Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. One of the main reasons why we're supporting it is because it's part of the coalition agreement that we had with our coalition partners the Labour Party. I'd just like to thank the Minister of Justice for bringing it forward. In fact I think it was introduced to this House within the first year of the coalition and I'd like to thank the Justice Committee for their hard work moving through it as well. Before I get into the details of the bill I'd just like to comment on the two speeches so far from the National Party. I tried my hardest to understand what they were saying and what their argument was but unfortunately they didn't talk to each other because they had two different types of argument. The first thing that I heard that Mr Macindoe said was We should stick with the status quo." That's what he said: "We should stick with the status quo." But when I look back at my notes about what Mr Penk said he said "We should be proactive about this instead of being reactive and amend the current legislation." instead of bringing in an independent commission. So would we stick with the status quo or would we do what Mr Penk said and make some amendments to the current legislation? That doesn't make sense to me. That doesn't make sense. That's not coherent. That's not a coherent argument but you see the thing is that the very fundamental basis of this legislation is ensuring that we've got a robust justice system. So I'm not even sure why the National Party isn't voting for it—well I do know why they're not voting for it. It's only because it's a Government bill and because most importantly it's part of the coalition agreement with the Labour Party and New Zealand First—that's why they're doing it. I'm looking forward to the half-dozen other different arguments that the National Party's going to stand up and try and give. The other thing that is most important is that they harp on all the time about protecting the victims of crime etc. The very fundamental issue with this is that there are victims of miscarriages of justice and this is what this bill is trying to deal with in the first place. Because of the lack of access to the judicial system the current status quo has caused so many problems especially under that previous Government. One of the main reasons why it's in the coalition agreement with the Labour Party of 2017 is because of the previous Government's nine years of inaction and all of the high-profile cases of miscarriages of justice. But what does the National Party want to do? Status quo—don't do anything. That's the option that they're giving the country at the moment. Let's put in an independent commission that by the way—as has been mentioned by every speaker on this side of the House so far—is actually already occurring overseas. It is actually already occurring overseas. The types of independent commissions that we see in the UK and we see in the likes of Norway all by the way have good results and have positive results and I'm sure that this was brought up and broached in the Justice Committee but I wasn't there unfortunately. But the members of the National Party who are on that select committee would have known this. What they also would have known is that this concept and the legislation that's been brought before the House and introduced within the first year didn't just come down in the previous shower. There was targeted consultation with investigative bodies before it got to the House like the Independent Police Conduct Authority the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and all of the comments were positive in nature and supportive of this kind of independent commission. But I'd like to know which submitters they're using and what evidence they're using to stand up and not support this bill. I'd just like to go into the bill in regards to the main reasons behind why New Zealand First is supporting this bill and why we introduced it within the first year. Actually both sides of the House during the first reading identified the high-profile cases that we were dealing with at that time and the gross miscarriages of justice that they had been through. Unfortunately—and the Minister said it as well in his contribution in this reading—the fact was that a lot of those people were lucky in fact. They were just lucky to have some high-profile people in the community—the champions in the community—to help them in a sort of ad hoc nature. Most importantly also they had the funding to be able to do it. If that's what it comes down to in this country to ensure that those who have suffered gross miscarriages of justice actually get to see justice then there's something terribly wrong and if Mr Macindoe wants to stand up and say let's just stick with the status quo I think he needs to take another re-evaluation of why they're not supporting this bill. Just very quickly a few main things that this bill does which we are in support of are dealing with the issues of not only what I've just mentioned of being lucky about having champions of the community to help them but actually the timeliness the quality and the fairness of the current system for investigating suspected miscarriages of justice. So if this legislation doesn't go through and if the members on that side of the House want to stick with the status quo or with just amending what they've got then that won't get over the massive hurdles of the timeliness the quality the fairness and the independence of the current system. That just won't occur and that's one of the major points—it is just making that this is an independent commission. This model will also ensure that the framework like I said is independent from the Ministers and the courts. It's already been through significant consultation with other countries that have the criminal case reviews just like this. This is not a shallow sort of moralistic point of view or principled point of view; this is actually researched and it's got the evidence and it's got the backing of overseas jurisdictions that it works and it is needed. But most importantly it will substantially improve our system for responding to those miscarriages of justice and it will take away from the burden of applicants who require assistance for their voices to be heard and that's the major point of this. Again I'd just like to thank the Minister for bringing it through as part of the coalition agreement between New Zealand First and the Labour Party. I'd like to thank the Justice Committee for their hard work on the bill although their report couldn't come with a recommendation to support it but they had some recommendations that we'll go through in great detail in the committee of the whole House stage. I'd like to hear some arguments from the National Party that actually make some sort of sense that's based not only on fact and evidence but on what was submitted at the actual select committee and hear why they're not going to listen to the evidence from overseas where it does work—why they are happy with the status quo like Mr Macindoe said. At this stage we will be supporting this through to the next stage and we commend it to the House. Thank you."