Borrows Chester: Courts (Remote Participation) Bill — Third Reading 
Borrows Chester: Courts (Remote Participation) Bill — Third Reading 
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CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 When people believe in something so much that they put their heads above the parapet and get elected to this House one of their biggest frustrations once they get here is to have to compromise. Compromise is affected by who is putting forward legislation whether that person is in one’s party and whether that person supports one’s party and the arguments begin. 
A number of people come to this House and take on issues as if they were fighting in the front row of the All Blacks. As someone who never had the privilege of playing for the All Blacks but spent about 25 years in the front row I do not believe that that is the attitude one should bring to this House. And the public the people who put us here do not want us to have that attitude when we are debating the issues. 
It is a privilege to be the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee and to work in a very collaborative way with members who have the integrity of the members who have been spoken this afternoon: the Hon David Parker Jacinda Ardern Lynne Pillay Dr Kennedy Graham Simon Bridges Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi Hekia Parata and Paul Quinn. I thank the various members of the committee for their kind words this afternoon in respect not only of the committee and the way that it works but also my chairmanship of it. It is very much a privilege to work on this sort of legislation—legislation that with a reasonable amount of collaboration an expectation of fair play and a willingness to engage will have an enduring nature to it because it will work past the political divides. 
The Courts (Remote Participation) Bill—whose title is indeed an oxymoron as my friend Te Ururoa Flavell has mentioned—does a number of things that a lot of people outside the system would be very very pleased with. Firstly remote participation allows for cheaper court cases. But I believe very strongly that justice should never be measured in terms of how much it costs. Justice is something that as scripture tells us rains down upon all the Earth on the just and the unjust. In a civilised society justice is meted out to those who deserve it and to those who do not. That is how we know we are living in a just country and that is why I am so pleased to be living in this country instead of Cuba Fiji Georgia or some other country where the extent of justice is based on who can pay for it and on whom one knows rather than on the premise that a person who asserts must prove and one is innocent until proven guilty. 
The fact that people will be able to appear as witnesses before the court via an audiovisual link is a good thing. It has significant advantages but it also has some disadvantages. The fact that we deal with media in the way that Te Ururoa Flavell outlined to us earlier is exactly the point. As somebody who has been the officer in charge of trials involving the sexual abuse of young children I can say that having a young child appear before the court and give evidence by an audiovisual link has some definite advantages because it encourages the child to get the words out. 
But it also has a distinct disadvantage which is that in the world that we live in we are unfortunately used to seeing horrible things on television. So when a child witness is giving evidence of the terrible things that happened to him or her—the most disgusting sexual crimes for instance—it is all too easy for members of a jury to be removed from and remote from the full effect of that evidence because they are watching it on a television monitor and unfortunately we are used to seeing bad things on television. I would encourage people appearing as witnesses to be in the room if they can because the weight of the evidence carries far more effect if the witness is in the room. 
The bill brings huge advantages in respect of the safety of those required to transport prisoners to and from court and we have heard about and recall to mind the death of Liam Ashley. The default position is that for procedural matters people appear via an audiovisual link in order to avoid a threat to the safety of officers and fellow prisoners and that is a good thing. We can agree with that. 
It was however of real concern to a number of us that this bill sought to remove the fundamental right to be present at one’s own trial. It bothers me that over recent years huge traction has been gained by a section of people in this society who live remote from the judicial system have no contact with it and want the court to get harder and harder on those who appear before it. 
I was pleased to hear my friend from the ACT Party David Garrett finally admit that the rights of the defendant are paramount within our justice system—and so they should be. In a recent media study of police stories in our newspapers 80 percent were neutral reporting only that the police were involved in a particular case—the reports were neither bad news nor good news—10 percent were negative for the police and 10 percent were positive. Calling to mind any of those neutral newspaper articles or any of the positive newspaper articles is a very very difficult thing to do. Yet we can recall to mind quite easily the abhorrent cases that are reported in respect of our law and order issues. All that does is gain traction for those people who want to attrit the rule of law as it applies to people who appear before the court. 
I am incredibly proud to be part of this Government and to work under the leadership of the Minister of Justice the Hon Simon Power. He is prepared to listen to a debate to consider the arguments and to change his position even with the prospect of some degree of attack from another side or from the commentators I have already referred to. He is prepared to do what is right and just in a situation and to protect the rule of law. Thank you.