O'Rourke Denis: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5636. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 With one exception which relates to the exemption as of right for people over 65 years New Zealand First supports the bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I would like to deal with Part 2 first with the provisions relating to the protection of jurors from invasion of their privacy especially of course by accused persons and those acting for them. 
We think it is high time that provisions of this kind were put into legislation to protect jurors from the release of private information relating to them especially of course their address or addresses. We do not think this compromises the right of the accused to challenge for cause or without cause and where an accused represents themselves a barrister can be appointed under this new law to handle juror challenges. It all seems to be perfectly sensible to us. These measures assist jurors to maintain their privacy and for that reason may help to arrest the unpopularity of jury service. As we know four out of five people called for jury service seek to avoid it which I suppose is not surprising. People lead busy lives and do not wish to spend this magnitude of time on this sort of task. But it is an important public duty and our justice system depends on people doing that duty. 
So as I said it is high time we had this bill to ensure information about jurors is restricted as it is to eligible persons. The registrar must not reveal the protected particulars as defined in the bill to anyone other than an eligible person a judge necessary members of the court staff and so on. The registrar must take reasonable steps to see that a prohibited person cannot copy the particulars. 
So without going into a great deal more detail it is obvious to see that there are some important and really worthwhile provisions in the bill relating to privacy and the protection of jurors from the publication of information concerning them. As we know there have been problems from time to time with that over recent years. But I would like to turn now to Part 1. Part 1 of course relates to excusals and disqualifications. New Zealand First does support the new provisions concerning disqualifications especially the disqualification of a person on home detention for over 3 months within the last 5 years which we think is consistent with disqualification for imprisonment. New Zealand First also supports most of the new provisions relating to excusal especially those relating to excusal for health reasons. 
But New Zealand First does not support new section 15A(2) in clause 10 which grants an exemption as of right on application by a person over 65 years of age—the registrar must excuse such a person as of right. Compare that for example with section 15A(1)—the registrar may excuse at the discretion therefore of the registrar for other reasons such as state of health. This distinction does not seem to be very sensible to us. In fact there are four reasons we see why the 65 years provision in section 15A(2) should not be there. 
First of all there is a matter of principle—an important one though—which is ageism. Ageism is rife in the community and this bill will further entrench it. Those people who are trying to get work for example after reaching the age of 60 let alone 65 would find that very difficult to do. It is one of those things we in this House should be combating rather than encouraging yet this legislation encourages it. 
The argument was recently made by a speaker just before me that this is only an option. However if that was correct in principle then it would be correct at any age and not at the age of 65 only. Worse still the amendment will make it possible to come off the jury list then go back on it then off again on again and so on. Nor should it do that. It is not very sensible. People whether they are 65 or over or under 65 as I have said have a duty to perform jury service if they are able to do so. Over-65-year-olds are just as often able to do so as those who are for example 60 years of age. 
The problem here is that using 65 years only as a reason for exemption is not a substantive reason. After all a person over 65 would still be able to apply for exemption on the grounds of ill health under the bill. Secondly we think it is irrational to single out over-65-year-olds. They are not disabled by that age for reasons of mental incapacity physical incapacity or indeed any other incapacity. In fact the opposite is the case. A person of 65 years of age or over has a wealth of life experience to offer for jury service. That makes them actually more valuable rather than less valuable as a juror than younger people. 
Thirdly the retirement age is actually irrelevant. Why pick that age simply because it is the age of eligibility for superannuation? What on earth has that got to do with it? Nothing whatsoever. They are better equipped from the point of view of experience and judgment to be a juror than much younger people are. For all of those reasons New Zealand First feels that that particular provision should not be in the bill. However that is not in itself sufficient reason to vote against it. We are disappointed that that provision has survived to the end. However we do believe that the other provisions in the bill relating to excusals and exemptions and relating to the protection of the details and particulars of jurors are very sensible and well overdue. 
For those reasons New Zealand First will be supporting the bill and voting in favour of it even though it does contain that rather objectionable provision which we think is ageist relating to 65-year-olds and over. For that reason as I said New Zealand First will support the bill but we do hope that in the course of time people will see that that particular provision relating to 65-year-olds is not correct and eventually will be removed and we would be in favour of the bill as a whole. As it is however the bill is sensible and we will be supporting it.