Williams Poto: Coroners Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Coroners Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7411. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. As members have heard before Labour is not supporting this bill. I want to talk a little bit about what the role of the coroner—[Interruption]—this is a serious matter—is actually about. It is in the event that a doctor is unable to certify the cause of death the coroner is there to establish how that death occurred and also to work out whether anything can be done differently to prevent similar deaths in the future. If that is the case it is their duty to make recommendations. To quote from the Coronial Services of New Zealand website the coroner “speaks for the dead to protect the living”.Really their roleis to establish the cause of death—whether it was accidental whether it was natural whether it was because of misadventure or whether it was at the hands of someone or some people. Where those deaths were preventable their roleis to think about the possible mitigations remedies and opportunities to ensure that those deaths are prevented from happening in the future. Also it provides impetus for us to look at health and safety and employment practices to ensure that we are as safe as we can be when we go to work and that we return home safely to our families at the end of the day. And most important the role of the coroner is to provide the family of the deceased with some certainty.The Justice and Electoral Committee has returned its report and one of the discussions that it had relating to clause 30 talked about the response to the coroner on the coroner’s recommendations. With the insertion of new sections 57A and 57B in clause 30 the agency that has been subject to that consultation may choose to respond to the coroner but many of the submitters—and some of those who sat on the select committee agreed with the submitters—said that in order to give full effect to the coroner’s recommendations it should be mandatory for those consulted agencies to respond whether that is by indicating how the implementation of the recommendations will occur or by providing reasons for the refusal for that implementation. In her submission the Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall made the comment that “the Amendment Bill should include a clause to provide the legislative basis for ‘mandatory responses’”. She submits that those sections that I have referred to should “be amended to state ‘the proposed recommendation or comment must be responded to by those persons or organisations within 21 days of the notification of the recommendation.’ ”Secondly what information should actually be reported in that recommendation? Again I look to the submission made by the Chief Coroner where she submitted that new section 57A(3) should be amended to read either “ ‘(a) be clearly linked to the issues to which the inquiry relates’; or ‘(a) be either: (i) clearly linked to the factors that contributed to the death … or (ii) considered necessary by the coroner in order to prevent deaths in similar situations’ ”.Here we speak to situations where the cause may be one thing but where there are underlying factors that should be exposed to public view in order to prevent deaths in the future. My colleague Jacinda Ardern referred to a road death that may have been caused by the driver consuming alcohol but where on further investigation there had been several accidents in that area. That is useful information to prevent future deaths.Lastly I just want to refer to new section 80 in clause 41 which we have some discomfort about. When a death occurs in custody the first response to that by the coroner should be an inquest rather than an inquiry. An inquiry can sometimes be a review of papers whereas an inquest can seek evidence and require people to appear before the coroner. Cost should not be the factor that determines whether it is an inquest or an inquiry. Thank you.