Ardern Jacinda: Coroners Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Coroners Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1777. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to take a call on the first reading of the Coroners Amendment Bill. I thank the Minister for Courts for her summary and explanation as to what this bill hopes to achieve and I would like to indicate upfront that Labour will be supporting this bill. We do think that it makes some sound and necessary changes. The Funeral Directors Association I noticed put out its support very publicly—obviously there are some ties there with the new chief executive keeping a keen eye on what Parliament is doing—and I understand that the association had some input into the review.There are some additional areas though that we would like to see at the Justice and Electoral Committee and if they are within scope—and I am sure we will be asking the Minister that question—perhaps we would like to explore them given that we have the opportunity to look at the way coroners are functioning generally. I want to come to those extra issues at the end of my address but for now just to give a sense of scale I note that in 2012 there were 3286 incoming coronial cases so there are a reasonable number of cases that our coroners have to deal with on an annual basis. Not all cases will lead to inquiries but for those that do we are looking I think at something like at least 1 year on average before the inquiry takes place. They are significant pieces of work so we want to make sure that when they are undertaken there is no duplication that the expectations for our coroners are very clear and that we make the most of the advice that they then produce. So let us see how the Coroners Amendment Bill makes sure that it does that.The bill as the Minister has set out does a couple of things around the way that coroners make recommendations. It will require a coroner’s recommendations or comments to be specific to the case and the evidence before the coroner to be clear about how the recommendations will reduce the likelihood of further deaths in similar circumstances. Making coroners’ reports relevant to family members or relevant to the organisations they affect is of course very important. I would say that many of the reports or inquiries currently probably already do that but being very clear about the need to be focused in that way of course is useful.Also strengthening the requirement for the coroner to consider which individuals or organisations have an interest in the death and ensuring that those individuals or organisations have the opportunity to give evidence I think is particularly important if we are going to ask those organisations to pick up recommendations and particularly if we for instance down the track ask for mandatory responses. Having that natural justice process upfront allowing those organisations to have input will I think lead to a greater likelihood that those findings are then likely to be implemented.What I will be looking for at the select committee however is to ensure that those recommendations do not limit a coroner from making recommendations and findings as a consequence of their review that are relevant from their perspective but that they may consider to be constrained by this Act because of how specific their recommendations need to be. So that is just a general test I think that we should perhaps test at the select committee.We then come on to a few things around process. The bill sets out that it wants to improve the use of practice notes. That suggests that there is some perhaps regional variation in coroners’ reports. I would be interested to see whether any specific issues have raised that concern but I think it is simply just good practice to have that greater sharing. It also suggests that there needs to be clarity of role for pathologists and improved guidance around the retention of human tissue samples. We have seen examples in the past that have caused considerable distress to families and having clarity there is useful.The bill also sets out to better protect the rights of people whose conduct may be called into question in an inquiry by allowing them to be notified and represented. Again that is good natural justice process and if we are going to do anything around the mandatory response to coronial inquiries then good process upfront and applying those natural justice principles means that that will be a fairer process.We then come to duplication of other investigating authorities and making sure that the Chief Coroner has the ability to ensure that no further investigation is needed if another authority has already investigated the death. I will be keen at the select committee to seek some examples of where that duplication has occurred. I would hope that what we are aiming for is that the highest bar is applied.So for instance if we have two authorities investigating a death the one that has the greatest independent mandate where there might be crossover is the one that is undertaking that inquiry. This is just to make sure that we are not losing our oversight by saying simply: “Well it’s already being undertaken by X inquiry and authority and therefore the coroner does not need to be involved.” I think we just need to make sure that we maintain the appropriate standard there. That is something that I will be interested in asking questions on.Then we come to better defining which cases need to be reported to the coroner. There is one provision here that I am particularly interested in. The bill as the explanatory note states removes “the requirement for a mandatory inquest into deaths in official custody or care to provide the coroner with more flexibility particularly when the death is from natural causes and there are no suspicious circumstances”. I think we have to be incredibly careful in this area to make sure that we are not removing from within the coroner’s authority deaths in care where there may be more than meets the eye. It is a question I will ask at the select committee.It may be that this can be dismissed out of hand. But what if for example a death in care—in corrections for instance—is classified as being of a natural cause because an offender has had a heart attack but actually it is found after you look at the circumstances that the offender had been in considerable distress and in confinement for a long period of time? That could be deemed to be natural causes but I would imagine that we would have an interest in ascertaining whether that finding was appropriate. It may be that there is a good explanation as to why it would not fall under coverage but I would be interested to explore that at the select committee. Then there are a number of clauses that cover off deaths overseas which I think are useful as well.There are some changes to suicide reporting. The Law Commission has done considerable work in this area and I think this will be a particular area of interest for the select committee. We have got to make sure that we are making evidence-based decisions in the way that we are guided in both the recording and the reporting of suicide in this country. There has been conflicting evidence in this area. I think that most of this House would agree that we would want to be guided by the evidence and ensure that we are doing right by the general public when we talk about the very sensitive issue of suicide.I come now to the issues that are not included in this bill which I am disappointed by—there is still the opportunity though. In January of this year in fact a study was carried out as to whether or not we could improve the coronial system. It was funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation and carried out by Otago University. The report was released at the beginning of this year and it argued interestingly that this Act was the place where we could make some useful changes. The co-authors stated: “It is disappointing that the current government does not wish to adequately consider whether the lack of mandatory follow-up to coronial recommendations limits coroners’ ability to put preventive principles into practice.”They reviewed coroners’ findings and basically suggested that although roughly 31 percent of recommendations directed to the organisations they interviewed were taken up 20 percent were rejected. But for them it was the fact that there was no mandatory follow-up around those recommendations—no mandatory requirement for response. They also said that making some of the changes in this bill first would be a very good thing so I applaud the Government for doing that.They also said that we need to make access to coronial inquiries easier to find. But ultimately if we are going to make sure that the coroners’ work is put to use then requiring a mandatory response seems like an absolute no-brainer. In fact it was supported by the Chief Coroner. Back in 2012 the Chief Coroner at the time said that he would like it to become mandatory for coroners’ recommendations to be responded to—not implemented but simply responded to. Why would we not? I would really like to hear arguments from any side of the House as to why that is a bad idea.I will just give a quick example Rotorua coroner Dr Wallace Bain told the Rotorua Daily Post that if his recommendations after a Taupō jet-ski accident that resulted in the death of Genevieve Lewis had been followed teenager Bishop Thompson who died after a jet-ski accident would be alive today. Surely we would want to make better use of all that work and all that time—up to a year per inquiry. Something like $16 million I think goes to our coroners. Surely we could make better use of that.