O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Mr Speaker. One of my myriad duties as the member of Parliament for Ōhāriu Assistant Speaker and many other jobs I have here is I'm also the Labour spokesperson on courts so it gives me great pleasure to take this opportunity to examine this piece of legislation and to do so in what would appear to be a climate of agreement.However I am particularly reflecting on the comments of the last speaker Cameron Brewer that this relatively simple bill that does bring changes to the system—I don't think anyone would actually doubt that. I don't think it's going to quite have the impact of turning the justice system from being the quite sluggish very slow system it is now—a very careful use of words—to something that is going to race our defendants and speed justice up because it simply won't do that. But what it will do is ensure particularly looking after our victims to give them some opportunities to be heard elsewhere.But before I go into the further details I think it's an important thing to remember about the core of our justice system and Mr Meager will know that as a lawyer that the number one court or the registrar's court—it has different names these days but it's actually the entry point into the justice system and it's a very important part of it. In each town and city there is this court where when you run foul of the law or you need the assistance of the law things are channelled through this place and we have a judge who sits there so there's an understanding of the equality of the system so that everybody gets access to the system.You've got to be careful about introducing remoteness to the system whereby things can be done in different places because once you do that justice can become different things to different people. So while I'm very much in favour of these provisions of this bill I think we should go to Amendment 3 which is clarifying the relationship between virtual participation and open justice. Now obviously this was brought about and the Labour Government brought this in during the COVID pandemic which certainly accelerated—as the pandemic did in so many of our professional lives or lives in anything—the use of audio-visual of video and words like Zoom" entered into our lexicon. So it was a great opportunity for us to start to understand the opportunities for this but like many of these—and anyone who's ever worked on a computer project and I'm sure Mr Bayly in his business life has seen computer systems being introduced online systems being introduced that are going to change the whole way we do business. We were going to go paperless and we were going to become so efficient. I personally remember INCIS as being this system—actually many of these provisions weren't that much different because all of a sudden this is way back in the 1980s we were going to introduce this system into justice that was going to include courts include our judges include our prisons include everybody so you would only ever enter a name once. You'd arrest someone on Courtenay Place on a Saturday night enter their details drop them off at the watch house and that was the last anyone would ever have to enter another detail. Well it never quite happened that way. I think the INCIS mainframe was last seen weighing down a yacht out in the middle of Cook Strait somewhere and that was where it all ended up.But seriously I've seen many attempts over the years and not only in the justice system but in many places that we are going to solve everything with technology. Well that's fine but often the people who introduce the technology are not the people who actually understand the business on either side. So never lose sight while we're seeking to go online to use better technology of what the nature of our business is and the nature of our business is to ensure that people receive justice—the justice being the criminal who comes into the system the defendant that they have the justice. A lot of that is ensuring that they're actually seen by a real person at some stage and so I'd hate to ever see the system where and I see already Mr Meager mentioned Te Au Reka—I'm pleased to see you've had a briefing on that whereby it's going to be a system where everybody will be online the lawyers will be online. Good luck with that with getting defence lawyers online I'll say. It was hard enough getting the judges to even have a laptop on their desk when this was first being mooted. In fact I was just very recently talking to someone who's a judge's assistant and whose job was actually to do everything to actually turn the computer on the lot for one of these judges—hopefully a judge long since retired.But I know that getting everybody online into a system—and this comes back to the point of this bill which I know the Speaker in the Chair will be looking for this myself to do is to make sure that when we do start to put everything online that there is someone in the system that they will actually see and understand that there are real people involved in this. That our witnesses—when they do come to court.Now it may well be that—and we talked about victims. I know the member from the Greens Tamatha Paul talked about victims. Victims should be at the centre of our court system but actually don't assume too much about victims. Because having dealt with a lot of victims going to court is an important part of the process for them. A lot of our victims actually do like to sit in the back of the court and actually see the defendant standing there in the dock justice being meted out to them. So don't ever make assumptions that—what really worries me is that the more online we get the more we will take that centre-point of the District Court of the High Court out of the system. So all of a sudden everything has been done online.Going to back to what I said before and I'm being a little bit cynical; probably know too many defence lawyers myself who I just—good luck trying to get them online.James Meager: Let's not go back let's look forward.GREG O'CONNOR: Some of your maybe compatriots I'm sure Mr Meager. You've sat in the court where people—good luck trying to get some of those people to actually be able to do all their business online. Because the other thing too: as soon as you go into that you also get some security issues. Go back to this issue where witnesses and people at home can be sitting and observing parts of the court process that actually may not be able to be made public; they may be suppressed. So even that information all of a sudden is going to be online ensuring that we're going to have that.So going back it may—from listening to me you might think I'm totally opposed to this. I'm not this is very good but don't think this is any more than what it is. It's a relatively simple bill that actually does ensure that we're able to utilise the technology but without changing the nature of our business.I see right through the process too anyone who's had the opportunity—and I really commend everyone in the House to take the opportunity to go to one of the new specialist courts because actually the specialist courts are going the other way. Go and sit in the—and I was lucky enough to be in the wonderful Palmerston North and looking at what they do with the family violence court.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Great town.GREG O'CONNOR: Now go and—each of us will have somewhere in our jurisdiction a court. The drug courts are another one. Now these are more specialist courts. We were actually trying to—instead of having this conveyer belt of people going through the justice system they were actually able to take a little more specialisation. One of these specialisations is the family violence court. Actually they're shaped differently but the essence of it is that it's much more personalised. It's important that the defendant in this case is actually in the room with the judge with the lawyers and with all those others involved in the system.While we're doing this we're actually moving to another system. The drug courts are actually the same thing. Again go to the drug courts. Those of you in Auckland—I understand there's one opening in Hamilton if it hasn't already—there's one in Auckland City and one out at Waitakere. Well worth a visit because you'll actually see another way that justice is being administered. I was lucky enough to be there when we had three of the people who had been through the courts actually graduating. As a bit of a cynical old detective I had my doubts when I went in there. You know it'll obviously be—statistics over the years; we'll see how it works. But certainly I'm convinced there is another way but the other way wasn't moving online. The other way and what I was able to observe there was actually there was more personal involvement in it.So while yes let's use our technology; yes use this and I look forward to Te Au Reka. Well. I do note that Te Au Reka has had a considerable reduction in its funding. While we're going to go online the funding is not going—well in fact $31 million less funding for courts this year. So while we're going to be making these advances—[Interruption] laptops cost money I don't know if you know over there. To go online it'll cost money.I could speak longer about this. It's a topic near and dear to my heart. But I do recommend this and I believe that it's something is the start of an issue. But let's not forget what justice is about; what the court system is about. Thank you."