SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I'm very pleased to take a call on this bill the Coroners Amendment Bill. I'd be interested to know: is this actually the first bill that the Associate Minister has brought in this space? If so—and he's smiling—then I'm in a generous mood and will also support the bill because he's a good fella even though this is a bill dealing with death.Hon Aupito William Sio: OK that's enough. SIMON O'CONNOR: That's enough. Ha ha! Yes there's probably enough Labour MPs in trouble at the moment without adding to them. Look in all seriousness this is a good bill but—but—there's a few elements which I think the select committee will rightly have to interrogate. So again I'm wanting to make it clear that the National Party this side of the House will support the bill at first reading.At first glance it is a relatively straightforward piece of legislation but there are two elements I want to draw out over the coming minutes. One is in many ways it looks good but will it actually deliver? And the second: what sort of checks and balances are in place? Because I think there's a limited risk here that the public may find that they're not getting not so much the same quality but the same depth of information. But I do want to say it's limited risk in my mind; this is not like a glaring red light emergency.Look the context of course of the coronial court is that it's under enormous enormous pressure with enormous delays. I'm sure someone will use the adage tonight so I'll be the first to start with it: you know the old justice delayed is justice denied". And particularly when we are dealing with elements of death families do want some certainty. But I would put to you and to the House and to the Associate Minister that the issues within the coronial court sit within a wider crisis in our courts system. I think for those at home it would be a mistake to think that the only courts in New Zealand which are struggling at the moment are the coronial courts. We know that right through the system—it doesn't matter if it's right through the criminal courts to tenancy tribunals and other associative type courts—they're completely overrun. One sort of theme and I think it's lacking unfortunately in this bill is actually the deployment of technology. The Government sort of flirted for want of a better word with this in a previous bill attempting to update some of the court legislation around COVID—and I don't want to relitigate that one per se—but some of the technological options that could be deployed to help speed things up do not as far as I can see appear in this Coroners Amendment Bill.I'm also concerned that it may not actually achieve what it wants to set out. And again I think that's why it's going to be important on the Justice Committee—a fine committee if I might say a very humble committee obviously all the members on it but a fine committee—that will tease this out. Because we look through this and the first is that the Minister wants to appoint associate roles. Now that looks all well and good. I believe they have to be a barrister or a solicitor for a minimum of five years. Again that makes sense. Yes coronial matters are serious [Member coughs] Excuse my voice—not COVID; talking too much which is always a bit of a problem for a politician.Now fundamentally appointing someone with skills is needed and five years I think is appropriate although we'll turn it over to the likes of the Law Commission and obviously barristers and solicitors themselves to speak to. But the question I have and I know this is not the committee stage but it's rhetorically important: where are these people going to come from? Do we have—and the Minister may well know and the Government may well know—a breadth of people who are prepared to step up to this role? And I honestly don't know the answer to that. It is just that little bit of a concern in my mind that the Government appears to be putting things down on paper—is appearing to be doing something—but we're going to find that actually there are not the people or resources there to assist. As I say conceptually a good idea but will it actually lead to anything?As it's noted in the legislation the associate's role is very similar to the coroner's but there are limitations on that and I think it will be interesting to tease that out to exactly where we draw the line. Maybe the Minister's got it right in the first go and that's quite reasonable and possible but I think it'll be good for the committee to tease that out. A second change—and it was alluded to; actually it wasn't really alluded to; it was directly spoken to by the chair of the Justice Committee—talking about a new category of what's known as "unascertained natural causes" around a death. Again I think that makes sense. It's basically when the duty coroner sees there's nothing suspicious in the death or it's not self-inflicted. It enables that coroner on duty to say "Look this is an unascertained natural cause of death."There are two elements there that we probably need to draw out. One is: is there any way that that can be double-checked? You don't want to have a situation where the wrong judgment is made. Again we'll just want to tease that out a little bit more in committee to understand that the checks and balances are in place. I think the second element to do with that is to make sure that the public understands what it means. It could be a little bit confusing that all of a sudden their loved one has died and look they don't understand. I mean for unfortunate reasons in some ways I've been around a lot of death—not causative; I want to make that very clear on the Hansard! Well I hope not—Nicole McKee: Hope not.SIMON O'CONNOR: Yes hope not. But no quite seriously I'm not trying to be too silly. I've been around a lot of death and it becomes often a very emotional and often sometimes irrational moment for families. So again trying to explain to them what "unascertained natural causes" means is just a small consideration that has to be made.We've heard from the Minister and again the chair of the committee that the coroner can have a sole discretion of whether to do the inquest which means that they are actually engaging in the public space or within their chambers. I note—and if I've read the legislation correctly—that if witnesses are to be called we instantly move to an inquest. So we have a sort of slightly funny situation developing where we're saying the coroner has the sole discretion of whether to be in chambers or have an inquest but if she or he is going to be hearing witnesses it is automatically an inquest. So again it's a possibility that this sounds good but actually is not going to make much of a change because a lot of people will probably want to engage. And then a little bit like the previous point—I think it's probably useful—is there some review mechanism? If I have a family member who's passed away the coroner decides in her or his judgment that this will be "chambers only" and we feel as a family that there should be something further do we have the right to if you will appeal? And I don't know the right legal terms—I'm sure that the legal beagles and scholars on the other side particularly with doctorates in front of their name can opine at length on that.The final one and again it's going to echo a little bit of what I said around this—sorry I have to keep looking at it because I actually find it a mouthful—the "unascertained natural causes"; the question around explaining to the public. The fourth change which this legislation and the Minister is proposing is that coroners can issue written findings that only state the cause of death. They don't have to—repeat: they don't have to—talk about the circumstances leading up to it. Again I can think of a number of circumstances where that makes perfect sense; just the cause of death is sort of obvious. To spend time—the coroner or the associate coroner or the duty coroner to spend a lot of time—trying to explain the circumstances might be a little unnecessary. But as with anything it's exactly where one draws the line and one will want to make sure—particularly when we're talking in an epidemiological sense—that we're going to have good information so that our health and other officials and justice officials too I might add can clarify matters of death. And it's not just at times what's caused it but the circumstances will play a very very important part. The second element of that—and sorry to come back to it—is ultimately the public understanding what's going on. Some families will want to know what the events were that led up to and not just simply the cause of the death.So look as I say it's a good bill. It's not a great bill; it's a good bill. And why I say it's not great is that it's just my underlying suspicion that this is a little bit of window dressing. There is no doubt that our court system is in crisis and as I said at the start right across all the courts. I look forward to the Minister bringing more legislation to the House—he deserves it—to actually fix the crisis in the court system. But I have a concern that what looks good on paper—we're going to appoint more associate coroners—looks great looks active where in fact very little will ultimately happen simply because "Who are these people?" I think it will be one of the first questions again turning to my colleagues on the Justice Committee that we should be putting to officials: how many people do they believe are available for this role? And if they are how quickly can we get them on board? And with that I'd just like to leave the remaining time to—[Time expired]"