Hon Christopher Finlayson

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker--

Russell Fairbrother: Oh, this will be good!

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I hope it will be good for Mr Fairbrother’s sake, because a number of important matters need to be stated tonight. The first is that sometimes people say Statutes Amendment bills are nothing more than pettifogging trivia, and, indeed, I suppose in some circumstances they could be. None the less, as the previous speaker Dianne Yates said, they are important. They pick up errors that should have been detected some time ago. The obvious example of that is Part 3 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), which deals with the Crimes Act. That was a piece of sloppy drafting that should have been dealt with 20 years ago. Another example of sloppiness is in the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995. Again, that is another amendment that should have been dealt with at the time the Evidence Act 2006 was being dealt with in this House.

There are a couple of other statutory amendments to Acts that particularly interest me, about which I will say something in a few minutes—minor changes to the District Courts Act 1947, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, and the Summary Proceedings Act of 1957. It is all very worthy stuff, and, as previous speakers have said, not things that need detain this House for more than a few minutes.

But it seems to me that an enormous amount of effort is put into a Statutes Amendment bill. If only the same effort was put into other legislation. As the Minister of Health would doubtless say when evading questions—and incisive questions at that—from my friend the member for Bay of Plenty, “Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.” That is a quote from Horace that essentially says: “The mountains labour and a ridiculous mouse is born.” In fact, when I think of that quote, I think it would probably be beyond Mr Cunliffe, who rarely gets beyond trite expressions such as inter alia. The point I am trying to make is this: an enormous amount of effort goes into this kind of miscellaneous statute, but the same effort does not go into legislation that could have an enormous impact on the nation’s criminal procedure.

Let us look at the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) again. Part 3 deals with the Crimes Act of 1961, yet the Criminal Procedure Bill also deals with important issues under that statute. In regard to the District Courts Act 1947, the Criminal Procedure Bill deals with questions there, too. Again, in regard to the Summary Proceedings Act of 1957, the Criminal Procedure Bill deals with issues there.

So while this useless Government spends an enormous amount of time on minor pieces of legislation contained in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), it does absolutely nothing with very important legislation that has languished at number 17 on the Order Paper for many, many months—that is, the Criminal Procedure Bill in the name of the Hon Annette King, Minister of Justice. Now, that is a piece of legislation that amends a number of statutes and on which a lot of work ought to be put in. It is legislation that significantly reforms criminal procedure to provide, for example, trial by judge alone in exceptional circumstances. It deals with the issues of double jeopardy, majority verdicts, the codification of criminal disclosure, and the partial abolition of preliminary hearings. One particular change is contained in Part 3 of that bill and deals with the District Courts Act 1947. That, if passed, would create huge improvements in the High Court jurisdiction, because so many of those methamphetamine trials would be able to be dealt with in the District Court.

So what does the Government do with an exquisite lack of sense of priority? It pushes through legislation like the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) but does nothing about the Criminal Procedure Bill, which, as I said, is languishing at item 17 on the Order Paper, yet the criminal bar, the judges, and society generally are crying out for that bill to be given some attention. It is one of those unfortunate things that we deal with this minor stuff with some urgency. We give the minor stuff priority but we do not pay the attention we should to legislation like the Criminal Procedure Bill. I think that is a source of great regret. I would ask someone who is reasonably sensible on the Government side, a very rare bird on the Government side—well, Mr Fairbrother actually, when talking about criminal matters—to stand and explain to the House why it is that this useless Government can spend so much time on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) but give no priority whatsoever to the Criminal Procedure Bill. I invite either Mr Burton, who was the Minister responsible for this legislation, or Mr Fairbrother to take the next call and perhaps explain this rather sad event to the House