Tisch Lindsay: Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4258] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 National will be supporting this bill which has been long in gestation. The genesis of this bill goes back to the 1980s and at last it has come before the House. I know that the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations has been very proactive over the years to make sure that the Justices of the Peace Act of 1957 which is long outdated now gets the attention it deserves in this amendment bill. So National will be supporting this bill. 
It is also interesting for those who do not know to note that the role of a justice of the peace is an ancient and honourable one tracing back to the unpaid posts of wardens conservators and keepers of the peace in the 14th century. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Why do you like reading circuitous notes? 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Well I say for that member it happens that I take this quite seriously as a justice of the peace myself. It is an honour and a privilege to be a justice and I have been one for many years and have been actively involved in the local area. I think that as this party is supporting the bill—and most parties are I am sure—interjections of that nature are uncalled for. 
There is a tradition over the last 600 years of justices being unpaid and we find that the role is probably the last bastion whereby a member of Parliament can use his or her local political patronage to be able to bring somebody forward to nominate that person and in so doing to make sure that those people who are put up for appointment by the Minister meet the criteria that one would expect. As previous speakers Ron Mark and Peter Dunne have identified there have been people who have come to them as they have come to me who have expected that we would sign them on as justices because it was the thing to do. They just wanted to have that title without knowing what was involved in being part of a very important tradition and also playing a very important part in our communities. 
So the area we are looking at in terms of the retired justice I think is an important one. There are a number of justices who are now of an age where they do not wish to participate or they are out of step with changing legislation and do not fully appreciate the requirements. So after a 10-year period a justice would be able to move to that retired status and I think that is a very important step that this bill now allows for. 
I am also in favour of the much stricter vetting requirements that the bill allows for. We find that some people have sneaked through. I think that in order to protect not only the interest of justices but also of the public whom they serve a much stricter vetting of applications is very appropriate. If we were to look at the number of justices we have and the work they do we would see for example that as at February 2004 there were over 284 sections of 92 separate Acts of Parliament that they needed to be familiar with and that need is increasing all the time. When we take into account ministerial jurisdictions the number of Acts increases significantly. The work includes deposition hearings bail applications remands summary offences minor offences local authority infringements and the swearing of search warrants. So the role is becoming complex it is becoming very intense and we need to make sure that the justices who are performing those functions are well trained. 
One of the duties I was involved with as president of the Matamata branch of the Justices Associations was to make sure that justices in our community were involved in training sessions. Training was not compulsory but we certainly made it attractive for justices to attend and get up to speed with skills and we held regular training sessions for members. If we look at the commitment that justices have made—and the figures I have here have been mentioned before but I think they are worth repeating; they have not been mentioned tonight but they were mentioned the other night—there were 12731 deposition or preliminary hearings 35603 minor and summary offence hearings including traffic offence hearings and 21046 bail and remand hearings making a total of 69380 charges heard. If we were to look at the voluntary commitment made by these people we would see that it is significant—about 26000 voluntary hours. 
So as a consequence National is supporting this amendment bill. We believe that the federation has been asking for a long time for these changes to be made and for Parliament to take this seriously. The bill has been a long time in coming but National has great pleasure in being able to support it. All justices including future appointments will benefit from it. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee.