a basic thing like get inside the courthouse.They are also going to be able to have the power to use reasonable force when pursuing an escapee and I think that this is—[Interruption]Hon Tracey Martin: Ha ha!Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well it's funny that Tracey Martin finds this funny. I don't want to get started on her—a politician that should be in Somaliland rather than New Zealand with her foot soldier there sat beside her but we'll wait for a general debate on this one. Why don't we wait for a general debate on this one right?Chris Bishop: How's the inquiry going?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah the inquiry—exactly. Well let's wait for some other time on that one. Anyway—[Interruption]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!Hon MARK MITCHELL: A court security officer is able now to pursue someone that is trying to escape court. Fundamentally I think this is—Hon Tracey Martin: Spell my name right. Spell my name right for goodness' sake!Hon MARK MITCHELL: It's very hard. It's like nails on a blackboard. It's very very hard to—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): It is indeed a disorderly session tonight. Can we just settle please? We've only got a few more minutes till the end of the evening.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. So this is another very good change that's being implemented in the bill which will actually discourage offenders from thinking that they can decamp from the courthouse because now the court officers—and many of them are ex - law enforcement officers—have got the ability to stop that. This is a very good bill. I'm very happy to have taken a call and recommend this bill to the House. Thank you."