Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. So here we are dealing with yet another piece of urgent legislation from a Government that has been very poor at managing itself over the last few months. Hon Members: What did you just do? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well I don't know what you're—I'm getting heckling from Ministers on the other side who don't understand how the operations of Parliament operate. The only thing I'd say is that what we've seen is the constant introduction of bills that are rushed through the House under truncated periods where ordinarily New Zealanders would have had a chance to look at bills properly and debate them properly. But this one has been rushed through in order to try and bring about some rather minor improvements to how the courts could operate under the COVID-restriction environment. What we have come to expect from this Government is that if this bill finally works its way through Parliament and comes out the other side as enacted it will be in operation too late to make much of a difference because we have—as all New Zealanders are keenly aware—finally opened up and reduced some basic restrictions that were in place that were making life more difficult. So this bill in Part 1—there's lots of discussions going on elsewhere. This bill focuses on three areas in Part 1 which are around the security side of things in order to try and reduce the barriers to the court security officers dealing with all the many things that come up in the COVID environment. But what the bill doesn't do and what isn't in Part 1 is any sort of significant change to the way that technology could be used to speed up the work of the courts and I think what most people looking at the justice sector at the moment in this country—two things they'll be asking themselves. One is why is it that we've got this substantial increase in violent crime across New Zealand which is causing many New Zealanders great concern—and I heard a yawn from the other side. They're not particularly interested in violent crime as an issue. It doesn't fit with their overall sort of view of the world that crime is something that we should be concerned about and the victims of crime are something that we should be focused on. Secondly people looking at the justice sector look at the broader issue of the very slow movement of justice through the sector the very long delays that New Zealanders are facing to get justice and in particular the lives on hold for month after month year after year trying to get resolution to court practices. What has been astonishing in this process has been the slow uptake of technology within our court system. We heard yesterday and we saw the details yesterday that at least 29 courts in this country up and down the country have no access to any audiovisual facilities that would make it easier for them to get the work done during lockdown-type situations. We'll hear from the Minister of Justice no doubt saying Oh well even though this bill is too late"—and it's too little too late—"you never know we might go back into a COVID sort of lockdown." and yet two years into this situation they've still made very little progress when it comes to the basic technology that would help so much of the work of the courts to carry on rather than being stopped as they have been over the last few months. I mean it only took the protesters and rioters over the street—which this Government refuses to have any accountability for and doesn't want the Justice Committee to ask basic questions about—to shut down the Court of Appeal for a week or so and to knock off cases that people were wanting to get the outcomes to. Everywhere you look you have examples of the courts not being able to operate. So here we are and we're left with what we've got. The bill does a few things. It makes a few little tweaks. It will come in too little too late and yet the things that would actually make a difference this Minister hasn't got around to dealing with. So there's a lot of work to do on that score."