Pillay Lynne: Legal Services Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Legal Services Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:670;Page:16767] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I stand along with my colleagues to speak in support of the Legal Services Bill. As I heard Jacinda Ardern say before me I too am very sad to not be a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee which is chaired by the amazing Chester Borrows over there who is smiling proudly. It has been a hard-working committee and although we did not agree on everything—certainly in the case of the Legal Services Bill—we worked very constructively and the work of the committee has seen an improved bill come to the House today. It goes without saying that we should also acknowledge the fantastic select committee staff who really gave as always very very good support to us during the process and we should also acknowledge the submitters because a number of really relevant points were made during the select committee process. I will talk a little bit later about some of the changes made. But all in all it was a good process and I feel along with my colleagues and indeed National members that this bill is improved that it is necessary and that it is a very good thing when we talk about access to justice. 
The purpose of the bill is to promote that access through a system that provides legal services to people of insufficient means and delivers those services in the most effective and efficient manner. I certainly hope that no one in this House would dispute that irrespective of people’s means or circumstances it is their fundamental right to have a fair hearing and to feel confident that justice is seen to be served. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Hear hear! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Thank you very much I say to the junior whip. This bill overhauls the legal services system and is the result of a review that was carried out and found some failings. A number of Government members have spoken quite staunchly about some of the rorts that were going on in the system and indeed that is not something that anyone in the House wants to see in any system. 
But I will not talk about the rorts. Government members who like to focus on the negative have done that quite well. I would like to focus on all the good work that lawyers working within the legal aid system do. Although for some the reason for the choice may have been the ability to earn a tremendous amount of money many others could be working in other areas of law and making frankly a lot more money but choose to do this from a very principled position. So I want to stand in this House to acknowledge the contribution and commitment of those lawyers. 
We do believe that the reforms are positive especially the emphasis on the public defender system and community law centres. We are very pleased that there will be a focus on delivering good quality. I will give a little background on the public defence system. It was launched by our leader Phil Goff who was the Minister of Justice at the time in the Manukau courts in 2004. It was part of the Labour manifesto in 1999 so it was something that Labour members saw as very dear and we are very proud that that service was launched in 2004. Since then there have been two independent valuations of that service and both found that it offered tremendous savings in lawyers’ costs when compared with the equivalent service from private providers—in fact the saving was almost a million dollars over the period of the pilot. Those savings were achieved with no change of outcome for the client as measured by the conviction rate; they are rather delivering consistency. Most people in this House would acknowledge that employing lawyers as public defenders delivers consistency accountability and a high level of skill. So as I said before we are very pleased. 
I will also take this time to acknowledge all the work that community law centres do. That is why when people bang on about the greed associated with legal aid I find it a little offensive when one looks at the complete opposite. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Hard work. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It is hard work. Community law centres are funded by the system and the lawyers working in them are working for a very very low salary but their commitment is second to none. I know that my colleague Carmel Sepuloni who along with me has had quite a bit to do with our community law centre in Waitakere and I are really impressed—through referring clients of course not at first hand—with the standard and many colleagues have said the same about community law centres in their areas. Let us just acknowledge the work that community law centres do. 
One point when we look at some of the changes canvassed was that community law centres were concerned that there were no statutory consultation requirements within the bill. As a committee we spent quite some time discussing this but were advised that there was no provision for the equivalent of the public advisory committee so we did not propose an inclusion of such a committee. Although we know that consultation is very important we noted that it has always been a very good administrative practice and we did not see that changing. But it was something that we drew attention to in our report. 
There was also considerable debate around the preferred lawyer issue. A few submissions—not a great number—argued that for low levels of crime in order to have access to justice the accused should always have the right to pick their preferred lawyer. We gave that careful consideration but did not recommend changes. For people accused of more serious crimes of course that should be the case but for people accused of crimes at a lower level the committee unanimously felt confident that a good level of service would be delivered. But it certainly was considered. 
As I said before these are improvements to the provision of legal services in this country and it is very good to have a meeting of minds on those issues. It is certainly very good to have a report that comes back to the House on which all members agree. We can compare it—which is what I think is so strange—with that ridiculous “three strikes” legislation which does nothing for justice in this country but is actually a justice cost. It is really quite ridiculous that Parliament’s time has been wasted and that taxpayers’ money has been wasted on ridiculous legislation like that which does nothing to address crime in New Zealand. Rather it is a deal with the ACT Party to make its members feel in some way relevant to this Parliament. I think it is a pretty sad day when legislation is passed for that reason. 
Having said that this bill is good. It will improve legal services and that is a good thing. We certainly see the public sector being decimated by cuts but at least this is something positive that is happening for the delivery of justice. Thank you very much.