Andersen Ginny; Tolley AnneVIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): It's a pleasure to rise to speak on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill. It's good to see agreement across the House on a bill that makes good sense. There's been quite a few members' bills drawn from the National Party I acknowledge and it's good to finally see one that actually does something sensible. So I'm pleased to say that Labour will be supporting this bill.I'd like to acknowledge—in terms of looking at the background briefly—the role that Chris Finlayson has played and acknowledge that he has taken the initiative to look at the Law Commission's report in the space of contempt of court and the draft bill that was attached to their report and to submit this to the House in his name. Under good luck it has been drawn.So contempt of court—in terms of what we see is really an undermining of the integrity of the justice system and the court system. It's important that we can be reassured that court proceedings will not be disrupted that the judiciary are respected and that good process is followed. On that note it's really important to see that it is important that justice is seen to be done.I'll briefly recall a slightly amusing story. A good friend of mine on her first time as a duty solicitor was representing somebody who had been charged with a minor cannabis offence who stood in the dock wearing a legalise cannabis" T-shirt and addressed the judge by saying "What's the haps Judge?" So in terms of making sure that people follow good process—it's not at the extreme end of contempt of court but it's important to note that we must be pleased with the way our justice system is run and our court system is running and that people see that it runs well.This bill tidies up a range of legislation that's peppered across different outcomes from court cases. It has evolved in a rather piecemeal fashion. It's also noted here that the existing law pre-dates the digital age. One of the biggest changes I have seen is the change really of social media and what that means. What it has meant in a sense is that we have so many people that now have the ability to not only find out information but also to generate it themselves and to distribute that information. Keeping that in mind we are also in an age where court cases are discussed frequently in the media where online media access means that there are comments and debates around certain rulings that judges have made. So the combination of the increased access of social media and the increase of how much court cases are regularly discussed is a pretty potent combination. This gives rise to the need for this bill to take place.So the Law Commission has made three key points in terms of what it recommends. When I read these through it struck me how much this resonated with the fact of the increased access of social media. So the first is clearer statutory rules governing the publishing of information on an arrested person's previous convictions and concurrent charges; the second one being new statutory powers allowing the courts to make temporary suppression orders postponing publication of information that poses a real risk of prejudice to an arrested person's trial. Thirdly is a new statutory offence to replace the common law contempt of publishing information where there is a real risk that the publication could prejudice that fair trial. So it's good to see that those key recommendations that relate to that are now being reflected in this bill by limiting the publication of trial-related information and by imposing fines to stop that behaviour continuing.The last point I will touch on before finishing is that it's good to see that there is also clear provision on how our judges are treated to make sure that there are good processes in place and that this law is combined in one clear readable space to acknowledge that judges do a hard job on a daily basis and that that needs to happen as well.So I'd like to thank the member for bringing this bill to the House and I would like to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Before I call the next speaker can I apologise for you having to work without the clock going. Well timed."