Naylor Jono: Coroners Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Coroners Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1789. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National):It has been just great so far to hear the various things that have been said around this room and the level of support there is from right across the House for this Coroners Amendment Bill to move to the next stage. I think it is critical for us that we do support bills like this because as Mr Clendon said earlier when it comes to talking about death when it comes to talking about the effects of death on families and on the general population of our country I think it is beholden on all of us to take a really mature approach to it to take a very broad approach to it and to really just ensure that what we do absolutely serves those people because that is what we are here to do: to serve the people of New Zealand to serve families who have suffered trauma who have suffered grief and to make sure that we get processes like this right.Before talking about the bill specifically can I also just acknowledge the work that is done by our coroners around New Zealand. It is not a task I do not think that anyone would actually get a whole lot of pleasure from when you have to investigate and probe and look into sudden or unexplained deaths. You are dealing with very important matters. You are dealing with grief. You are dealing with the feelings of families who have been affected by it and often you are dealing with really quite unpleasant details as well. I think those people who—I guess we all have to do different things in our jobs but being a coroner I do not imagine has too much upside at the end of the day other than knowing that you are going to bring some level of resolution and perhaps some closure for people and perhaps prevent deaths in the future. But I do just want to acknowledge the great work that is done by those people in serving our country in the way they do in that regard.Yesterday we spoke to the Judicature Modernisation Bill which was substantially bigger than the one that is before us and so it was quite nice to see that we had 36 pages to get through today rather than the 1226 we had yesterday. I think the thing we have to take into mind as well is that actually this bill is equally as important as part of the ongoing process of this Government to improve our judicial processes to ensure that they are more efficient that they are working better and that we are putting victims whether it be victims of criminal acts or simply people who are suffering grief through sudden loss at the centre of what we are doing.That is very much what this Government is committed to doing. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that those people are at the forefront; that we are not just devising processes that suit the professionals who are involved and that we are not just devising processes that suit any kinds of administrative tasks or other people involved in the process but that we are in fact putting those people who are most adversely affected by these events at the centre of our process.So it is really encouraging to see that in this bill we are aiming to streamline the processes for families and for those people. It was for me a little bit disturbing when I was reading through it to discover that actually often coroners’ cases that involve an inquest or hearing take over 400 days to complete on average. I know that there is a lot involved but if you are grieving and you are looking for some answers as to the exact reasons why you have lost a loved one well 400 days or perhaps 700 days if a further investigation is required is an awfully long time to get some answers.I believe we owe it to those people to improve these processes and that is what this bill sets out to do. I think we need to ensure that those people who have suffered that level of loss can in an appropriate manner and at an appropriate time receive the closure they need. And if there is an outstanding coroner’s inquiry if there is an outstanding inquest then no matter how much you may have emotionally moved on there will always be a part that is left open. It is difficult I think for people to have complete closure on that sudden loss of a loved one until that process is completed. So as I said it is great to see that we are going to be speeding up those processes; that for the sake of those families who are involved we are going to be speeding that up.A number of people have also already talked about this but I want to touch on the issue of the suicide reporting provisions within this bill. I have had the privilege in some respects of working with young people for a lot of my working career. At times that has involved working with teenagers in particular who have either attempted suicide or are planning to or are at different stages of a depressive state of affairs. I have sometimes had to deal with the aftermath of events like that as well and I think it is really important that we ensure we keep the young people of our country as safe as possible.Over time we have had the suicide prevention strategy in place which is I think a really great piece of work. It is ensuring that we try to work towards keeping our younger people safe—and not just younger people I might add—as we go through. That strategy has a number of goals whether they are to promote mental health and well-being improve the care of people who are experiencing mental disorders or reduce access to means of suicide. There are a number of things but in particular the strategy says we should promote the safe reporting and portrayal of suicidal behaviour by the media.We know that it has been proven that actually if these things are talked about inappropriately in the media it can lead to copycat-type behaviour from young people. It can lead to at times glorifying the act of suicide. We need to ensure that that never ever happens. So I think it is important that we ensure there are appropriate provisions in place. I think it is great that we are not just including conventional media in this but actually in this day and age of social media where things can spread so quickly where there is a medium by which young people—I keep picking on young people and I should not I know. People within society spread information so so quickly that it is important we capture those social media mediums as well to ensure that we are not advocating for or allowing the glorification of copycat-type suicides.I think though that it is really important when we have all been talking about the importance of not portraying it inappropriately in the media that we do not also then send out the message that it is not OK to talk about suicide. I think we need to stress that although it is at times not beneficial to put too much information out there in that regard it is important that we do talk openly about depression that we do talk openly about mental illness and that we do ensure that people are keeping themselves safe. We are not looking to clamp down on people talking about those things; we just want to ensure that media whether it be social media or conventional media are not talking about the events of somebody’s death in an inappropriate way that may lead to further harm being caused.I just want to touch finally on the fact that I am encouraged by the level of input that has been sought already on this bill. It has been great to see that coroners have been spoken to. It is great to hear that the Funeral Directors Association—there is a group that clearly has to deal with death all of the time as coroners do. Families have already been listened to as this bill has been drafted. I am sure that as we take this bill through to the next stage as we take it through to the select committee we will hear from those people again and they will be able to give us perhaps some insight to fine-tune this in some ways to ensure that we really are putting forward the best legislation we can.I am certainly glad that I am going to be a part of that process as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee. I am looking forward to hearing those views and looking forward to ensuring that the kind of legislation we are putting forward as I have said is going to put families particularly grieving and struggling families at the middle of our thoughts and our processes. I commend this bill to go to the next stage. Thank you.