Mark Ron: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a short call on the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) and to express that we will be supporting the passage of this bill at the third reading. There is not a lot to be added to the debate. I think the bill has been covered quite broadly but I will take a little time to express the views of one lawyer whose opinions we do respect here in New Zealand. In this debate as Mr Fairbrother highlighted National has chosen to focus to a large extent not on access or increased access to legal aid. I have to say that legislation that increases availability of legal services to something like 450000 New Zealanders who otherwise would not have qualified has to be good legislation. At the core of the issue is the access to quality defence quality legal advice and quality legal support for those people who most desperately need it. 
The person who wrote to me pointed out that section 24 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 makes it clear that “Everyone who is charged with an offence—…(f) shall have the right to receive legal assistance without cost if the interests of justice so require and that person does not have sufficient means to provide for that assistance;”. That is correct. So on that basis women who have been beaten up by their husbands children who are the subjects of sexual abuse by their families and people—young people usually—who come up before the courts for the first time are protected by a lawyer. That is correct. 
Legal aid rates were increased by the New Zealand First - National coalition Government when the Rt Hon Winston Peters was Treasurer in 1998. But here is the rub: in 1999 once National had control of the Government benches by itself it reduced the rates back down to the 1996 levels. That is fact. That is interesting and the person who wrote to me pointed out he knew of no sector in the wider community that is still working today for 1996 pay rates. That is the point that many in the legal fraternity are pointing out today: the Legal Services Agency has not renegotiated those rates up. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: I worked for less than that. 
RON MARK 
: I know that member and I can assure the House she is a fine lawyer and she is worth every dollar she is ever paid. I can attest to that personally. That is Kate Wilkinson from Waimakariri whom I am talking about. Members may be interested to know that lawyers who work in the particular area of the gentleman who wrote to me are about to withdraw their services so he says in the duty solicitors scheme and more and more law firms around the country are refusing to do legal aid because of the grossly inadequate pay rates. That is a point the National debating team has consistently tried to make. 
The letter goes on to state that although it is easy to criticise legal aid and those lawyers who rip off the system the legal profession is not the only occupation where this happens—by crikey we have read about some of those involving accountants have we not—and there are means whereby the legal profession through the many disciplinary provisions enacted by Parliament tends to weed out incompetent lawyers. If we care to read the expulsions from the Law Society’s roll we will note that this does happen from time to time. 
The writer commented too that some of us might point out that some of the lawyers who represent these people would be better off not representing them because they are not actually perceived to be highly competent. The writer draws our attention to this because people who suffer as a result of poor-quality legal representation generally are first-time offenders who need legal aid most and who do not need a blot on their record. Such a blot can make it very difficult for them to recover in future life. 
The writer goes on to state: “Incidentally I have not done any legal aid work for about 15 years or more”—well I know why he was not doing it for 3 years—“other than the one-a-year odd job for a local person who needs help and it is normally about one a year.” His firm does hardly any legal aid work and he doubted that it would do more than 10 cases a year collectively now because of the reasons that he wrote of. 
Finally he stated that if lawyers did not do legal aid work and individuals entered pleas themselves we would find that the justice system would either grind to a halt or three times the number of judges would be need to be appointed three times the number of courts would be required and the police force would have to increase probably by another 300 prosecutors and more than 1000 police officers to cover the time delays and waste that would ensure. In most cases the duty solicitor or legal aid lawyer sets out the blunt facts to the prisoner. If the prisoner insists on pleading not guilty then at least the lawyer facilitates smooth operation of the trial. 
He goes on to say that the longest trial in New Zealand history was one undertaken in the court in Whangarei or Kaitaia. It lasted 82 days with the defendant defending himself on a fairly simple matter of theft. If this was allowed to run rampant there would be absolute chaos in our justice and law and order system and police officers would be wasting many hours and days at court because of the stupid activities of people who are stupid enough to commit criminal offences in the first place. Those were “just a few comments” written by Dail Jones QSO a former New Zealand First member of Parliament now the president of New Zealand First. 
I think we take on board those points from the lawyer’s perspective but I do take on board the comments that have been made that this is not the forum or the legislation to be debating that issue. That is possibly an issue that the Justice and Electoral Committee could take up as an inquiry itself and make recommendations on to Parliament and I am sure some National members might like to seek such an inquiry of that committee. I do not know that anyone would want to oppose such an inquiry quite frankly because we are all interested in delivering quality justice to those poor unfortunate Road Knights and Mongrel Mob members who so desperately deserve it! Some of us would like to ensure that they got another form of justice but there we go that is life. 
New Zealand First members support the bill. We have noted the plea for more money for lawyers. We note that there are grounds for such a request. We do not tend to be swayed by the politics of envy when people say: “Well this person earns that much money therefore they don’t need any more.”; we tend to look at things on a case by case basis. We all know that some lawyers are paid far too much for doing far too little but there is another bunch of lawyers out there who for some reason known only to them and the God that they look up to continue to throw themselves head first into social issues and hopeless cases time and time again in pursuit of achieving justice for those who are least able to access it. I commend lawyers such as that for their work and I wonder how the heck they continue to summon the energy to do that work and to commit themselves mentally to such a regime—often for people who only find themselves back before the courts again because they have learnt nothing in the first place. 
New Zealand First members support the bill. We look forward to the end of this debate so that we can get on to some more important matters.