Goff Phil: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9720. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): It was interesting—just to pick up on a comment made by the last speaker the Hon Kate Wilkinson—to hear about the Government welcoming bipartisan support. I think it is good when the House can come together and overwhelmingly support a piece of legislation that people acknowledge will improve the functioning of the justice system. Indeed the Law Society in its submissions on this bill the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill made the point that in regard to criminal legislation you should try to take the politicising of it out and actually work to have a coherent policy that will serve the interests of New Zealanders of victims and of all of those who appear in the court system.I would hope that the Hon Kate Wilkinson and the National caucus as a whole actually take those principles and apply them more generally to the legislation in the House. Last night we spent hours debating legislation—when no member of the National Government got to their feet to debate it—that was rammed through under urgency. No attempt was made to build consensus. There was an absolute politicisation of the process. And then the Government wondered why it got powerful Government security legislation rammed through the House with the barest of margins—the barest of margins.So I say to Kate Wilkinson: take the principles that you have just stated now and apply them to what you are generally doing across the House and then you would get better legislation. You would have proper process and you would have good legislation. What the National Government showed last night was that it was not interested in process and was not interested in good legislation. It was not interested in protecting human rights against the most intrusive powers that the State can operate. Contrast that with this legislation. Suddenly peace and harmony Chester Borrows have broken out across the House. There is good reason for that. I agree with what Chester Borrows said in the House last night. These are the most important changes to the criminal procedure legislation in 50 years—in a couple of generations.We need to look at the process to understand why this legislation will be good. It began under Labour actually in 2007. The way we went about this—and I was Minister of Justice just prior to that—was that we got the Ministry of Justice to do the work together with the Law Commission. They spent thousands of hours in working out how we could get fundamental reform to deal with some of the issues that confronted the justice system. So the process was not rushed it was not rammed through and it was not designed to be a distraction from the embarrassment of the Government in another area like the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill was last night. It was proper process. The homework was done and the groundwork was laid.Then we got the legislation. The primary legislation for this bill was 526 pages long. It was an enormous piece of legislation and what it tried to do was address some of the critical issues that were facing the procedures in the criminal justice system. There were excessive costs and there were excessive time delays. You had a legislation process or a framework that was outdated and you had excessive complexity involved in it. In fact the Law Commission described the court system as an impenetrable maze for lawyers. Lawyers might like that because it creates work for them but actually when they think of the public interest they do not like that. You have got to think about serving society about serving victims and about protecting the interests of defendants in the right way. We were getting huge delays in the court system and justice delayed is justice denied. We have heard that many times over and it is absolutely correct.So the legislation that came in aimed basically at addressing these critical problems: excessive costs excessive delay excessive complexity and an outdated legislative framework. There was cross-party support for that broad reform but then the Government decided it wanted to put in a number of more contentious things. That included lifting the threshold for jury trials so you would not be eligible for a jury trial unless your maximum jail sentence was in excess of 3 years. It required the defence to identify and disclose issues under dispute before trial and that clearly would have worked against the interests of the defendant and would have been unfair. There was the allowance of courts to actually try a defendant in the defendant’s absence. That was an absolute turn-round on fundamental rights in the justice system that go back hundreds of years. There was the attempt to load compliance costs on to those involved in the process and there was the attempt to remove the right to silence.I want to give credit to a past National Minister of Justice Simon Power. Actually even though he put this in the original criminal procedures legislation when the submissions were heard before the select committee when the evidence was given and when Labour the Greens and other parties highlighted the inadequacies of this he listened and made changes—he listened and he made changes. There was proper process. The select committee worked. That is what democracy was about. That is why last night in this House we fought tooth and nail against the abridging of that process and the truncating of the opportunities for people to make submissions.If you want to get legislation right this legislation demonstrates absolutely clearly the importance of the select committee process. And we have just heard National members on this technical piece of legislation to bring the criminal procedures legislation into effect saying how important those submissions were. Today they say how important it is for the public to be able to make submissions. Last night they voted in the House to abridge the right of New Zealanders to have their voices heard on perhaps the most intrusive powers a Government has ever given itself to interfere in the privacy of individuals and to direct companies. I say those are double standards. We cannot say: “This legislation is good. Isn’t it great? We’ve got consensus good process good outcome.” and then do the opposite.When is this slow-to-learn Government ever going to pick up the message that if you want legislation that serves New Zealand properly then you do the proper process? You consult before you bring in contentious legislation. You try to embrace the Opposition and say that this is what you are trying to do. Before you tell telecommunications companies what to do in every aspect of their jobs talk to them first—talk to them first. We saw in the corrections amendment legislation which some of my colleagues from the opposite side of the House were on the committee for that the Government in that case did not talk to the telecommunications companies first. It got it absolutely wrong. It had to do a total U-turn. But did it learn that lesson? No it did not learn that lesson.The appalling thing about today is that this bill before us today highlights every rort every inadequacy every breach of process every attempt to truncate the ability of New Zealanders to have their voice heard and people to be properly consulted that occurred last night. When is this National Government going to learn? When are those backbenchers with their heads down now actually going to stop being lobby-fodder and challenge in their caucus the ridiculous decisions being made by their Ministers including the Prime Minister? People elected the Government members to the House to actually have their voice heard not to stand up on highly contentious legislation mumble some inane comment and sit down. That is not the job of the Government backbenchers and well you should hang your heads in shame at the behaviour of the National Party caucus and its acolytes last night in the House.This piece of legislation is actually a good piece of legislation. It supports a piece of legislation that had bipartisan support that went through proper process and we are celebrating that now. So for heaven’s sake if this is good and this was good process and this worked in the interests of New Zealanders apply those same principles across everything that the Government is trying to do including some of the obnoxious pieces of legislation that were compelled through the House last night by the narrowest of majorities. All that means is that actually we will be back in 18 months under a new Government to repeal that legislation. This legislation today is an example of how you should have done it and that is why Labour is supporting it.