Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well I'm really disappointed that Mr Bishop didn't read the bill before he started his speech because there does seem to be a fundamental misconception on the other side of the House about what this is. It's not an appellate body.Look as someone who has worked on innocence projects I can tell you what this does and I can tell you what goes wrong. I can tell you in respect of each of those cases why we need a criminal cases review tribunal because those people whilst they were waiting for justice were languishing incarcerated whilst people worked tirelessly for nothing because they thought something had gone wrong.So Tim McKinnel an investigator—not a police officer not a lawyer but an investigator—looked at Teina Pora's interview tapes and thought Hang on. This isn't right. The police didn't behave properly here. This person wasn't dealt with fairly." So he worked tirelessly until he gathered enough evidence talked to enough experts and got lawyers on side who would help him progress that case until it crossed the threshold so that the team could then go and persuade the Legal Services Agency that it was deserving of legal aid. Only then could the appeal case be put together. All of that was for years and Teina Pora whom I have met was in no position to pursue his own case.This is not a court. It doesn't need fixed rigid rules. It is a threshold body and its job is simply this: to take these instances and determine whether it is in the interests of justice for an appellate court to have another look at what has gone on. Once that threshold has been reached it will be able to be funded through legal aid and the process will be able to move more swiftly.It's not the courts necessarily that are the problem; it's all of the pre-court processes that are difficult. One of those is this: that an application for an appellate opinion on the prerogative of mercy goes through the Minister's office and lawyers in the Ministry of Justice who have full-time jobs doing something else have to look at these things. That's entirely inappropriate. What we need is devoted people.As for the suggestion that at least 33 percent or one-third of the members must be lawyers is a bad thing what the cases have shown—whether it be Bain whether it be Lundy or whether it be Teina Pora—is that the breakthroughs in these cases are usually forensic. Bain was luminol on the bloodied footprints. That evidence wasn't a question of law; that was a question of science and we have to get over the fact that lawyers are some kind of priesthood who know all the answers.Hon Ruth Dyson: Who thinks that?Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Ha ha! I don't know. What we need is people who listen to good advice from other professionals—investigators forensic scientists police officers—and others with real skills in this area.So this is absolutely needed. It's not a court. What it is is an independent body which will look into these serious breaches and it's entirely a misconception to think that it's going to be overwhelmed. But what it will do is it will give justice much more quickly much more robustly and much more fairly than we have under the current system and what it will also do is make sure that it doesn't rely on the luck of some lawyer or investigator seeing a miscarriage of justice going by or someone looking for a bit of glory in their professional career. What it will do is even the playing field so that anyone who thinks there has been a miscarriage can approach this commission whether they have a high-profile gory murder case which has had lots of media attention or whether it might be something a little less salubrious but still very serious where it's had serious criminal consequences.So I applaud the Minister for following through on yet another promise that this Government has made and addressing the miscarriages of justice which have happened and moving on to this criminal cases review tribunal. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker."