Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi (remote): Mr Speaker as you've rightly noted clause 3 is the last remaining clause. It includes under its banner all the schedules which make all the changes. So I do look forward to or at least I hope that there will be some kind of reasonable debate in the committee of the whole House tonight about this.I note with disappointment that Labour members other than the Minister appear to have no interest in making a contribution other than to seek closure motions. For such an important piece of legislation affecting fundamental rights about which Labour members have been perfectly happy to speak at previous stages and as contained in clause 3 hugely fundamental rights affecting freedoms and security of people in this country including the jury selection basic fundamental rights contained in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—the lack of engagement that we've heard and a desire to shut down the whole debate within seemingly an hour or so and the lack of seriousness on the part of the Minister I find deeply disappointing.More importantly than that for the people who are affected by the horrendous backlogs we've seen in relation to the coroner's court other courts various tribunals and Family Courts throughout the land the lack of seriousness that is very obvious in some of the Minister's responses they will find deeply disappointing. So my opinion in these matters isn't relevant and the Minister can dismiss that if he wishes but I do want to place on record in relation to the crystal ball comment that I find it amusing—and I'll be charitable—that the Minister would drag out some sort of crystal ball metaphor to accuse us of wisdom with hindsight.It was in this very House that we were asking questions—I was asking questions; other colleagues were asking questions—when the COVID-19 protection framework aka traffic light system legislation was being passed rushed through in urgency and we said what about the courts? There was nothing in that legislation that contained the provisions for example that we find now in clause 3 of this bill. Nothing was said about them either in or out. That legislation didn't say whether it covered the courts and tribunals and so we asked the question. There was our crystal ball Minister. We had at it at the time we asked the right questions and we received—to be fair to the Government the Attorney-General came down to the House and explained that it wouldn't be appropriate for that regime to apply to the courts because it was important that the Courts be able to conduct their own affairs. Fair enough—that was a reasonably good answer back in November or December of 2021. It's not a good enough response in April of 2022 to be rushing something through the House on the basis that clearly they hadn't thought about it and didn't act quickly. So for months further delays have been ruining the lives of many Kiwis and I would very much hope that we're going to have a serious interaction about the detail and the fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the provisions under clause 3.The first of those that I want to touch on is in relation to jury selection. What does the Minister believe is the balance that's been struck between traditional methods of selecting jurors and that contained in clause 3 of the bill?Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Obviously we are passing this piece of legislation to give both the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice more flexibility and more certainty about the way it operates the courts. The member asked in the final part of his contribution in terms of how juries are selected and the changes that have been made there. One of many things around the jury changes that I think within this piece of legislation could be quite useful in terms of the management of the large numbers of people who are called for jury selection is that under current settings or normal sittings as it is jury selection has to happen on a particular court precinct. Within this piece of legislation in order to manage any health and safety risks that either the ministry staff or that the judiciary have put in place in a particular location that can be done off site. That isn't able to be done under the normal settings. I think one of the positive changes in terms of jury selection changes is that very simple health and safety one where that jury selection process where we are bringing large groups of people together which can be a risk for people if they are either vulnerable or haven't had COVID or may have COVID—the ability for the court staff or the judiciary to ask for that to happen off site and for it to be done in a much safer way is one of the aspects I think that this piece of legislation enables that to be done in a safer way.