Legal Services Bill

I begin my contribution by using the first opportunity I have had since the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, announced he would stand down at the next election to congratulate him in the House on his achievements in the justice portfolio, and to wish him well for the future. I am sure his future will be a rosy one, and I think I speak for other members on this side of the Chamber when I say that his departure will diminish the House. We will miss him, I tell the Minister.

💬 Hon Simon Power: Thank you, Charles. I was going to say I am here for another 8 months yet—

Notwithstanding those sentiments, as the Minister has pointed out, the absence I presage will not actually occur for a little while yet, and we have plenty of time to debate the matters in the Minister’s portfolio.

I understand that this debate concerns just Part 1. I will say one or two words in respect of the Legal Services Bill, and, in particular, the preliminary provisions that are proposed to be dealt with by the legislation. The legislation, as members of the Committee will know, is broadly supported by the Opposition. It is accepted that there ought to be some changes to the legal aid regime, and that the legal aid system ought to be updated. The Opposition thinks the legislation has been improved by the report back from the Justice and Electoral Committee, and the Opposition continues to support the provisions of the legislation on a broad basis. It is quite clear that, as I said, some reforms were required, and we see from the report back that those reforms will be somewhat improved.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I understand we are on Part 1 of the Legal Services Bill, which of course includes the preliminary provisions. The preliminary provisions include the interpretation clause, which includes the definitions of the various proceedings to which the bill applies.

The purpose of the bill as explained to the Justice and Electoral Committee is to rationalise the provision of legal aid, particularly in respect of criminal legal aid, where some problematic patterns of behaviour have developed, according to the report by Dame Margaret Bazley. It was also clear from submissions to the select committee that some of the problems that were perceived in respect of criminal legal aid did not apply to family services. So one of the issues that I would not mind the Minister of Justice providing clarification on is whether the definitions of “criminal proceedings” and “civil proceedings” in clause 4 make it absolutely clear that some of the more rigorous provisions that will apply to criminal proceedings will not apply to family proceedings.

I understood from officials that, in response to submissions from family lawyers, they recognise that there does need to be a choice on the part of family proceedings litigants as to their counsel, whereas in respect of the criminal arena barristers and solicitors will be appointed under the legal aid rosters. I understand from the advice that was given to the select committee that the reasoning behind that is that in respect of criminal proceedings there has been a capture, if you like, of large parts of the market by a small number of barristers—who may not even be the best barristers—and that that has been at considerable cost to the Crown. There have been accusations that some of those lawyers have at times been conducting their proceedings in a way that has been expensive for the Crown and has resulted in some unexpectedly high incomes for some of those solicitors. None the less, the same is not true in respect of family law, where there is acceptance that a rostered basis, or people having a legal aid lawyer allocated to them rather than their choosing their own lawyer, is not appropriate.

I say to the Minister that I suppose one of the reasons why I am interested in this issue is that it seems to me that there is something in that. In respect of family proceedings one can have a protracted custody dispute, and it would be wise to have the same lawyer appearing in all parts of that protracted dispute, which may go on for a couple of years. That is particularly so where children are affected. There is counsel for the child, and often counsel for the child is also paid for by the Crown. I would be interested to know whether appointment of counsel for the child in respect of family proceedings will persist, or whether that will be rostered, as well. It is not clear to me from the interpretation clause, clause 4, whether that is correct. I look forward to the Minister telling me the answer to that query.

Another query I have is that I am not sure what is happening in respect of “proposed patient”, within the meaning given to that term in section 2 of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, where it is proposed that people are made subject to compulsory treatment or compulsory assessment. They can actually lose their liberty for a period because of that. If that sort of thing occurs, then, as I understand it, sometimes the Crown pays for a lawyer to represent the interests of the person who is subject to a mental incapacity. I am interested to know how that lawyer is chosen. Is that lawyer chosen on a roster basis like the one we have for criminal matters, or is there some other way in which that person chooses a lawyer? Does their family choose a lawyer, does the judge choose a lawyer, is the doctor involved in choosing a lawyer, or is it a case of just going down a list? If the last lawyer chosen was “Parker”, do they go to “Power”, the next in alphabetical order, if the mentally incapacitated person is unlucky enough—

💬 Hon Simon Power: Oh!

—to reach the “Pa’s”, not the “Po’s”! Perhaps that is an issue the Minister in the chair could address. I am sure he knows the answers to those technical questions.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I call Simon—

Bridges.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Bridges; sorry.

Thank you, Mr Chair, I have been brought down to size.

💬 Hon Member: You need to get your profile up.

I do. I need to do more breakfast television or something.

I will start in the same vein that Charles Chauvel did, by acknowledging Simon Power, who is currently the Minister in the chair, in this, my first speech since the announcement of his decision not to stand at the next election. Stuart Nash was in the House, and still is in the House, and he was telling me a little while ago that I was one of the more regular speakers in Parliament. He had some research done and found that that was the case. The reason I mention this is that I reflected on why that would be the case, and it is simply for this reason: I am on the Justice and Electoral Committee. I think I am right in saying that our committee has considered about 40 percent of the legislation that has gone through this House in the last couple of years. That is obviously a real testament to the Minister of Justice and his work output. I also add that if we go through those laws, the quality of them and the common sense of them, which is not always something to be—

💬 Grant Robertson: Is this a job interview?

No, it is a serious contribution, I hope, about a Minister who has done in 2 years the work of many more years than two.

I want to talk about clause 3, “Purpose of Act”—funnily enough, a lot members do not want to talk about it—because it seems to me that clause 3 is quite significant. It states: “The purpose of this Act is to promote access to justice …”, and, of course, that is fundamental. I think that having access to justice is something that everyone in this Chamber would agree on. I will not talk about the bill debated earlier today in this House and some of the arguments there about access to justice, but it is fundamental. Clause 3 goes on to state that the bill does that “by establishing a system that—(a) provides legal services to people of insufficient means;”.

I have already talked about how fundamental that is for a legal aid system. The reason is perhaps quite obvious, but it is worth remarking on. In a lot of family cases where legal aid is provided, it is the State that is bringing the case and it is absolutely right that if people can pay for it, they do so. But in criminal cases, if people cannot, if they do not have the means, and if, as is of course the case in criminal cases, they may well lose their liberty, the State does have a mechanism by which it can pay for, and provide people with, legal services. I think it is important that the purpose clause states that the State is providing legal services for people with insufficient means. The converse of that is that we do not want to provide legal services to people who have the means to pay for legal aid or lawyers.

Clause 3 goes on to state that we are establishing a system that “(b) delivers those services in the most effective and efficient manner.” As I understand it, we have not seen those words or anything quite like them in a legal services bill—or in many, if any, justice bills—in the past. I touched on this in the second reading debate.

💬 Grant Robertson: Quote yourself.

Maybe I will. I cannot quote myself word for word, but I said then that some people say that it should be justice at any cost. They say that we should be spending billions and billions more, and sometimes in court cases we get the feeling that that is the way things have been run. Some people believe that if another witness can tangentially touch on something that he or she may have seen or heard and it draws the case out for another day, then that is fine, but there needs to be some proportionality.

Just following on from the issue that Simon Bridges raised, I agree with Mr Bridges in respect of it. Indeed, I wonder whether the preliminary provision in clause 3, which presently states: “The purpose of this Act is to promote access to justice by establishing a system that—(a) provides legal services to people of insufficient means;” might better read “provides appropriate legal services to people of insufficient means:”. I agree with Simon Bridges that we need to take care that we do not cross a line so that legal aid funding is provided to people on low incomes for things that they would not fund for themselves were they on high incomes. It is one of the tensions we have in legal aid. If legal aid is available at low or no cost to low-income people who have no realistic prospect of paying back what is, in theory, meant to be a loan, it is effectively a grant to them for ever and there is little financial incentive on them to appropriately modify or control their own expenditure on legal fees, because in the end they do not pay the bill. I think that there are a couple of areas yet to be properly controlled through the legal aid system, and I would like to hear the view of the Minister in the chair, the Hon Simon Power, as to how this purpose, together with the relevant parts of the bill, achieves proper control of criminal appeals and multi-defendant drug trials.

I will deal with the first one in respect of criminal appeals. There used to be a system in New Zealand where criminal appeals, particularly to the Court of Appeal, were controlled by the judges themselves. A Privy Council decision said that that was inappropriate—that the judge ought not to be the gatekeeper as well as the judge on the substantive merits of the appeal. I can understand why the Privy Council found that, and it seemed a wise decision. But as a consequence, the only effective stop on everyone who wanted to exercise a right of appeal in a criminal matter being paid for by the State was thrown out, and we have not had a replacement gatekeeper. I absolutely believe that we should be enabling people to have fair access to legal representation in respect of their first appearance. However, I am not convinced that everyone who wants to appeal, if they can do so more frequently as a legally aided appellant in a criminal appeal, should be funded by the State, effectively at the cost of other taxpayers. There needs to be some mechanism in the system to stop what is effectively a proliferation of criminal appeals that would not happen if these people were pecunious—that is, if they had the money and were themselves paying—because they would be more likely not to pursue an unmeritorious appeal. That is one issue. I think we should have the word “appropriate” in that clause, because this is money that we are short of, and I am not sure that this bill quite gets that right.

The second point is in respect of multi-defendant trials. Multi-defendant trials can arise where there are complex drug crimes. There are a number of defendants and often their interests are just about identical, but we can bet that if they are on legal aid they will all have a separate lawyer. If they were not on legal aid and were paying their own defence, they seem, remarkably, to be able to agree that they should cooperate and share the expense of a lawyer. Instead of having five lawyers all being paid by the State, they somehow manage to cooperate and agree between them that it would be much more sensible that they have only one. That aspect of criminal legal aid overexpenditure needs to be controlled as well. Not only does it cause a waste of costs to the State in respect of the defence legal aid costs, it actually elongates the trial. Five lawyers would be jumping up to cross-examine the same witness, all showing how good they are at their job. It elongates the period of time for the trial, so that the trials run a lot longer, and they are a lot more complex for the judge to manage. It takes a lot more time when it comes to the prosecution, it takes a lot more time when it comes to the police and the other witnesses that have to appear, and the whole thing becomes more complex and more expensive.

The quality of justice cannot be divorced from its accessibility, but that does not run for just the accused or the defendant. It also runs for the overall cost of the process as to whether Governments can afford to run decent judicial systems, and we see this even more so in respect of civil proceedings. In respect of civil proceedings I suggest that it is important that the Attorney-General, who has conduct of civil proceedings rules, exerts controls, because in a constitutional sense they are the Attorney-General’s rules.

I enter this debate with some trepidation as a non-lawyer following on from Mr Parker and Mr Bridges, who both obviously have extensive legal backgrounds. But I guess I can bring a slightly different perspective.

I too will carry on from Simon Bridges’ audition to be the Minister of Justice, which we heard just before, by picking up on the purpose of the legislation in Part 1 of the Legal Services Bill. Clause 3 tells us: “The purpose of this Act is to promote access to justice by establishing a system that—(a) provides legal services to people of insufficient means;”. My colleague Mr Parker has just suggested that the word “appropriate” may need to appear in there. As he has noted, not everybody making use of the legal aid system would be doing those things were they using their own means.

I take a slightly different view, not so much about whether that word should be in there but about why we have legal aid. I noted when reading through some of the material from Dame Margaret Bazley’s report that the legal aid system is perceived by many people to be second-rate. I think that that presents the balancing argument to the one that Mr Parker just gave, in that we need to strengthen a system of which the users, by definition, are often at a financial disadvantage or are perhaps socially excluded in some way. We need a system that they have confidence in to provide them with justice. If there is a perception by many people that this system is second-rate in some way, we need to strengthen the system.

I believe that that is what this legislation does. However, it is important to note that the provision of legal services to people of insufficient means is very much part of a social contract, the social fabric of how we ensure that there is access to justice. By all means—and this bill does this—we need tests for people who are receiving legal aid; we need to be sure that they are genuinely of insufficient means, and also that legal aid is the appropriate form of protection and advocacy for them. I note in that regard the idea in Dame Margaret Bazley’s report—and, indeed, Mr Power’s response to it—of extending the public defence services. Obviously it is a good example of how we are looking at more appropriate means of providing advocacy and support to people, because it will not always come through the legal aid system.

I also just note—again, as someone who is not from the legal profession—that when the original report came out, there was some feeling that it represented a system rotten to its core, and that somehow the legal aid system was in fact a drain on taxpayers, it was not providing a good service, and it was full of rip-off agents. It is important to note, in speaking on Part 1 of the bill, that that is clearly not the case. Most legal aid lawyers are providing a good service for their clients. Perhaps the perception from some of the clients is that they are not getting that service, but most legal aid lawyers are not ripping off the system. Sure, there have been some, and it is important to highlight that issue. But the integrity of this part of our justice system needs to be upheld.

Obviously legislation such as this is making steps towards upholding that integrity, but I would not want the public of New Zealand to be left with the impression, following on from the inquiry and the Government’s response to it, that the system is rotten to the core. We had some interchange in this Chamber last year between Lianne Dalziel and Simon Power around those lawyers in South Auckland, for instance, and whether they had been given a fair go in this process. It is important that we note tonight on the record that a large number of legal aid lawyers are doing excellent work. We hope that those who are not will be identified through some of the systems that are being put in place under this bill so they can be weeded out if they are not performing in the way that we would like them to be.

When we look at Part 1 and the purpose clause within it, it is important to note that the notion that people of insufficient means should be supported is an important one. A rise in the cost of living is going on in New Zealand at the moment, where people are facing bills that they simply cannot afford just for the basics of power, food, and petrol. If those people were put in a position of needing legal support, and if this kind of legal aid system was not around, that would be injurious to justice and to the kind of society that I think most members of this Committee would want to live in. It is a plain fact that a large legal bill on top of the kinds of bills that people are facing in their everyday lives today would be a disincentive to people seeking justice. That would be wrong, just as we said earlier on the question of the cost of taking people for medical attention that it would be wrong. If that cost was a disincentive, that would be wrong as well.

I am a bit reluctant to interrupt the flow of quality contributions coming from my left, but at this point—

💬 Hon David Parker: There’s no risk of that.

That is right: there is no risk of that. I will make a couple of introductory remarks, but I will not take a large number of calls during this Committee stage, because the Legal Services Bill and the process associated with it has been debated widely, both publicly and within this Chamber, and during the select committee process.

I will respond to a couple of points that have been made by members of the Opposition. First, the most important component of the purpose of this bill is to confirm and to guarantee access to justice for those who cannot afford to fund their own legal counsel, at a time, particularly in the criminal area, where it is absolutely critical that good quality representation is made available to them.

Secondly, it is important to note that although Dame Margaret Bazley’s report referred to some lawyers who were perhaps below par, criticisms were also made—and subsequently followed through by the Government—in respect of the performance of the Legal Services Agency, so it was a two-way street in that sense. Frankly, once professional services are billed and have performed to a reasonable standard, those practitioners are entitled to have their fees paid in a timely and efficient manner. We have seen some big changes on the Legal Services Agency side, as well as the changes that are going through under this bill in respect of good-quality representation.

Mr Parker touched upon one or two issues relating to the potential for some further reform in these areas. He tellingly zoned in on one or two areas that the Government could look at further. I reassure my colleague on the Opposition benches that that work is well under way, and that this will not be the last piece of work Parliament deals with in the legal aid area in my time. It is an interesting debate, which we will continue.

Affordability for the State, which means affordability for the New Zealand taxpayer, is an important part of that continuing equation. Mr Parker raised issues about, for example, multiple defendants and multiple legal aid lawyers, and the like. Many of those issues, and the question of the efficiency with which the court system deals with them—because all of those defendants are entitled to have their matters heard in a timely way; that is an important component of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in this sense—are largely being dealt with under the criminal procedure simplification and modernisation legislation.

When those changes are put alongside the changes to the legal aid system contained within this legislation, smart members of the Committee will begin to see a bit of a plan emerging—that is, incentives across the justice system are being changed, tweaked, and, shall we say, retargeted to ensure that those most in need are getting those services. However, it means that the Government will continue to look closely at the broader affordability of the legal aid system. I have said publicly that on the current track of baseline expenditure to vote legal aid, if I can describe it as bluntly as that, compared with the growth that is expected in this area off the back of current settings—that is to say, settings that are not altered by the passage of this legislation—over the next 5-year period we are looking at a gap between those two lines of about $405 million. That gap has to be addressed.

Some of the issues that Mr Parker raised were at the margins of this bill. None the less, some that were raised will be the focus of further consideration by the Government in coming months. In fact, I am hoping to make an announcement in that regard shortly.

We will see continuing tweaking of the incentives in the legal aid system to try to muster taxpayers’ money in a way that focuses solely on the good of those who cannot afford representation through legal services of their own. Currently the system is clearly not incentivised adequately to avoid the slowing of processes, the bogging down of matters, and the multiple representations of issues, which have to be paid for, and dealt with, by way of other processes in the court system.

The previous Government, through the Hon Rick Barker, who was then the Minister for Courts, had enough foresight to persuade the then Opposition spokesperson on justice and corrections to support the removal of depositions. I might dwell on that matter, in relation to the purposes of the legal aid system, for just one second. At that time I was approached by a reasonably significant group—I am not sure what the collective noun is for a group of lawyers, but they were a very senior group—of criminal lawyers who told me that if I proceeded with my fountain pen on the parchment and we did away with depositions, we would cause major problems for the system. That is why, as the former Minister may recall, we agreed, firstly, on a review, and, secondly, to retain in the legislation an application to the judge to hear oral submissions in the event that matters were complex and worthy of such of an application.

It turns out that since the removal of depositions, those applications for oral evidence to be heard have occurred in 3 percent of matters brought before the courts. So people who said previously that if changes were made to the legal aid system, the justice system, and the way that we drove the system to ensure timely and quality representation, we would undermine the fabric of the pistols at dawn mentality—which, effectively, is the adversarial system that we have adopted—were not right. This Parliament must have the courage to drive through changes to make sure that we test those notions in a vigorous way, and this piece of work is only a small part of a broader reform that I hope will do that.

I would have enjoyed hearing a little more from the Minister of Justice on his plans for our justice system generally, as I am pleased to hear that he is a Minister who has a vision for where he believes the justice system needs to go, and has identified all the tensions that exist within the justice portfolio.

I come at the Legal Services Bill from the perspective of not being a lawyer, but I am intrigued that we are having a wider debate about what causes pressure points in our court system, and about the impact of our adversarial system generally. I am sure the Minister will also recognise, given that he was the individual behind the Drivers of Crime work, that at the very coalface the first intervention point to peel back the pressure on our court system is to stem the flow of cases coming through our justice system.

There are many ways we can do that, but I think we only need to look, as a starting point, at where a lot of our young people tend to enter our justice system to see what the precursors to crime are. They have been identified both by the Opposition and by the Government. But it seems that the tricky part is to actively invest in those areas when the demands of the public are often in the much shorter-term area of heavy retributive justice, imprisonment, and so on. That is where the tension, in the end, tends to be.

The Legal Services Bill touches on a different element of the justice system, but in an interesting way. We are talking about incentives and disincentives in our system, but particular legislation has been passed by this Government that will put additional pressure points on our legal aid system, and I will come to those. But, first, I acknowledge that the Minister raised the point that this is a two-way issue. We are talking about not just the quality of our legal aid lawyers, but also the relationship that they, in turn, have had in the past with the Legal Services Agency and will have going forward with the Secretary for Justice and the Legal Services Commissioner, and I acknowledge that too. However, it strikes me that we are now at a point where those relationships must be rebuilt.

This bill represents an opportunity to move forward, for both the Legal Services Agency and lawyers operating in this field. The Bar, in particular, has called for the opportunity to meet with the Legal Services Agency. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Bar, particularly in South Auckland, has had that opportunity. The last time the Legal Services Agency met with us at the select committee that had not occurred. I think, in terms of moving forward, that would be at least a very good symbolic act.

I will pick up on the purpose of the bill, under Part 1, given that is what we are discussing in the Committee stage. I note that there are two things that stand out for me. The purpose of the bill is to promote access to justice. That is not a passive purpose. The promotion of access to justice implies that this has always been underpinned by two very important principles—that a successful justice system must have an element of accessibility, and it also must demonstrate to members of the public, whether or not they are using the system at any given time, that they can have faith in the system that exists in New Zealand. That is where I think that really important word “promotion” sits. The second element is that the system should deliver those services in the most effective and efficient manner.

The efficiency question is interesting. Although the Minister has talked about the $400 million funding gap that we will have to bridge, I do not think he has acknowledged the perverse impact that some bills, such as the “three strikes” legislation, may have—

💬 Grant Robertson: He wouldn’t know anything about that.

I know that he is not the Minister responsible for the “three strikes” legislation and he may choose not to defend it. But because the principles of collective responsibility apply to Cabinet I am sure he would not mind addressing the Committee on whether he believes that legislation will change the incentives within our justice system. It is one thing to talk about procedural matters and depositions; it is another to talk about the overall impact that those—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I want to bring to your attention the recurring static sounds. We heard them earlier this afternoon, and they went quiet for a while. But they might be more than static. They could be electrostatic, and I would hate to see colleagues from the other side of the Chamber being electrocuted unnecessarily. I just wonder whether something could be done about it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I thank the member for that. I have noticed that there was a bit of static in the microphones, and some work has been done on the microphones during the dinner break. I am pleased that the member is not thinking about having people electrocuted—we are past that.

It is probably a bit like being in the Libyan Parliament at the moment! It sounds like small-arms fire above us! I want to raise two issues. First of all, I want to respond to something Minister Power said about the spiralling costs of legal services and legal aid. I suggest that if there is one area where it is very easy to save costs, it would be to do away with the silly “three strikes” legislation. If someone is at risk of getting a “three strikes” penalty recorded against them and being locked away for ever, that person has a greater incentive to defend the charge so that there is no future risk of eternal imprisonment at Her Majesty’s pleasure in one of New Zealand’s prisons. If we are really serious about wanting to stop wasting money in the legal system, we should do away with the “three strikes” legislation.

I turn to another issue, which is that of community legal services. The definition in clause 4(1)(b), under the heading “community legal services”, refers to law reform and advocacy work. The first community law centre in New Zealand was the Grey Lynn Neighbourhood Law Office, which was formed in the 1970s. The second one was the Dunedin Community Law Centre, which was a different model and proved to be the model for the rest of the community law centres.

💬 Paul Quinn: It was yours.

I thank Mr Quinn. Yes, I was one of those who were involved in the formation of that centre. I was not the leader, but was on the committee of people who put that community law centre together in 1979. Indeed, I worked in it as a volunteer, off and on, for a couple of decades after that, but I no longer do so.

The prime reason that community legal aid centres exist is to provide legal services to people who cannot afford or normally do not access legal services. Generally, the problems that turn up at community law centres are relatively minor, but none the less they are important to the people who are facing a legal problem and do not know how to negotiate their way through the system.

Generally, law students, and people employed by the law centres—and, and in both of those cases, they are generally under the supervision of lawyers who are volunteering their time, quite generously—provide legal services to help people over those small problems. The problem might be a fencing dispute, or someone coming in to ask whether they need to see a lawyer in order to dissolve their marriage, and they need to be pointed in the right direction. It might be something about dogs, or a small criminal penalty, or someone who thinks they have been unfairly charged with a traffic offence.

All of those things are very good, but there is an area where I think it is important that we do not let law centres stray too far, and that relates to law reform and advocacy work. Law reform and advocacy work is appropriate, but not when it crosses the line to be a political polemic. These precious funds that are being used in law centres ought to be focused primarily on the provision of legal services for the people who need to understand their way through the law, not to change the law and not to advocate for political causes. I do not mind there being some part of that, because in reality we should be advocating for changes in the law that come up through law centres if they have something to do with, say, some minor criminal procedure. They might have experience in that, and they want to submit on a bill that is coming before Parliament, and there is absolutely no problem with that. But beyond that, I do think that we ought to limit funding.

I know that the definition of community legal services talks of services that a community law centre provides under contract between the centre and the Secretary for Justice, so I am asking for confirmation from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, that in the contract there are appropriate controls on non-legal advice services—that is, advocacy services, which can on occasion go too far in the promotion of political causes. I have seen that occur, and I think one of the reasons why I oppose it is that if it becomes too prevalent, I think it puts at risk the strength of the claim for appropriate levels of funding for community law centres to do what is their absolute core function and what is necessary in society.

A lot of the sorts of problems I have mentioned are very important to the individual. Low-income people are not powerful people in society, they are often not able to pay a legal fee, and they would not be eligible for legal aid because the nature of the problem would not meet the legal aid thresholds. Lawyers are not interested in providing the services, because the people cannot afford to pay, so in the absence of a community law centre there is an unmet legal need. That is why community law centres exist. So let us make sure that law centres focus on meeting that unmet legal need, rather than on crossing the line into advocacy work for political causes. Although it is rare, I have seen it occur on occasions.

I am not a lawyer either, but I feel compelled to say a few words.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: That’s why you’re a nice guy.

I say thank you to Tau; that is very kind of him. I want to say a few words on the Legal Services Bill because, as a number of people have said, giving everybody access to the same quality of legal services and legal aid cuts to the heart of what makes us a fair and just society. That is what the purpose clause in Part 1 says. Clause 3(a) states: “provides legal services to people of insufficient means;”. That means everybody gets the same type of justice. It means that people who do not have the right sort of money can still get first-class legal representation.

One of the key points here is not only that the current system, according to the Bazley report, is less cost-effective, and not only that it is being rorted to some degree—and I do not want to overstate that; it was a controversy that came up over the weeks when the Bazley report came out—but also that it is important to provide people with confidence that they are receiving the same sort and quality of legal representation that they would receive if they had a lot of money and could track down the best lawyer.

Coming back to the Bazley report, it is worth mentioning in the context of why the bill is going through the House a couple of the things she brought up, which cut to Part 2 and the delivery of those services in the most effective and efficient manner. The Minister of Justice mentioned that the hole, or the gap, in our ability to pay for our system as it stands at the moment is about $400 million. The bill will do something, I believe, to tighten that gap. It tests some of the old rules, the old laws, the old ways that the legal profession works in terms of how it is enabled and continues to work. It enables us to get the best quality and the best standards for the money we put up.

Among the things the Bazley report focused on were complaints to the Law Society of dishonest behaviour. As I said before, that issue has been talked about. Many lawyers felt aggrieved that they were being tarred by the actions of a few. The report seemed to suggest that lawyers and defendants were colluding to make sure that cases lasted as long as possible. By mutual arrangement they were able to ensure that the lawyers obtained the largest amount of fees possible for the case they were defending.

The reason the Labour Party is supporting this bill is to make sure that, one, the people of New Zealand are confident that, whether or not they have sufficient means, whether or not they have money, they are able to get the best legal defence, a legal defence that is as good as what anybody else can get—that element of fairness cuts to the heart of this bill—and, two, that taxpayers are also confident that the people who provide representation do so in an effective and efficient manner that enables taxpayers and society more generally to know that defendants are getting fair representation.

I have a couple of questions. Can we be sure that smaller centres will get the high-quality legal representation that people in those areas deserve, and that people in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, or Napier might get?

I move, That the question be now put.

Part 1 agreed to.

I have been informed that a loose cable in the server upstairs is causing the static that members have experienced today. Technical staff have tried to fix it, and have made some progress, but if they do more now they might make it worse. People listening to the broadcast are unaware of the problem; the broadcast going out is clear. The technical people will fix it tomorrow morning and all will be well.

💬 Grant Robertson: Will we be electrocuted?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Members will not be electrocuted.

💬 Grant Robertson: Unnecessarily.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Unnecessarily, anyway.

Part 2 Legal aid