Penk Chris; Dean JacquiCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Madam Speaker. We have said all along that where in the courts portfolio we have a proposal from Government that we can support because it will improve the lot of those who are going through the system we will support it. We continue to support this piece of legislation the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill because we think it is worthwhile. We think it does something that will indeed help to reduce the delays in the court system. So I begin on that bipartisan note to explain to the House that National will support this bill at its final reading and we wish well all those who will be affected by the work of the courts including the future Family Court Associates themselves.I think it's fair to place this bill in the context of the efforts that the Government has made in relation to the Family Court these past six years. If we take a step back from that we should consider the old maxim that justice delayed is justice denied and of course that means different things for different courts. In the criminal court context we have people who should be presumed innocent until such time as they are proven guilty held on remand. That places a great strain on the system. We have in a civil context the perverse incentive for people to delay proceedings and to avoid going to court in a way that would prejudice the rights of others. And in the Family Court we have lives that are left in limbo for far too long; we have division crystallised breakdown exacerbated in a way that the Minister actually explained I think very well.So it is common ground I think on all sides of politics that we must speed up our courtroom processes. Sadly that's not been the experience of the last six years. To be fair it's been a longstanding issue in our New Zealand courts that matters take far too long to be decided. And of course that is to the great detriment not only of those working in the system but also more importantly even than them those who are innocently involved in matters that take so very long to be disposed of. So the Family Court Associate is I think a role that will help. As the Minister has explained it's similar to that of a judge and it's almost a situation of walking like a judge and quacking like a judge but not in fact being a judge being a judicial officer. And I should explain that—Simon O'Connor: What are these judges up to these days?CHRIS PENK: Yeah I might need to duck for cover after perhaps putting my non-webbed foot in it but you get the idea—Harete Hipango: You're getting in a flap!CHRIS PENK: And we don't even have a Speaker Mallard any more to appreciate these! Anyway we've upgraded haven't we ma'am?Hon Members: Move on.CHRIS PENK: I'm being encouraged to move on so I shall. But actually there are a number of different constraints that face the Family Court system at the moment and having a Family Court Associate will help in some of those respects but not in others.Some of the constraints that currently are the cause or a contributing factor to the delays actually won't be resolved by this. For example it's pointed out that the Family Court Associate will have the power to obtain reports such as cultural medical psychiatric and psychological—that's a worthwhile thing for Associates to do—but of course the constraint at the moment exists largely in the unavailability of sufficient numbers of people who are qualified professionals who are willing and able to supply those reports. There are various things that could be done about that probably outside the scope of this bill so I won't traverse those now but suffice to say that that's a constraint that isn't directly addressed by the bill. And any serious reform of the Family Court system must consider such wider factors as that and understand that the Family Court Associate will be operating in very much the same environment as the Family Court judge currently is.Other problems such as self-represented litigants: with all the best will in the world but perhaps less experience and training than qualified lawyers they do inevitably make life difficult for those working in the system. And I say that not in a way to sound as though people do not have the right to access justice; of course everyone has the right to access justice. If the system is such and their resources are such that they feel they are best served by self-representing that's an indictment on the system more generally. But again Family Court Associates will have to deal with that issue as best they can. Again there are things we can do but again I would suggest that that's not something we had best litigate so to speak in the context of this bill.These other problems will persist and so we have I suppose in the nature of a band-aid solution—of course a band-aid can be helpful if the wound is small enough that it will cover it but I think we shouldn't pretend to ourselves that this is a more comprehensive solution than it is. And I think we should all feel challenged to provide policy solutions that will actually provide a more comprehensive approach to reforming our courts. If I were to summarise it I would say that there is a huge administrative burden at the moment. The Family Court Associate role being established by this bill will help because some 25 percent of the judge's workload is administrative and the Family Court Associates can do some of that work. But of course if we were to remove some of the administrative burden by making the processes more straightforward more user-friendly there would be less of that work needed in the first place.In terms of what has happened to this bill since it's gone through I think the Justice Committee's treatment of it was very positive. I think I'm right in saying that the chairmanship passed during the course of that bill being in front of the select committee from the Hon Ginny Andersen as she now is to Vanushi Walters. May I say that I think the committee under their leadership has done a good job of examining what's needed in the bill and as the Minister the Hon Kiritapu Allan has rightly and graciously acknowledged the committee had a certain amount of help from a number of very useful and informed submissions including former judges no less. So it's been a worthwhile exercise to improve the bill.The changes which we don't need to go through in detail were along the lines of recognising that the Family Court Associate will be a judicial officer albeit not a judge but it's appropriate to provide them some of the protections which of course protect the system as a whole such as saying that they'll have the same immunity and they can't be removed for grounds other than the pretty narrow ones on which it's possible to remove a judge currently: inability which is pretty tightly defined or misbehaviour. We don't want judges or as I say Family Court Associates to be able to be removed on the whim of those who might simply dislike the decisions that they reach. So we thought that was appropriate.I say we"; I wasn't a member of the committee per se. I think I might have attended some of the consideration and the hearings and submissions but certainly I did my best to familiarise myself with these issues that were being discussed at that level. We saw as well at select committee that a Family Court Associate would be able to direct a registrar to appoint a lawyer to assist the court under several Acts. That's an administrative decision; an important one but one that's not necessarily judicial albeit that it should be exercised in a judicious fashion. So that's I think helpful and again along the lines of performing some of those administrative tasks will be useful.Even more arcane than that are a couple of changes made in the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Government which again we supported. We thought it was helpful to have the Oath of Allegiance under the Oaths and Declarations Act to be required to be taken—I think one "takes" an oath—by Family Court Associates just as with judges. And also there's a quinquennial review—I think I'm right in saying it's every five years but I like using that word anyway so let's hope it's five years! And I don't know any equivalent names for other ones.Simon O'Connor: Say it again.CHRIS PENK: So the quinquennial review timing has been established by Supplementary Order Paper which as I say we supported.So with a minute to go I'll summarise my comments by saying again that we support this measure. We think it's helpful in itself. Of course the question I suppose is begged: why not simply appoint more judges? Because a judge can do everything that a Family Court Associate will be able to do—is my understanding—albeit that the reverse doesn't quite apply. It might be that there are good reasons for that. I mean there's currently a cap on the number of judges one can have. I'm not quite sure why; I think that's something we could all look at. There was actually a lifting of the cap on the number of judges in primary legislation as Budget urgency in a previous year so perhaps we have that to look forward to in the next 24 hours or so. And I'm keenly looking across the aisle to see if any Labour Party colleagues who might know what's in the Budget can give any clues with their body language but I'm getting nothing back. Indeed I think we might need to wake one of them up before her contribution but that's a comment on me not on any of them. So we supported this bill. We continue to support the bill. It's a good idea as far as it goes but more is needed. We support and commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."