Tirikatene RinoThird ReadingHon RINO TIRIKATENE (Minister for Courts): I present a legislative statement on the Coroners Amendment Bill. I move That the Coroners Amendment Bill be now read a third time.I'm pleased to see this bill reach its third reading today with constructive contributions from across the House. The issues that the bill seeks to address have been well canvassed. We all recognise that the coronial system is under pressure; the number of active coronial cases and the average time taken to conclude these cases has increased in recent years. Most significantly grieving families and whānau are facing distress from the increasing length of time they spend waiting to receive coronial findings. This bill aims to reduce the distress while ensuring the public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances continues to be well served by the coronial system. To achieve this the bill makes some targeted amendments to the Coroners Act. These are intended to reduce the time it takes for certain types of cases to move through the coronial process and free up more coroner's time to work on reducing the number of active coronial cases.The bill will establish the new judicial position of associate coroner and associate coroners will be able to exercise all the functions powers and duties of a coroner except for deciding that an inquest is necessary or holding inquests. This will help to free up coroners so they can work on more complex cases. The bill will also clarify that coroners may record the cause of death as presumed natural causes where appropriate. This provision only applies to a limited subcategory of cases namely cases where an inquiry is not opened because the coroner is satisfied that the death can be presumed to be from natural causes. In such cases the coroner's decision is based on their assessment of the evidence. The coroner must also be satisfied that there is nothing in the evidence to suggest that further investigation by a coroner is required. This amendment is intended to enable families and whānau to receive a coroner's findings sooner where it is appropriate to do so. The bill also enables coroners to hold a coronial inquiry solely on the papers if they consider that an inquest is not required.Finally the bill will enable coroners to issue written findings with the cause of death only and not the broader circumstances where the coroner considers that there is no public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances. This amendment is an administrative change that will help to streamline the process to write up and publish findings. It does not reduce how thoroughly a death is required to be investigated prior to the findings being issued.This is an important piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge again the contributions from the Justice Committee and their very helpful amendments to the bill. They certainly have improved and refined the language and the provisions of the legislation. I want to also extend my appreciation to all of the many submitters who provided input into the bill especially through the select committee process. The Justice Committee did recommend several changes and as I've mentioned they have been largely adopted and they have helped to improve and enhance the bill. I want to thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office the Office of the Clerk the Ministry of Justice for their advice throughout and to my predecessor my colleague the Hon Aupito William Sio who first brought this bill to the House. The targeted amendments in this bill will facilitate better access to justice for families and whānau while ensuring the public interest continues to be well served by the coronial system. Just as I conclude my speech at this third reading I know the subject matter of this bill can be quite heavy I know we are talking about deaths and various aspects and so just as is customary in the Māori World I'd like to just wrap up my contribution as we will go on to pass this legislation just to say apiti hono tātai hono; ko te hunga mate ki te hunga mate. Apiti hono tātai hono; ko te hunga ora ki te hunga ora—so we bind together through ancestral links those that have passed on the dead with the dead and we bind together through ancestral links us here the living with the living. With that I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.