Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I want to just acknowledge the contribution made by my colleague David Parker about the concern for the lack of access to justice and how this legislation has not dealt with any of that. It is in fact a policy of this Government to restrict access to justice.I was at the 2014 Ethel Benjamin Address at the Otago Women Lawyers' Society in Dunedin when Justice Winkelmann was giving an address there and she was highly critical of the policy that she described as a marketisation of justice and justice services. She said that increasingly lawyers and judges are being described as stakeholders and that there was an increasing policy approach that would provide a market for justice services as opposed to the rights of citizens to have access to justice across the board. I would recommend members who have an interest in the justice area to look at her address from 2014 where she applies a very critical and very analytical assessment of the current Government policy that is excluding thousands and thousands of New Zealanders from access to justice when they so desperately need it.To the legislation—the Green Party supports this legislation. I am standing actually on behalf of my colleague Dave Clendon who saw this legislation through the Justice and Electoral Committee on our behalf so I was not directly involved in the ushering of it through the process. I will just make a few comments. There are a number of good things about the legislation. We were strongly in support of the Human Rights Commission's submission which raised concerns about the outdated language of that legislation and some of that language has been improved. There is a general increase in the transparency around some of these legal services which is a good thing. The increase in the level of damages that can be awarded by the District Court and by the Human Rights Review Tribunal to $350000—we fully agree with that increase in the level of damages particularly for the Human Rights Review Tribunal which is one of our core watchdogs for this. We have seen actually a recent case exposed where damages were awarded in favour of a person. It is really good to see that they have greater powers to award greater amounts in terms of damages.There were some concerns that we had with the final shape of the legislation and concerns that National had voted down a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) which as I understand it are not reflected in the divided legislation. I will just acknowledge that Jacinda Ardern did talk about her SOP in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. We supported that SOP; it is disappointing that National did not and excluded that broader concept of not just dealing with the legal matters relating to the Treaty but resolving them in the context of both our history and our current need. That is really important because the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a document that evolves over time and meets our needs as our needs change over time. It cannot be constrained to just one point in time and to one interpretation; that is not how that document works and neither should it. The issues of colonisation that arose after the Treaty was signed contrary to the Treaty wording mean that there will be ongoing issues with colonisation that need to be reflected back in terms of Treaty justice. Thirdly we were very disappointed that our SOP to establish a register for pecuniary interests of judges was also denied by National. My colleague Kennedy Graham made an attempt to put this in place last year too as I understand it. This is just about making sure that there is transparency for the financial affairs of people in those core constitutional positions. We now have a system available for the public to show transparency of MPs' pecuniary interests and we think that that should be the same for judges as well.We were disappointed that the SOP from Louisa Wall to enshrine in statute the long-established practice of judges of the Māori Land Court being appointed on the advice and recommendation of the Minister for Māori Development was not supported but now we know why: at the same time that this issue was being dealt with through this debate on the Judicature Modernisation Bill National was planning to decimate the Māori Land Court without telling the Minister for Māori Development about it. So of course National then said: Well we don't want to have a clause in this bill that requires the Minister for Māori Development to know anything about the appointment of judges." or actually anything else to do with the Māori Land Court it appears because National has decided that it knows much more about it and will simply go around firing very large numbers of staff from this court which has been a—Louisa Wall: They voted for it—crazy.METIRIA TUREI: It is crazy. So the Māori Party voted—Louisa Wall: They voted against the SOP.METIRIA TUREI: Yes—against the SOP. Well there you go. The Māori Land Court does have a chequered history for Māori over its lifetime and in the early years it was a real tool of the State to take land from Māori but as times have changed and circumstances change there has been a greater reclamation of both the Treaty concepts and also the rights of iwi Māori to have some control over that process and the Māori Land Court has oftentimes been a really important line of defence and protection for whānau and hapū who are trying to protect their land.The fact that not only was Louisa Wall's SOP denied by National but that National is now trying to basically destroy the court through significant job loss just goes to show that these few remaining defences of Māori land are being taken by National—I mean it opposed the Green Party's Public Works Act legislation that would have stopped Māori land from being taken under the Public Works Act as well. It is now decimating the Māori Land Court. It is not supporting greater involvement of the Minister for Māori Development in the appointment of judges to the Māori Land Court. It all smells like looks like and is walking like National is wanting to crack open the few defences that remain to enable Māori to protect their land in customary and communal ownership. So all of those things together spell very bad news for Māori and I am very surprised that the Māori Party has supported those provisions. Hei aha. [Never mind.]I also would say that we were very disappointed that another of Louisa Wall's SOPs which was to take into account the desirability of the judiciary to reflect the broader cultural and gender picture if you like of Aotearoa was also denied. If we are to remove the systemic racism that still pervades the courts and the legal system—despite many attempts to actually try to fix that there is still none the less systemic racism; there is still a significant unconscious bias in the legal system—then one of the core means to deal with that is to have representatives from across the gender and ethnic spectrum represented in the judiciary. It helps to raise awareness it is a natural check on some of those unconscious biases and it often provides support for a systemic change inside these organisations to support judges and the legal system to move on and do better. So not having any kind of commitment to diversity undermines the need for the judiciary and for the legal system to be less biased in the ways that we know it is. So that was a real shame.But overall we accept that there is more good than bad in this legislation. We have supported it so far and we will support it at the third reading as well. Thank you."