Borrows Chester: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 04 October 2011. Volume:676;Page:21640. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am pleased to be able to take a short call in the third readings of the legislation from the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. It is legislation has been a long time in coming to the House and has been 10 years in its construction. For 7 of those 10 years it was under the guidance of the governing party of the previous speaker Charles Chauvel. I think it is pertinent to point that out because in the tenor of what he said there seemed to be some residual thoughts that those 7 years were wasted and I would tend to think that that is not the case. The previous speaker indicated that we will be back in the House tweaking the criminal law over the next few years—that has always been the case rightly or wrongly—but I do not believe for a moment that the Minister of Justice Simon Power has been sitting on his hands or is responding with knee-jerk reactions to matters that have only recently come to the notice of Parliament. 
This particular legislation seeks to right four situations that have needed some dealing to for some time. Excessive delay: for example the median time to dispose of a High Court jury trial is about 16 months which is an increase of approximately 5 months in the last 5 years. Anybody who has been working within the justice sector and who has been awake will have seen that this has become progressively worse over that time and has been entirely foreseeable. Although some steps have been taken it is time to do something to speed up that process. 
Excessive complexity: for example the main laws for criminal procedure—the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and Parts 12 and 13 of the Crimes Act 1961—have been amended numerous times over 50 years resulting in what has been described as an impenetrable maze for most non-lawyers. That impenetrable maze has existed over a long period of time a period of time when the previous speaker was in Government and was not without some influence within that Government. 
The outdated legislative framework: for example the current provisions were drafted on the assumption of a paper-based system creating barriers to the use of modern technology. It has been a sad thing to sit and see that the use of modern technology as far as filing procedures and the monitoring of proceedings go has been lagging behind significantly over the past years bearing in mind the extent to which parties bringing proceedings to court rely on information technology in the preparation of those cases and those matters. 
Finally the legislation seeks to deal with excessive cost. For example it is estimated there are approximately 43000 unnecessary court appearances a year in the criminal jurisdiction and that more than two-thirds of cases that reach a defended hearing fail to proceed on the day. I agree with the previous speaker that a number of things need fixing within the system and that there are some things that need fixing within the judicial system but are not accounted for within this legislation. I certainly agree that the wider concerns of the criminal justice system in this country extend beyond criminal procedure and into areas that are considered the drivers of crime but I note that this Minister was the only one who even attempted to address the drivers of crime as an issue and as a cross-portfolio response to what brings people before the court and what fails in the areas of health welfare education and law and order. 
I am pleased to support this legislation and I commend it to the House noting the broad support that the legislation has across the House. I look forward to its passage into our law in the very near future. Thank you.