Prasad Rajen: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5638. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 Can I congratulate Mr Mitchell on his remembering his lines so well and also the Minister of Justice Judith Collins on her impeccable timing in coming into the House at just the right moment to hear that particular comment not once but twice today. I would like to tell the Minister that that probably has been the highlight of the third reading of this Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill—yes indeed of the third reading of this bill. One would have expected you know that at the end of an important process like this which has taken I heard somebody say about 18 months we would have members of the Government stand up and dutifully take their full time to defend and explain. I am sure that the backbenchers particularly would have the time to explain to those who are listening that here they are making the arguments showing their understanding of the bill in detail showing how it really improves our justice system and that that is what they would do. But that is not what we have heard. We actually have heard very very short speeches and no real defence of this bill. Again as I said to Mr Mitchell not once but twice repeating the congratulations to his Minister as a way of ensuring that the 2 minutes were taken up fully is a learning in itself. 
But there are as both you and I Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch will understand some important provisions in this bill particularly to do with age. I guess some difficulty had been perceived with the age of 65 and with some people finding it difficult to get to fulfilling the request to attend for jury service. So the bill has addressed that and I think that is a good thing. You know in this day and age as the demography in that particular bracket is changing—remember the 65-year-old today is the 45-year-old of yesterday—I wondered whether that had been factored in. But I guess that some of the adjustments have been made. There is the option of the over-65s staying on the list and that is a good thing. But I do believe that I would not want to see 65-year-olds written off just yet. I think the Hon Phil Goff makes a good statement that with the change in our demography this age group still has a longer shelf life and a much more important role to play in the future and I think that also ought to be taken into account. 
The second provision of the bill is that there is a loophole that had been identified. People who were on home detention were somehow still caught by jury service so the bill fixes that up and you know that is a good thing. Thirdly probably the most serious part of this bill is the accidental release—I guess defendants being accidentally made aware of information about jurors— 
Jacqui Dean 
: This member should have read the bill. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I beg your pardon? 
Jacqui Dean 
: I said this member should have read the bill. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: This member has read the bill and this member is going to take the full call. If that member would like to take a call and explain what I am missing out that would be great because I do not know what the member is talking about. But certainly there is indeed the opportunity for that not to happen. 
Jacqui Dean 
: It is not accidental; it is deliberate but the member does not understand that. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Well that member seems to understand a lot. Why does the member not take a full-time call like none of the Government members have done and explain? Maybe I have got it wrong and maybe the member will take the next call and explain that. Will the member Jacqui Dean—will you do that? Will you take the next one and explain? Then do be quiet because I do have a serious point to make as well. You can chip away chip away for next to nothing but take a call—that would be quite nice. There is plenty of time. We are here until 10 o’clock and I am sure that member might like to use that as well. But certainly the bit that has not been factored in— 
Jacqui Dean 
: That member doesn’t understand Standing Orders either. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: —instead of chipping in Jacqui Dean might like to listen—because there still is as others have also said the opportunity for somebody a defendant to get that information by other means and I am not sure that this particular amendment has taken that into account. 
So those are the three provisions. But perhaps much more seriously these provisions seem to be somewhat reactionary and one has to reflect on the justice portfolio and the justice policies that are coming up. Here is a bill with three provisions taking 18 months to get this far and one wonders why. Is this how we are going to do justice with little bits and pieces every now and again? Maybe that does reflect the Government’s approach to justice because often the Government will very quickly respond to something so as to give a perception of it being tough on crime and there is an element of that in this particular bill especially with information about jurors becoming available. So there is that tendency of the Government to react to something to be seen to take a very strong line and to link it to the Government being tough on everything else. 
 But this bill has languished for 18 months. It was not that important but it is hardly a well-thought-out set of provisions around the justice portfolio that we can see in this particular bill because we do not. What we see like we have seen in other places in the justice portfolio as well is bits and pieces coming through and bits and pieces going out but a well-thought-out set of provisions in the justice area is not what we see. 
Perhaps we ought not to be surprised because that is also the approach of the Government in other areas as well. I liken this one to the attempt to bring in a code of social responsibility for welfare beneficiaries and I am only just likening those two one to the other because here in a sense is this notion of being tough on crime. There we can see that there are approaches to sounding tough on welfare beneficiaries being very very punitive knowing if we are to take the Minister’s comments on  
Q+A 
 over the weekend that there is no point at all there is no provision at all and there is no ability at all to service that. In the same way this bill is the same. This bill is addressing something to make a bit of noise to get a bit of limelight to be seen to be tough on crime but in the end it does not go very far. The provisions of this bill do not represent a comprehensive approach to a number of the things that in the justice area need to be examined and need to be looked at. That is the ideology of Government. That is the way it has approached it. 
There is no reason not to support this bill but there is every reason to use the third reading of the bill to reflect on the extent to which the members of the Government have been reluctant to defend this bill to defend this bill in any great detail—apart from somebody chipping in every now and again—to defend these provisions in any significant way. Simply to take a 2-minute call— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Only 2 minutes to go! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I am sure Jacqui Dean will soon take a call and put me right where I have got something wrong. I doubt it will happen—I doubt it will happen—but I do invite the member to take a call. There is plenty of time and there is another National call still to come— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Minute and a half! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: It will take that to explain that so please do that. The member might also like to show how this is not a piecemeal approach to the justice portfolio. But there is not enough here for us not to support the bill so we will be supporting it. Thank you.