Mooney Joseph; Faafoi KrisJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister I'm interested in the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act. This is being amended I understand to reduce mounting backlogs in the District Court caused by COVID-19 restrictions. I'm interested having worked in this field for many years what the difference is between the backlogs that were in the District Court prior to the beginning of 2020—i.e. before the pandemic began—and the backlog now? Because I know having advised defendants on many occasions over the years that if they're waiting for a jury trial they may be waiting for 1 to 2 years or even 3 years if there are some complications and pre-trial arguments that need to be argued prior to the matter being scheduled for a trial. So it's very long and cumbersome. In fact I tell defendants You're getting on a train and you don't know when the train is going to end. So just buckle in for a long ride."So my question is: how big a backlog are we looking at and how long is it going to take for that backlog to be processed; and what difference will it make for the High Court to be able to bring cases back from this court jurisdiction back into the High Court. I'm just looking at the wording of section 68A(1)—this is in Part 2 of Schedule 6—where it says that the High Court when considering whether to bring this back to the High Court on the judge's own motion may consider "a jury backlog arising out of particular circumstances"—and then it says in (a)(iii)—"(for example compliance with rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19);". As I read that the High Court's being given jurisdiction to bring it back for any reason. It might be somewhere else but I can't see particular circumstances—they haven't been defined. And it doesn't seem to be specific just to the spread of COVID-19. So I would like to have some clarification Minister on that point.There is another point Minister that we've just been talking about—landlords and tenants—and there's a point I haven't heard addressed yet and that is saying effectively I think that the assumption is that landlords are wealthier than tenants and therefore we need to socialise the costs to landlords. However the primary outgoing for most landlords and the primary asset is actually owned by banks. I haven't heard any discussion of what relief there is going to be for landlords in paying their rates paying interest payments and paying insurance. And of course any tenant faced with a Government-mandated lockdown would say "Look I'll take anything the Government will give me. If the Government's going to get someone else to help me get through this great." but my question is: has the Government actually looked at the cost to landlords and what the cost will be if they have to keep paying their interest payments yet don't have the income coming in from the tenant to cover that interest? And therefore what economic carnage is the Government potentially setting up in the market for landlords who are unable to meet their interest payments to the banks given this intrusion by the Government into the contractual arrangements between the tenant and landlord? It would seem Minister that the Government's saying—and I've heard the Minister say today—"Look this is a big cost. Someone's got to bear it. We're going to make the landlord bear it." But I haven't heard any discussion about how deep this dive goes. So if landlords start looking at having to collapse is the next step for the Government going to be to look at the banks and say "Actually hang on. You have to make an agreement for a fair proportion of interest payments based on the rent that the tenant is paying to the landlord."? Is this where the Government's going? It would seem a logical journey to keep on socialising these costs further and further until we get to the point where we have some real problems in the market. With that Minister I'll take a seat and I'll be interested in your answers.Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I thank the member for the questions. Can I just remind the Opposition that the bill itself for the parties affected requires them to come to an arrangement around fair proportion. Fair proportion in one situation may be completely different in terms of its makeup in terms of who bears more of the onus than another situation. So there's flexibility within the bill to make sure that the kinds of inequities—that certainly the Government wouldn't like to see in some of those situations—being considered and an arrangement being come to can be met in the numerous numbers of situations that you might have to look at.To the questions that the member had around the Criminal Procedure Act obviously with Auckland and a large part of the Waikato having been affected by alert level changes more recently the likes of jury trials have been affected. There is a provision within this bill to allow more audiovisual links to be used in the likes of coroners' hearings etc. Obviously the quantum of backlog of cases isn't as serious as it was in the first lockdown because the whole country was moving alert levels but that is not to say that it is not significant because the Auckland court system has been running at reduced levels. I don't have the numbers on me but I'd also note that my predecessor the Hon Andrew Little was able to ensure that more resources were given to the Ministry of Justice and the judiciary to ensure that there were resources to deal with some of the backlog. We're assessing the backlog size now and the question around how long it will take to deal with some of that backlog is still obviously a moot point while we're still at the alert levels we are. We're well aware that there are disruptions and the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice is trying to make sure that it can prioritise and triage cases that can be dealt with. But certainly there will be a backlog that when we return to alert levels or amber or green traffic light system levels the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice will make sure that we are dealing with it."