Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on the Courts Matters Bill and the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill which National supports. I want to speak particularly in my contribution about the Tribunal Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill which forms part of this bill. Of course the purpose of the legislation we are discussing today is to modernise and bring our courts up to speed with the 21st century and tribunal processes of course are a very important part of how justice is served in our community and improving their consistency and transparency and their efficiency is a very important part of how we ensure that people trying to access justice processes are able to do so in a timely manner.The proposed changes should be commended because they will reduce the time that it takes to hear and resolve matters. They will ensure that tribunals can have more consistency in the way that they operate. In particular it ensures that tribunals can continue to be the first option for the timely and specialist decision-making on particular matters of importance that can be required and affirm the role of tribunals in providing a dispute resolution system that exists outside the court system.It's important that the bill simplifies and standardises the statutory powers because what that means in practice is that for people who are party to a dispute there is a clearer process to follow they can put the matter behind them sooner and they can get on with their lives sooner which in the end is the purpose that we want justice to serve—it allows people to go on with their lives and to make good contributions to our community.The bill improves some tribunals' scope to hear cases making them more accessible for dispute resolution and in doing so it provides better consumer protection and redress. There are 21 tribunals that have legislation applying to them. Most of them were created on a case by case basis so there's currently a wide range of variance in their powers. Standardising provisions around the summoning of witnesses the awarding of costs where a person has obstructed or unreasonably delayed proceedings and standardising the processes around contempt so that disruptive people can be more easily removed from a hearing are all things that will allow tribunals to act more effectively. There are also updates of course to financial thresholds and then there is a simplification removing the Birdlings Flat Land Titles Commissioner which is not required any more the Health Boards of Appeal and the Maritime Appeal Authority.All of these things are about updating and modernising our law so that it can operate well for people. A particular example of course can be found in Subpart 7 of Part 1 where there are specific efforts taken to reduce the workload of the Human Rights Review Tribunal which I'm sure members of this House would all be in agreement that it is a very important tribunal in terms of the role it plays in our justice system. This change specifically enables the appointment of one or more deputy chairpersons; authorises the returning of claims back to the Human Rights Commission for further work; allows for a joint hearing by chairpersons and deputy chairpersons for training purposes so that they can be part of learning how that tribunal works and can therefore be better prepared for the future; and of course allows for more efficiency by allowing a chairperson or deputy chairperson to consider alone as opposed to part of a panel matters that are coming before that tribunal.In essence National supports this bill because we see it as an important part of modernising legislation to bring courts and tribunals up to speed with the 21st century improving consistency and transparency and efficiency to better reflect the needs of today and ensuring that New Zealanders are better able to access justice and have it served to them in a more efficient manner. Thank you.