Wagner Nicky: Coroners Bill — In Committee 
Wagner Nicky: Coroners Bill — In Committee 
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NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 The purpose of this bill is really to provide a framework for coroners as they inquire into sudden or unexplained deaths so they can establish as much as possible the cause or circumstances of those deaths. It is hoped that those investigations in the future can avoid unnecessary deaths. So the purpose of this bill is to try to stop deaths in the future by the knowledge we get from the ones that have happened. The new bill is also to professionalise the coronial system so it can be more consistent effective and sensitive to families and cultural needs because it is particularly important that the public have confidence in this system. 
Coroners must perform their work without delay. When listening to the submissions we heard many people talking about the distress caused by the delay of the coroners’ reports. We feel that the coronial service needs to be able to deliver promptly. One of the main reasons for moving from a part-time coronial service to a full-time professional service is to make sure that the time that it takes is consistent and regular and that people can rely upon getting the results about their loved one’s death as soon as possible. 
Under the bill there is arrangement for 20 full-time coroners with a legal background. There is also arrangement for a chief coroner who will take the role of leadership and coordination of those full-time coroners. It is important that they are full-time because as it is now they tend to have experience of only a few cases. Many work in rural areas and perhaps a case comes up—weekly monthly—but they have not the experience of the couple of full-time coroners who work in Auckland City. It is hoped with greater experience and greater expertise that coroners will be able to perform a more consistent service. That was also something that came out of the submissions—that although in most cases the coroners were respected and they worked hard at their job it was very hard to get a consistency right across the country. It believed that with a chief coroner who will work with the coroners and will issue practice notes that will get consistent processes and protocols that will help that consistency across the country. It is also believed that with the chief coroner and full-time coroners there will be more time for education of the public and that will lead to a more effective and efficient service. 
Overall I think the bill has worked well. I was very interested to note that even the current coroners were happy with the main tenor of the bill and were supporting the fact of full-time coroners even though some of them may lose their jobs. We will talk about that because the actual constitutional understanding of their being disestablished was of concern to us on the National side. 
One of the things we also came across was the use of justices of the peace. There has been a long tradition of justices of the peace working as temporary coroners and they are often called upon on weekends and late nights to stand in for the coroner and I think they enjoyed doing that work and they certainly provided a good service to our society. But I think as time has gone on and as cases have become more complex and there is a heavier workload the need for full-time coroners who are professional and have set protocols and processes is very timely indeed. 
The other thing of most concern was in terms of how the media reported on suicides self-inflicted deaths. That is an issue that has been under debate quite widely both in the papers and on the wires and I do not think we can really come out with an answer that we all feel comfortable with. Everybody understands the distress a family faces at a time of unexpected death particularly if it is a case of suicide. Several submitters talked to us about how they felt when their family was involved with a suicide case and how they felt with the public and how the public would react to them and their families. Research has gone into suicide in terms of whether it should be mentioned in the media. Of course one of the areas that concerns us is youth suicide.