Ardern Jacinda: Coroners Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionArdern Jacinda: Coroners Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11681. Text is subject to correction.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I envisage that certainly on this side of the Chamber there will be a rigorous debate during the Committee stage around the Coroners Amendment Bill. I will just flag for this Committee that we have a total of four amendments on the Table most of which relate to Part 2 of this bill. We look forward to the opportunity to debate them at great length. They are in my name Phil Goff’s name and Kelvin Davis’ name.Coming first to Part 1 of the bill I want to start by just outlining again that when it comes to the general purpose of this bill—what its intent was as it was raised in the beginning by the Minister for Courts—we were generally supportive of some of those objectives. Some of those objectives were to improve coroners’ recommendations reduce duplication clarify which deaths should be reported—there was also Law Commission advice on the way that suicides and suspected suicides should be reported—and generally improve accountability transparency and leadership. Our position through all of this though has been—particularly when it comes to the workload management which it is very clear in Part 1 is some of the reason that the purpose of the Coroners Act is being changed—that we need to be very clear as to at what cost some of those amendments may come.Just to give some context to Part 1 according to the initial briefing that we received from the Ministry of Justice there are about 6000 deaths reported to coroners every year. Coroners accept jurisdiction—because of course not all of those cases will be within their jurisdiction—in over half of those which is 3500 cases. About 1300 of those cases will then become an inquiry keeping in mind that only about 300 will ever be the subject of a public inquest. I will come to the definition in a little more detail later on but—to very briefly give an overview of the difference between an inquiry and an inquest as we had it explained to us at the Justice and Electoral Committee—basically an inquiry is able to be held on papers in a closed office;an inquest allows a much higher degree of scrutiny and a wider remit for the coroner to investigate and call for evidence. So an inquest is more in-depth. That becomes important particularly to Part 2 of this bill. That is a little bit of context for what this bill was meant to achieve.Our view however is that caseload management should not come at the cost of proper inquiries and inquests held in cases where we need to ensure public confidence in particular. I want to come first to the amendment made in Part 1 clause 4 amending section 3—the purpose section—of the Coroners Act. My understanding is that the original Act recognised in its purpose section “the cultural and spiritual needs of family [and] others who were in a close relationship” and “the public good associated with a proper and timely understanding of the causes and circumstances of deaths:”. We are looking at a much more deliberate purpose clause. In the bill it instead states that the purpose of the Act is “the making of recommendations or comments that if drawn to public attention may reduce the chances of further deaths occurring in circumstances similar to those in which the deaths occurred.”I imagine that on face value most members of the public would absolutely agree that that would be useful guidance by which the coroners’ office should govern itself.My view is that we have inconsistency within this bill with the purpose clause itself. If the purpose clause for all intents and purposes is stating the idea that if those recommendations are out there the likelihood that we may reduce further deaths is going to be enhanced then surely it would follow that this bill should require that anyone who is the subject of a recommendation be obliged to at least respond to that recommendation. Those amendments are ones that we have made in a Supplementary Order Paper that will affect Part 2 of the bill I believe—I will double-check. But ultimately this purpose clause is not given proper effect in the bill as it stands without an obligation for agencies be they public or private to respond to a coroner’s recommendations.In Labour’s view that is a very simple amendment—a very simple amendment—and one that would make a substantive difference. It is one that the last Chief Coroner called for to be adopted. Otago University has conducted a piece of research that has called for it to be adopted. If the Minister in the chair Amy Adams is about to take a call and state that that is happening anyway then again there is no reason not to embed it within the legislation. We think it is important and actually research has shown that it has not been picked up enough. But I will come to that in my further contributions.I come then to clause 6 replacing section 7—replacing the Chief Coroner’s functions. Some of the more substantive additions are around an additional function in new section 7(2)(a) “to establish and help maintain relationships between coroners and other persons carrying out functions or duties within the coronial system:”. We heard within the debate on this bill at the select committee from memory from pathologists particularly who talked about the difficulty in jurisdiction issues. We have heard about that to a certain degree from people reporting their experience with the police as well. It seems a useful function for the coroner to have that primary role of managing those relationships and functions for anyone who has some interest or say or role in the coronial system.What I do want to point out though is that under these functions we also have the overseeing of coroners’ investigations by managing the workload of coroners issuing practice notes and monitoring the operation of the system. In terms of managing the workload one issue—which was not discussed substantively but on which I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view—is what has been reported at least as an increase in coroners’ offices using external resources in order to deliver on their statutory obligations. Our understanding is that the workload within coroners’ offices is such that they have started contracting externally in order to assist them in the completion of their functions.If that is the case my question would be: in managing the workloads of coroners to what degree does that primary function of the Chief Coroner allow them to go to the Minister’s office point out these resourcing issues and establish the degree to which they are able to maintain the workload within the office rather than having to contract out those core functions?We would have concern if that becomes a habit within the Chief Coroner’s office in order to maintain those primary functions. If they have the role of managing workload to what degree would it fall back on the relationship with the Ministry of Justice and the Minister for them to say “We do not have the ability to internally manage those workload issues.”?Coming over then to the Chief Coroner’s functions in new section 7(2)(e) it again also states there: “to set up and maintain a register which must be publicly available of coroners’ recommendations and comments (or summaries of those recommendations and comments) …”.Again our view would be that a complete register surely would require that we have a response to coroners’ recommendations included in that register and at the moment there is no legislative power to ensure that that happens. It seems to me all the way through the initial parts of the purpose clauses and the function clauses to be a missing element of this bill and one that would be remedied by our Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146.I want to come briefly to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 174 though which amends clause 14 to add new section 19A. It amends some of the New Zealand Police’s responsibility for coordinating the extraction of bodies in relevant circumstances. I just want to clarify with the Minister—it strikes me on reading this Supplementary Order Paper that this might perhaps be a response to the horrific evidence we heard as a committee around the hot-air balloon disaster in the Wairarapa. One of the key issues there seems to be that there was not enough clear responsibility in that case for the police to be able to communicate with families in that circumstance. Their view was that it was strictly for the coroners’ office—that they could not communicate with those families even though the police did have responsibility for the extraction of bodies. I would like to hear the Minister’s view. Would this Supplementary Order Paper remedy that situation—