Huo RaymondRAYMOND HUO (Labour): The Courts Matters Bill and the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill are deemed to be cognate bills due to their closely related nature and as such they are treated as a single bill throughout the parliamentary process. The bills were referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee in the 51st Parliament were reinstated in this the 52nd Parliament and were referred to the Justice Committee in November 2017. The Justice Committee received and considered 16 submissions from interested groups and individuals on the Courts Matters Bill and received and considered 34 submissions on the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill.The purpose of the bills is to seek to contribute to modern efficient and effective court and tribunal systems. Matters concerning the general public I believe are largely in relation to the time frames for hearing and resolving matters. So this bill seeks to improve efficiency effectiveness and timeliness by simplifying and standardising statutory powers and procedures. I thank the officials and advisers for their hard work. They worked tirelessly to get the matters addressed. These bills are largely technically driven and if I may say so sometimes can be dry and tedious but these matters although minor are very important. For instance clause 6 would extend the definition of court" to include any part of the building being used for services related to the courts including the footpath between the building and the road and therefore enable court security officers to deal with disruptive instances that continue on outside the court.Other changes include changes to fines enforcement and criminal court procedures. This is particularly important as we are reversing the order of the two judicial inquiries the fitness hearing and the involvement hearing under the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2003 so that victims and witnesses would not have to give evidence twice. The most interesting part of the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill is probably in relation to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the submissions from its chair Mr Rodger Haines QC are very convincing. I thank Mr Haines for his contributions. Due to what Mr Haines described as artificial restrictions in the Human Rights Act 1993 a significant case backlog has developed over the past years. To illustrate the backlog and the frustration it has generated we can simply have a look at the Stuff reports that people fighting for their human rights face a "beyond acceptable" wait of more than two or three years for justice after politicians and officials ignored repeated pleas for a law change to help clear the backlog. As Mr Rodger Haines said in his submission for the past three or four years the workload of—now—five full-time decision makers has been carried by one person namely the chairperson himself. Inevitably a backlog of serious proportion is increasing year by year and for most parties the tribunal has ceased to function. That sort of a backlog and other issues have been ignored over the last 3 or 4 years and under this bill we will introduce the necessary amendments to clear the backlog. Thank you."