Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill

Members, we come to clause 2, the debate on the commencement of the bill. The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair, I’ll just take a short call on this. Really, about the commencement, there’s a couple of things that crop up. One is that, when you’re talking about contracting and you’re actually creating a new contracting framework, you might want to just give a little bit of breathing space. It is, essentially, if the Government’s correct in its legal analysis, changing the legislative authority for contracting, and there might be contracts out there, or contracts that are about to be signed, which actually use the wording of the original legislation rather than the amended legislation. Even if it was a week or two weeks, I would have thought that’d be useful.

Again, the other thing is that we on this side of the Chamber don’t usually like retrospectivity, but this might be one of those cases where the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee would note that it’s actually in everyone’s favour, and it disadvantages no one, to have a retrospective element, which, essentially, would mean commencement before the Act is passed. That would be an unusual way to do it, having a commencement which was before the Act was passed, but that would be the other way around it: to say, well, this framework has been in place, in fact, I think, since the Law Practitioners Act, so you could actually have a commencement going back to 1986 just to make sure that these contracts are all properly enforced. There’s a few thoughts on commencement.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to ask the Minister of Justice some questions around commencement, but from a different angle from the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. Now, the committee is understanding that this bill was first brought to the House under urgency. When it was brought under urgency in May, it was only under urgency for the first reading, so, naturally, it would have gone to a select committee process. Considering there wasn’t any referral motion that was being brought to the House, at a minimum the select committee process would have been for four months. I wanted to check, in that case, what was the original intention of having the commencement date on 1 July 2025?

Now, my only assumption back then was that it was because of the fact that it aligns with the Government Budget, because the bill was introduced under Budget urgency, but now, because we’re now long past 1 July 2025, the commencement date has been adjusted by the select committee as the day after Royal assent. I think the question still remains, which we weren’t able to tease out in the Justice Committee, which is: considering this is going to go to a select committee anyway, why have a retrospective date in the first place?

Granted, I think the day after Royal assent makes sense, but I think the caveat that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb mentioned is an important one. I guess, when we’re looking at this, if the original date was 1 July 2025 and now it’s the day after Royal assent—let’s assume it is Monday, or tomorrow if the Governor-General is available on Saturday; I don’t know—what then would happen to this particular area? I want to check with the Minister if anything has changed or if there were any effects that would change.

Again, we have mentioned the fact that the bill was introduced in the House under urgency, and now we’re reading it under urgency, so there must be a level of urgency that is involved in this. There must have been some form of impact or effect that the Government may be aware of that we are not aware of, between July and November.

Those are my two questions: what is the intention originally of the original date, noting that the report-back date was beyond 1 July; and also, then, what is the impact of this bill not passing on 1 July 2025, and now here in November?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to go back here to the question that I raised in the second reading, which is: why is this bill commencing? I’m really just trying to identify the problem here. I have the Community Law Aotearoa submission to the Justice Committee in front of me, and paragraphs 3 and 4 of that, I think, speak to precisely why this bill is not needed—and I don’t even mean under urgency; I mean at all.

I just want to read that because I would like to hear the Minister of Justice’s response, in particular to Community Law’s submission. They say that they view legislative change to be unnecessary. “The Bill appears to be intended to clarify a perceived ambiguity that use of the Special Fund and/or contracts for community legal services may not include functions that enable, facilitate or support the provision of community legal services, such as administrative and management staff. CLCA’s view is that the law already allows contracts to include these matters.”

“Section 298 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act sets out the purposes for which the Special Fund can be used (funding community law centres). The Bill does not change section 298. Our view is that ‘funding of community law centres’ includes functions that enable, facilitate or support the provision of community legal services. Section 94(1) of the Legal Services Act governs the content of contracts between the Secretary and community law centres. In our view, section 94(1) already allows the Secretary to fund functions that enable, facilitate or support the provision of community legal services as a necessary part of ‘purchas[ing] community legal services’.”

There’s a very clear view there. There’s a very clear view there from a group of lawyers as well. Again, why is this bill commencing? Why is this bill commencing under urgency? It remains, to me, very unclear.

Mr Chair, I just want to, I guess, seek your guidance. The Hon Dr Duncan Webb, Vanushi Walters, and myself have asked the Minister a number of questions that require clarification from the Minister, and the Minister has not responded to any of our questions thus far. I want to seek your clarification—understanding that the Minister is not the Minister who is responsible for the bill but that officials are there and are available—if the Chair would allow for the Minister to respond to a previous clause’s question if the clause completes and we move on to a new clause. I just want to check if that’s something that would be acceptable.

That’s a fair enough question. There are a number of issues that come in when considering a closure: repetition, new material, and ministerial participation. While questions are still coming from one side of the committee, it’s hard to think there would be a closure without any ministerial participation at all, but I’ll leave that to the parties to decide. Minister, Hon Penny—

Hon Penny Simmonds: Simmonds.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): —Simmonds.

Thank you, Mr Chair, I will respond. The Government sought advice from Crown Law, and, after considering the advice, the Government decided that it would be preferable to have the law clarified. The Government acts responsibly when it gets that advice from Crown Law. Obviously, Community Law Centres Aotearoa’s advice is not the Government’s advice. The bill was originally intended to be considered for the start of the new financial year, but, obviously, it moved on and had the select committee process, and the Justice Committee’s report gave the amendment for, as has been noted, the commencement date to be the day after Royal assent.

I move, That debate on this question now close.