Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I present the legislative the statement on the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by four months and one day after it has received its first reading.

From the outset, this Government has been clear about its commitment to an efficient and effective justice system. Promoting access to justice in a way that is sustainable is important to achieve this. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Special Fund—the Special Fund—serves an important role to ensure that people can access free legal help in the community. The fund works by collecting interest from banks on solicitors’ and licensed conveyancers’ nominated trust accounts. Money in the Special Fund must be paid to the Secretary for Justice for the purpose of funding community law centres.

Currently, the law is narrowly framed and there is ambiguity around whether Special Fund money can be used to meet expenses incurred by community law centres when delivering community legal services. Section 94 of the Legal Services Act 2011 enables the secretary to enter into contracts with the community law centres to purchase community legal services. Money provided by the secretary under contracts must come from either or both the Special Fund, or any other money.

This bill makes a minor change to broaden the use of the Special Fund. It does this by amending the scope of section 94 to enable the secretary to enter into contracts to also fund, facilitate, or otherwise support the provision of community legal services by community law centres.

The bill does not affect the core purpose of the Special Fund. The secretary would continue to have discretion to enter contracts and determine whether funding should be provided. This change will support the long-term funding of organisations that deliver community legal services and ensure people are able to access the legal help that they need.

I look forward to the Justice Committee’s consideration of the bill and I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Here we are, at 15 minutes to midnight on a Saturday night—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s still Thursday, actually!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Oh, whatever night you like. That’s one of the strange twists of parliamentary procedure. We’re looking at probably one of the most trivial bills that could be possibly imagined. Whether it’s even necessary is moot.

Can I just commend the official who wrote the Minister’s speech and managed to give her four minutes of material, because what this bill does—the current Act provides that in respect of legal services the Secretary for Justice may, as they determine appropriate, “enter into a contract with 1 or more community law centres to purchase community legal services”. So that’s the current law. The new law adds to that “[and to] fund, facilitate, and otherwise support the provision of community legal services.” So that’s it—that’s it. There’s about 12 words in there, but she managed to stretch four minutes out of that. So well done to the official.

What I want to know is who’s actually digging here, because I can’t see—to be perfectly honest—how you even need it, because to purchase community legal services, you’ve got to purchase those things that fund, facilitate, and otherwise support the provision of community legal services. This seems to be a problem that doesn’t actually exist, so I’ll be interested, when we go to select committee for four months and one day, to know exactly what the problem is. I absolutely support the work that’s being done by community law centres. They do great work. I would have thought that a fair, large, and liberal interpretation—which, if you read the Interpretation Act, is how we approach statutory interpretation—is that if you purchase community legal services, you also purchase the administrative and other services that go into providing that.

So I’m very perplexed, and I’ll give the officials a heads-up that I’ll want to know that: exactly what is the problem here? Why is it that we’ve got to have this clarification? Why is it that we’ve got to have 123 MPs—as if—sitting in this House wondering about this on a Thursday or Saturday night whilst we do this?

To suggest that this is urgent is absolutely ridiculous. I’m very happy to spend tonight here with some of my good friends and some other people, but I simply cannot understand why we need to have this tacked on in urgency and to look at this question as if New Zealand’s future depends on how community law centre support services are funded.

Let’s wait and see. Maybe it will be a tough committee. Maybe we’ll get there and we’ll wrestle with some big issues over community law centres. Perhaps this is really going to be the Government saying, “Community law centres are doing such a good job that we wanted to make it really clear we can fund them more because they do such great work helping the most vulnerable members of our community out with some tough issues around employment, around immigration, around family violence that we want to make sure that we can give them more and the Special Fund or other funds can fund them appropriately.” So—great. But to be perfectly honest, I think that the Minister has, in some ways, been given a shake by somebody who’s like, “What are you doing over here?”, and her officials have said, “Oh my goodness! Someone might judicially review us.” And rather than saying, “Get out of here. They’ve purchased community legal services, as a perfectly legitimate thing to do, including support services.” But she’s taken another—perhaps you should throw a retrospectivity clause in there just in case you funded them last year rather than this year. But, look, off we go to select committee, four months and one day.

Simon Court: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We’ve got a point of order, with six seconds to go, from Simon Court.

Simon Court: Does the member need a glass of water?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. [Interruption] He looks like he’s still alive. Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Madam Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you want your six seconds?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I absolutely want to do six seconds. I’m very grateful to the last Labour Government for giving me clean drinking water, thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we go again, 10 minutes before midnight. Again, I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to speak on the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill.

Now, I think the first thing that we need to sort of unpack here—

Hon Member: Slow down—slow down.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: There’s a lot of stuff to say about this bill. I’m actually less excited about the bill, but more excited about the prospect of what our community law centres are currently doing.

The thing with this particular bill that I’m concerned with, similar to the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, is: why do we need this bill in the first place and what is the problem about this bill? Now, for context, in terms of the Special Fund and what it is being used for right now: the Special Fund primarily is being funded for community law centres across Aotearoa as part of Community Law Centres o Aotearoa. There are 21 centres in Aotearoa geographically, and three special offices looking at different issues, including disability, including youth, and including family. When we are looking at the work that community law centres do, unlike other elements that are in dire need—and in the last speech, I mentioned some of the broader concerns with the justice and court system in Aotearoa New Zealand around access to justice. Broadly speaking, on par with this, community law centre and legal aid go hand in hand. Legal aid is currently going through a review because, fundamentally, the problem we have there is the fact that we are looking at an industry or a sector that people don’t want to go into because of the issues. We’re particularly seeing geographical issues when it comes to certain areas not being able to access legal aid.

However, when we’re looking at the use of the Special Fund for community law centres, the issues and opportunities present in a different way. One of the biggest issues that we do have here, from the community law centre, is the fact that one of the things they have the most challenges around is access to family lawyers. You would imagine that that particular access is an issue for regional and rural communities but, in fact, it is broadly more of an issue in urban areas. The reason we’re able to get those kinds of insights is because of the community law centres being at the front line of a lot of the work that they do and, particularly, representing a part of our community that usually is under-represented, through the work that they do, particularly around family law and employment law being their two biggest areas of legal practice that they represent, as well as immigration law.

One of the things we do hear from them is—and the fact that we are able to learn this is because they have that broader insight across Aotearoa New Zealand in terms of the work they do, which is funded by the Special Fund that we see here in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006.

I’m concerned that the broadening of the scope of the Special Fund is a lot more—I’m hoping to be proven wrong—sinister and removing some of the funding that is currently going towards CLCA: Community Law Centres o Aotearoa. I don’t know of any other reason why we need to specify that when that is already the current level of operation. The only thing I can think of is that through the Special Fund—which is not a Government fund because it’s specially required as part of legislation such as the one we are amending right now, which means that it is not part of the budgetary process. However, the Government is able, potentially, to use legislation like this to alter the way that the funding is being used by Community Law Centres o Aotearoa, and redirect and redistribute some of the funding for them to other areas. So I’m hoping to be proven wrong and this is why I’m excited that we will have a select committee stage as a result of that.

But that is a problem because what we have seen—particularly in recent years with CLCA, as part of their most recent package—an uplift of 14 percent in terms of access to justice. I particularly shout out to the kaupapa Māori initiative in Tairāwhiti. So, with all of that, at this stage, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand cannot really support this bill without proper scrutiny.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to stand here and tautoko this bill that we’re talking about tonight. It’s a shame that the Green Party can’t support it—I think that’s what I understood—because, essentially, this bill is going to clarify a lot of the situations that the fund found itself in. What I’ve said before is that, unfortunately, whatever Labour gets its hands on become nebulous.

I just want to do a shout-out to the community law centres. As I was studying law in Australia, I did see a lot of the community lawyers. A lot of the time they didn’t focus on what they were wearing. They were just focused on helping the people they were helping. What I’d also like to say is that there is a reason why we brought this bill before the House, and the reason will continue to show itself.

But what I love is the fact that our Government is focusing on law and order, as we have said throughout the last two debates. With that, I would like to say it’s been a wonderful one day—or a few days—as we have been progressing our Government’s agenda after the Budget. I also want to say I am proud of the fact that our Government is focusing on law and order—[Interruption]—whether it’s a frivolous bill or not, and I want to thank all the staff of the Office of the Clerk for helping us out, bringing us water, and bringing us the notes. Thank you very much. I can see Venice there—thank you very much. It’s been wonderful.

I also want to say that a dress does not make a person—Nicola looked absolutely amazing, and this Minister in front of me is one of my favourite transport Ministers after Simeon, and he’s going to get Mill Road done. The suit he’s wearing is nice as well; not as nice as some other suits around me. Tom Rutherford is looking pretty sharp. When Mill Road is done, people will be able to get to the courts—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Point of order. I just want to check for clarity that the member over there—as we heard with a previous speaker, the Hon Damien O’Connor—has referred to someone who is not in the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry; I didn’t pick up on somebody not being in the House. Carry on, member.

RIMA NAKHLE: I can’t wait for Mill Road to get done because when it gets done, people will be able to get to the courthouses much quicker, so that we can focus on our victims. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Justice Committee, I look forward to hearing submissions on this bill. The Justice Committee is a very hard-working committee. Our new chair, Andrew Bayly, is doing a great job, and we look forward to hearing the submissions.

This bill puts an approach to ensure efficient use of existing resources, maintaining high-quality legal support without additional burdens on the Crown. That’s something that this side of the House is trying to do. As I’ve said earlier in other speeches, this 2025 Budget will be a game-changer—and any moment now as that clock clicks on to 12 a.m., it will be a game-changer. I would like to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you to the member. Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until Tuesday, 3 June 2025.

The House adjourned at 12.00 a.m. (Sunday)