Adams Amy: Coroners Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Coroners Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7397. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Courts): I move That the Coroners Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I want to start by commending our 16 coroners and Chief Coroner on the excellent work that they do in New Zealand. Coroners investigate between 3000 and 3500 sudden deaths in New Zealand every year. Many of these involve tragic and difficult circumstances. Despite these challenges and the often intense public scrutiny that comes with the job coroners conduct themselves with dignity and integrity. They have a critical role to play in our justice system and they carry out those duties admirably.The Coroners Amendment Bill we are debating today will help improve the roles of our coroners widening their powers and making their jobs easier as they carry out these important roles. The bill makes a range of improvements to the Coroners Act 2006. These reforms stem from a targeted review of the principal Act initiated by the previous courts Minister my colleague the Hon Chester Borrows. The review found that our coronial law was generally functioning well but that amendments could be made to clarify the role of coroners to ensure their recommendations are better focused and more relevant and to improve the efficiency of the coronial system.The bill achieves these aims through a number of ways and I want to touch on a number of key changes that will improve the way our coroners operate. Firstly our changes will ensure coronial recommendations are better focused and more relevant by being clearly linked to the evidence before the coroner. In making a recommendation the coroner must show how the recommendation would have prevented the death in question. The coroner must also consult on draft recommendations with interested parties such as families or witnesses before finalising them. This will help ensure that coronial recommendations are more relevant and are more likely to be adopted by those to whom they are directed.I note that the Justice and Electoral Committee considered and rejected proposals to require those receiving a coroner’s recommendations to respond to them. As the quality and relevance of recommendations improve as a result of this bill voluntary response and implementation should become more common.The committee has recommended a change to the provisions governing consultation with interested parties. If the interested party being consulted has not responded within 20 working days the coroner will be able to assume that they have no comment to make and proceed to finalise the recommendations. This is a positive step. It will prevent unnecessary delays and allow the coroner to proceed with their draft finding confident that they have given affected parties an appropriate opportunity to comment on the draft recommendations.Another change in the bill is to remove the need for a public inquest to be held when it is clearly unnecessary such as when a death in custody is from illness or old age. They of course will still have the ability to order an inquest in any case they feel needs investigation and interested parties will continue to have the opportunity to request that an inquest be held. Coroners are independent judicial officers. It is important we allow them the freedom to make sensible decisions and ensure that proper oversight remains on the cases where it is needed.Between 2007 and 2013 there were about 80 deaths in official custody or care for which the Act currently required a public inquest. In nearly 60 percent of those cases the cause of death was known and found to be natural causes. An inquest with a full oral hearing of evidence and witnesses is resource intensive and time consuming. One of the main goals of the Coroners Amendment Bill is to reduce delays in the coronial process and to ensure coronial resources are directed to where they are needed most.The bill does not remove the requirement for a coronial inquiry to look into the case. This will still be mandatory for deaths in official care or custody but can proceed without an oral hearing. I know that the Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall in her oral submission to the select committee welcomed coroners having this flexibility. It is also important to note that when an interested party such as family medical experts or witnesses asks to give evidence an oral inquest must still be held. Together these changes will help avoid unnecessary inquests into cases where the coroner considers the cause of death is plainly natural while ensuring appropriate cases continue to receive necessary scrutiny.Another key change that has drawn some attention is the death of Defence Force staff in hostilities overseas. The bill specifies that coroners may not inquire into deaths overseas of New Zealand Defence Force personnel as a result of hostile action unless the Attorney-General directs an inquiry. This is a sensible and reasonable approach and I am pleased that the committee has recommended continuing with the bill’s proposal. Coroners will still be able to investigate other Defence Force deaths including those not resulting from hostilities or resulting from an accident or suspected suicide both in New Zealand and overseas. Our provision simply avoids duplicate investigations of Defence Force combat deaths given that these are normally investigated by the Defence Force’s court of inquiry process. It also prevents coroners from considering matters that are not traditionally part of their jurisdiction such as military tactics national security and operational decisions of military commanders in the fields. The provision requiring the Attorney-General’s direction is closely comparable to a similar provision in the Visiting Forces Act 2004 which requires the Attorney-General’s permission before a coroner can inquire into the deaths of visiting service personnel in New Zealand.The committee has clarified the definition of “hostile action” and specified some criteria for the Attorney-General to consider in deciding whether to direct an inquiry—and I think these changes will be very helpful in practice.The bill also seeks to ease and clarify New Zealand’s restriction on media reporting of suicides and suspected suicides which has been in place to prevent copycat suicides. It implements the Law Commission’s recommendations in this area which were based on considerable research and engagement with experts. Research has shown that certain kinds of media reporting—lurid glamourising and method specific—do tend to spur more suicides in the community especially amongst young people. With New Zealand’s unacceptably high rate of suicides we need to be doing all we can to discourage people from taking their own life while also preserving the freedom of speech of our media.At present no information about a death that appears to be self-inflicted can be made public until the coronial inquiry is completed. Under our changes if there is reasonable cause to believe that a death is suicide the person’s name job and address and the fact that the death is suspected to be self-inflicted can be made public. Once the coroner finishes their inquiry and finds the death to be suicide the death can be reported as suicide.Some may want us to go further and permit all and any details surrounding the death to be published but I do not want to see the situation in New Zealand that exists overseas where newspapers regularly report suicides in ways that may be likely to be harmful including publishing photos of sites and gruesome detailed descriptions of the methods used.We have worked hard to ensure that the bill strikes a difficult but careful balance between the useful role that positive conversations around mental ill-health can have while minimising the risk of copycat behaviour. The Chief Coroner will also be able to grant an exemption from any restrictions that the bill proposes to retain. A new expert panel convened by the Director-General of Health will be able to assist the Chief Coroner in deciding these exemptions.The Coroners Amendment Bill will improve the coronial system by making it more efficient and more responsive to the needs of families. I want to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its considerations and for the amendments the committee has put forward in its report. The proposed changes are well considered and will help the bill to achieve its goals. This bill builds on a major overhaul of the coronial system introduced by the Coroners Act 2006. Its proposals are practical well considered and generally well supported by submitters. I commend the bill to the House.