Dean Jacqui: Bail Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Bail Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12884. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I am very pleased to speak in the third reading of the Bail Amendment Bill. Firstly I want to answer some of the claims that the lack of efficiencies that have been identified in the court system by Minister Judith Collins and by some members of the Opposition are somehow not being addressed by this Government. In fact in the 5 years of this National-led Government there has been an aggressive programme in this area to refine and make efficiencies in our court and judicial system.The first one I want to talk about is the Criminal Procedure Act which came into effect in July this year. It does relate to the Bail Amendment Bill because the gamut of this bill falls within the judicial framework. The Criminal Procedure Act which has only just come into effect is already having an impact on reducing the backlog of cases that are waiting to be brought to trial. Of course you have to acknowledge that it is not just the criminal system that causes some delays. There are always occasions where defendants or people accused of a crime need to take counsel from their lawyer. There are many reasons for delays but this Government is aggressively addressing the issue of justice delayed.The Judicature Modernisation Bill is also a very comprehensive piece of work to be brought to the House by the Hon Judith Collins. It is designed to speed up court processes. It will allow for more powers to be able to manage judicial resources so there will be efficiencies within the judicial system and it will allow for better administrative efficiencies. Knowing my local courts and having visited a few courts it is a system that up until very recently has been paper-based and is still making the transition through to using audiovisual links. The Hon Chester Borrows is leading that work in our court system and already it is having a beneficial impact on court waiting times and access to justice.Talking about the bail system is about deciding what is going to happen to a defendant who is charged with an offence while their case goes through the criminal justice system. If a decision on bail is required the basic decision that the court has to make is whether the defendant should be imprisoned or whether they should be allowed to be returned to the community with some conditions. The Bail Amendment Bill contrary to what the Opposition might want you to think makes some significant refinements for the better around those decisions about whether to award bail and under what conditions. The main provision in the bill is around reversing the burden of proof. So those charged with serious class A drug offences such as the manufacture of P will on the enactment of this bill be required to convince the judge as to why they should beallowed bail. Similarly in respect of people who are charged with murder the current list of specified offences which has not been reviewed for some time since the Bail Act was enacted has also been reviewed. So the bill expands the list of violent and sexual offences that result in a defendant being subject to a reverse burden of proof. It will be harder for those people accused of a serious offence to get bail in New Zealand.I want to pay tribute to TraceyMarceau and the 84000 others who signed the Christie’s Law petition. I want to pay tribute first of all to theMarceau family. They have lost their beloved daughter in the most awful of circumstances. I want to commend them for having the courage to bring the Christie’s Law petition to this House. The decision was made in the Law and Order Committee that we would not consider the Christie’s Law petition at the same time as the Bail Amendment Bill. That was done for very good reason. The reason we decided not to consider those two items together is that we need to give the petition the petitioners the parents of ChristieMarceau and the other people who have been the victims of murder the due consideration of the matters they have brought to us. We considered that some of the items brought to us in the petition were out of scope with the provisions of the Bail Amendment Bill and we would not have been able to do justice to the petition had we put them together. I want to assure the petitioners on behalf of ChristieMarceau and the other victims of serious crime and murder that the Law and Order Committee is giving very serious consideration to their petition and we will be reporting to the House when we have considered our deliberations.The Bail Amendment Bill goes a long way to protecting New Zealanders. The Bail Amendment Bill goes a long way in National’s programme of making New Zealand safer for New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.