Court Simon; McAnulty KieranSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's with some concern that I hear the submissions on this motion from our fellow opposition party the National Party supporting it with reservations. There's been a number of motions for urgent select committee referrals that have come to this House since I was elected as a member of Parliament in October 2020 and took my seat here in November 2020 and on each and every occasion there's been a motion seeking an urgent or truncated select committee consideration of a piece of legislation. It's for a number of similar reasons: there is a longstanding problem whether it's social or environmental or economic—in this case a problem with the functioning of the justice system that the Government has known about for a very very long time—where people affected by the operation of the justice system in this case have raised issues with access to justice the functioning of the courts and whether trials are delayed because a lawyer gets sick or a witness is unable to attend because of another emergency or their car running out of petrol. These are not new problems and yet today again we have a Minister telling the House that the select committee report-back period of only a few weeks is absolutely necessary in order to solve a problem that is so incredibly urgent that if it's not solved by Parliament in the next few weeks then a whole lot of things will happen that are bad.But if we look at the records in fact the Minister himself mentioned that even before COVID a delay to a High Court hearing in Auckland an adjournment could result in a delay of up to a year before another hearing date was available. Having this bill referred to select committee as proposed for a truncated hearing period and consideration period of only a few weeks will not address a backlog of over 8000 cases that have built up during the COVID period. They are 8000 more cases than the actual backlog which I'm sure is many many many thousands more. So my point is—or point one—that referring a bill for a truncated consideration at select committee is a completely unacceptable way to address what are in fact long-term structural problems that affect the lives of everyday New Zealanders whether they are seeking justice through the court system or whether they actually have been accused of an offence and are seeking to demonstrate their innocence in some way. So whether this bill is in fact necessary itself is questionable and again that comes back to the rushed approach. If a Government if a Minister or if a department can't get the problem statement right how on earth do they expect to solve problems that affect everyday New Zealanders like access to justice and if they can't get the problem statement right with all the resources of Government all the time available and all the advisers how on earth do they expect the people affected by poorly thought out legislation to develop their own submissions and to consult with their own stakeholders? I can give an example from a recent select committee hearing I was involved with with the Environment Committee on the enabling housing amendment bill to the Resource Management Act which had a similarly truncated three-week report-back time frame. There was a large number of submitters who came to committee and they said that all of the problems that the Government and the National Party who had held hands like they are today on a podium and announced a piece of legislation that had to happen under utmost urgency to solve a problem that was so urgent despite the fact it had been developing over decades. Actually many of the submitters told us We've come here with our submission. It's four pages long and it summarises the things we could get down on paper in the week that we had. We weren't able to go back to our governing bodies. We weren't able to go back to the executives of the organisations that we worked for and make sure that everybody in our executive leadership team understood the risks that this Government's legislation were likely to cause and therefore say what was our organisation going to propose to the Government as an alternative." They weren't even able to get sufficient legal advice on what all the implications were of a piece of legislation that was brought to the House and were then told "Well we've only got a week to make a submission a week for hearings and then a week for the committee to consider." It's an appalling way to develop legislation and if this Government really wants New Zealanders to think that they are all about solving long-term problems that affect our communities then they would do well to actually take their time because these problems are not new. There are 8000 additional delayed cases compared to March 2020. That's a lot but it's not because of COVID; it's actually because the court system appears to be under-resourced and to be operating in what appear to be archaic modes of working. They don't appear to have an effective programme management system that enables them to move resources or move court hearings around and if they're insisting on still sending notices to people by mail when most people rely on electronic communication it's probably not this piece of legislation that's going to solve the problem of access to justice for people who need to get to court either as defendants or as witnesses or as jurors or as victims during this period—which may well only go on for a few more weeks—of a COVID pandemic response. This bill is actually a COVID-19 response court safety legislation bill. The courts have been operating since March 2020. When New Zealand shut its borders and imposed some of the harshest lockdowns in the world the courts have continued to operate. Serious criminals have been through the criminal justice system and have been sentenced to prison. Appeals have been heard. So it's not just whether the Government has actually come up with a problem statement that leads to the need for legislation; it's actually: is this Government reading the tea leaves are they reading the newspaper and are Ministers and members of Parliament of the Labour Party getting out into their communities and actually seeing what's going on in their communities? Because if they were they might see what members of the ACT Party who visit their local communities see like my colleague here Mr Mark Cameron who's a member of Parliament who's based in Ruawai in Northland who spends some of his time when he's not in Parliament talking to people in the dairy sector and in the Ruawai community about issues that affect them and my colleague here Toni Severin who with her partner has had an interest in an industrial water-blasting and cleaning business for many years. Now her customers and the customers of that business tell them that they actually still need to get their buildings cleaned and it turns out that you can clean a building you can milk a dairy cow safely and you can also operate a court system safely because the courts are operating safely. Therefore the justification for a truncated select committee process is not proven.The ACT Party will oppose this motion to refer the bill to a select committee for only a short period of three weeks before it reports back because in fact the need for urgency is not demonstrated. The problem is not clearly defined and the stakeholders who would want to submit on the bill will not have sufficient time and if the bill in fact does pass in the time frames that the Minister and the Government insist on the bill itself provides an almost farcical situation where if the COVID-19 rules change and none of the other things around vaccine mandates or vaccine passes are even used any more people who start their court process during the period this legislation is in effect will still be subject to all of those controls for two years while somebody else who walks through the door of the court the day after the vaccine mandates drop won't be. For that reason the ACT Party opposes this bill. KIERAN McANULTY (Chief Whip—Labour): I move That the question be now put."