Jones Dail: Coroners Bill — First Reading 
Jones Dail: Coroners Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:18091] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The Labour member who spoke before me had no answer to the matters raised by the Hon Tony Ryall. The Labour Government has totally ignored the need for forensic pathologists in New Zealand. It has done absolutely nothing about it despite protestations earlier this year and it is very clear that it is embarrassed about the whole situation; hence the member’s failure to mention it even once in her response. The Minister of Health—for the time being—was prepared to interject furiously on Tony Ryall but she was not prepared to take a call and give us an explanation for this deficiency that is so pertinent to coroners. 
Hon Annette King 
: It’s the Minister of Justice. 
DAIL JONES 
: I would have thought that coroners and forensic pathologists—while they might be forensic they are also pathologists—had something to do with the cutting up of people which might involve a health aspect as well. As far as these interjections are concerned I say they are wonderful but I hope the Minister will take a call at some stage rather than just interject in the debate on a bill that in a small way is yet another example of social engineering by the Labour Government. 
As I read the explanatory note and worked my way through the bill I was interested to see that once again there was a reference to the family. I decided to have a look at how the family was defined this time. The reference of course under clause 7 is to the “immediate family” which is defined: “(a) means members of the dead person’s family whanau or other culturally recognised family group who—(i) were in a close relationship with the person; or (ii) had in accordance with customs or traditions of the community of which the person was part responsibility for or an interest in the person’s welfare and best interests;”—that is pretty wide—“and (b) to avoid doubt”—which is clumsy drafting—“includes a person whose relationship to the dead person was or was through that of spouse or de facto partner (whether the partner and dead person were of the same sex or different sexes) child or step-child brother or step-brother sister or step-sister parent or step-parent or guardian or grandparent”. 
The Labour Government cannot help but bring in the same-sex situation once again in legislation. Here we are on what is allegedly the last day of this Parliament—I am told there is a rumour going around that we might be back here next Tuesday perhaps because of a failure on someone’s part to support urgency—Tuesday 14 December in parliamentary time pushing through yet another aspect of social engineering by this minority Labour Government. 
What is so important about this legislation? Well for example when we look at clause 31 “Right in some cases to object to post-mortem” we see that subclause (1) relates to a post-mortem on a body that a coroner proposes to direct. We can ask who can object to the post-mortem. Subclause (2) is a terribly wide subclause. It states: “Every member of the immediate family”—and I have just read out the definition of “immediate family”—“of the person who is or of a person who is suspected to be the dead person concerned has in the situation specified in subsection (3) a right to object to the post-mortem.” What a wide-ranging group of people we have there. Even someone who might have had a short-term relationship with the deceased person will have the right to object to the post-mortem. In subclause (3)— 
Judith Collins 
: It could be the person who murdered them. 
DAIL JONES 
: It could be the person who killed them; that is right. The person who murdered the deceased could have the right to object to the post-mortem. What sort of legislation is this? 
Subclause (3) states: “The situation referred to in subsection (2) is that the coroner is after having made all reasonable investigations satisfied that”—and various provisions are set out including of course the provision that the coroner must comply with “New Zealand’s international legal obligations”. 
So many United Nations conventions today are so airy-fairy that I pity the coroner trying to work his way through some international conventions. I can imagine that some of the many immigrants coming to New Zealand today who may have certain requirements as to the way in which deceased people should be taken care of etc. will raise a United Nations international convention that applies to some other unusual part of the world and the coroner will have to give recognition to that necessarily rather than to all the laws of New Zealand. 
There could be the situation of a mum and dad whose son or daughter has died—a son or daughter who had left home shortly beforehand and who was living in a relationship which was a same-sex relationship—and we have the same-sex partner saying: “I’ve got rights to object to a post-mortem.” What are mum and dad going to say about that situation? Their dearly beloved child has died and no matter how old the person is he or she is still a child as far as parents are concerned; he or she is still 6 years old and just going off to school which is something one always remembers. But in this situation there is some same-sex partner who can object to those parents having a post-mortem in what might be very unusual circumstances. That is what we get from this Labour Party. 
That is what we also get from the United Future party which obviously supports this bill. But it is not surprising that the United Future party supports something like this. I was listening to Gordon Copeland earlier this morning speaking on a tax bill and he referred to what is going to be in the report of the Social Services Committee on the Charities Bill. That report has not been tabled in the House as yet but Gordon Copeland was speaking on it earlier this morning. What is more he has even issued a press statement on it. Murray Smith can smile but that report had not been tabled in the House as at 10.40 a.m. yet we have Gordon Copeland speaking on it and issuing press statements on it and all that United Future member can do is smile. Gordon Copeland issued a press statement at 10.13 a.m. on something that has not been reported to the House. 
Well that is the United Future party. That is its standard on this particular legislation which includes same-sex relationships and it has issued a statement that is politically dishonest at least in commenting on a select committee report before it has even been tabled in the House. Needless to say that matter will be considered elsewhere as far as I am concerned. 
What we should be doing for example is taking a closer look at things like the report the Business Roundtable released today on having more regard for family life—not the sort of thing that is in the bill. In the report Patricia Morgan concludes that “using all of the standard indicators the family is now in a worse state in New Zealand than almost anywhere else.” The report states that her book “reports a large body of research that finds that the traditional family—the married couple and their dependent children living together in their own home—is generally best for children parents and society.” We would have thought that the Government might have learnt a lesson from what happened last week and before but no that type of situation still continues. 
Here we are on Tuesday 14 December but some people might think it was Friday. We should have discussed this legislation last week. Instead we are being forced to go through urgency on a bill that should be discussed at a better time when people normally expect Parliament to be on the air and when it is available to be visited as part of a trip to Wellington. But we are discussing this bill today on a Friday and we are delaying other bills. I am pleased to see that the Gambling Amendment Bill is up for discussion next. That bill could have been discussed last week rather than this week but of course the Labour Government wanted to ram all these first readings through now rather than doing them at a more leisurely pace last week. 
New Zealand First will support this bill going to the select committee but the public of New Zealand can be sure that we will be doing our very best to make sure that the murderer of a person has no right to object to a post-mortem that is a vital matter of evidence in a court case. That is something we would have expected a Minister to take into account when preparing such a bill but obviously the Labour Government has no regard for law and order matters. New Zealand First will be making sure that these types of things are taken care of in the select committee. We support the bill going to the select committee and we will be looking closely at it there.