Henare Peeni: Coroners Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Peeni: Coroners Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1781. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau):Tēnā koe kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take this call. Seeing as this is the first time I am speaking in the House in 2015 can I echo the sentiments heaped upon yourself and your colleagues and wish you and indeed all of us in the House a happy New Year and a prosperous New Year.It is my pleasure to speak on the first reading of the Coroners Amendment Bill. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has mentioned the Labour Party’s support for this bill and its proceeding on to the select committee. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the former Chief Coroner for his hard work in steering the coroner’s office since 2006. We understand that recently the former Chief Coroner has moved on and we wish him all the best in his work in the field of ACC. Can I also in that vein—I am sorry that was Judge Neil MacLean. Can I also in that vein congratulate the Labour Government and Helen Clark in particular in 2006 who allowed for the Coroners Bill to enter into this House set up the coroner’s office and of course Judge MacLean was the first Chief Coroner appointed to that office. I would just like to take the time to highlight that fact.Of course we move on to the amendment bill we are discussing here today. I have already mentioned that we support this bill moving on to the select committee deliberations. I want to point out some things within the bill especially around some of the amendments that are being proposed strengthening the coroner’s recommendations.I am reminded of other such arbitrary groups or tribunals such as the Waitangi Tribunal whose recommendations although well researched and well founded often fall on deaf ears. We know that that particular tribunal is often considered to be a toothless lion and I would hate to see the same happen to the coroner’s office. I would hate to see that the important recommendations the coroners make after their inquiries fall on deaf ears.I want to highlight a particular case if I can—a recent case of two young people who passed away sadly following inhaling butane. They were a 19-year-old and a 12-year-old. One of the recommendations of the coroner’s office was: “determining whether there needs to be support for Māori communities to develop their own solutions to the problems of the abuse of butane and other volatile substances”. This is because statistics show that 30 out of the 63 butane-related deaths between 2000 and 2012 were people of Māori ethnicity. I am not too sure whether or not that recommendation was taken seriously but I would like to think that these types of amendments will allow for those recommendations to have some real teeth so that we can stop the sad and tragic cases around the inhaling of volatile substances that I have just pointed out. That is just one particular case.I support the amendments being proposed to strengthen the recommendations of the coroner but I think they just do not go quite far enough. I look forward to hearing some of the submissions from interested parties at the select committee because I feel that these particular amendments just stop before the try line. We want to see that the recommendations gain a bit more mana.We want to see that the proposed streamlined processing and administration of particular inquiries in the coroner’s office puts people and families at the forefront of its thoughts. I raise that point because of having had experience with such tragic cases. Sadly a lot of Māori tūpāpaku—or loved ones who have passed on—end up travelling very far distances for an autopsy. If for instance they pass away in Kaitāia too often the tūpāpaku is sent to Auckland. What needs to be done is done there. By the time the tūpāpaku makes its way home 2 days have passed. In Māori terms and in tikanga—in our custom—that is not a very good thing. So when we make recommendations—and the recommendations made in the Coroners Amendment Bill—I would like to think that people loved ones and pragmatism are put to the forefront of all submissions put forward on the amendment bill.I want to carry on around the proposed improvement of the coronial system. The coroner’s office is already extremely overworked. I say this from some indirect experience; the coroner for the far north is a relative of mine and discussions with him point out that he is extremely overworked. He points out to me also that there are many cases that are just sitting gathering dust in particular places in his office because he is overworked at this point in time. So I would like to think that the proposed amendments in the Coroners Amendment Bill will allow for not just a streamlined process but for more resourcing—more resourcing to allow a streamlined process of the coroner’s office and the important work that they do. The hope is that the recommendations will indeed ease the workload as I have already spoken about and will also provide the tools to the coroner and to the coroner’s office. We have heard some kōrero some discussion already on this bill from the previous two speakers around pragmatic solutions.I want to pick up the case around self-inflicted deaths. We do know that there needs to be responsibility around the open publication of the way that people who sadly suffer that fate pass away for fear that others may copy the person who has passed away. I support that but I wonder whether much thought was given to particular cases in the far north in particular at Kamo High School where there was a suicide ring or a suicide pact. No form of silencing through non-publication of self-inflicted deaths will stop the types of ring and pact mentality that sadly afflict our youth today when we talk of self-inflicted deaths. I wonder whether there could be any more thought or recommendations—and I look forward to submissions—concerning those particular instances because it is not just about the publication of names; it is about dealing with the issue itself.I look forward to hearing submissions on this particular amendment bill not just from interested organisations but I would encourage families who have experienced the coronial process in the past to come forward and share their experiences in the hope that it can best inform the amendments that are being proposed in this bill. I have already mentioned that we the Labour Party are supporting this amendment bill moving forward and going into the select committee of which I am a member. I look forward to hearing those submissions and thank you for your time. Tēnā tātou katoa.