Bridges Simon: Legal Services Bill — Second Reading 
Bridges Simon: Legal Services Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:670;Page:16766] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 The Legal Services Bill reforms the legal aid system. I say from the outset that I certainly believe that because the State is bringing charges in criminal cases there absolutely should be legal aid for those people who cannot afford representation. A slightly different situation pertains to family law cases where the State may not be bringing charges. There may be some slightly different considerations in those cases but basically and certainly in respect of the criminal courts I feel very strongly that legal aid is a fundamental part of our system because without it people who do not have the means to pay for representation do not get fair trials. 
It is worth saying that there are caveats around that statement. It should not be legal aid at any cost and without any reference to the kind of quality and perhaps the assurances that should be in place with regard to the counsel providing the legal aid. I say that legal aid should not be at any cost because some lawyers will say that actually legal aid or court cases should be at any cost and that cost is an irrelevant factor. I do not think that as politicians in this Parliament we should say that. 
The fact of the matter is that we absolutely need justice in this country and we need fair trials. Justice and the justice system lines up against hip ops—and I do not mean the kinds of hip hops Carmel Sepuloni would necessarily talk about; I mean hip operations—education and our schools. Trials and trial rights are lined up with those things in the system because there is not a bottomless pit of money. Carmel Sepuloni may think there is but we do not think so. We have to be careful with our money. 
We in the Justice and Electoral Committee heard about lawyers and counsel at category 1 and 2 level—that is low-level criminal law and criminal cases—earning several hundreds of thousands of dollars by churning through cases. Those lawyers were not doing the hard stuff. Most reasonable New Zealanders would say—and Dame Margaret Bazley essentially said so in her report—that that is not on. We accept that anyone who works hard on a per hour basis can get to a position where they earn good money but when the rate is $400000 $500000 or even $600000 to do low-level criminal cases something seems strange. Indeed some of the calculations we talked about in our select committee made it quite clear that the lawyers were putting through what seemed like strangely large numbers of people. 
We are changing things in that regard. We are not allowing costs to spiral out of control because as I say we also have to make sure we have good hospitals strong schools and other social goods in our society. 
When looking at this issue the other thing I will say is that it is very very important that if the State is paying for counsel—and as I have said right from the start it must pay when people cannot afford good counsel in court—then the counsel should actually be good. The quality of legal advice and the quality of counsel someone is getting matter because counsel are getting very good money. Off the top of my head I think legal aid rates are around $160 per hour. 
Chester Borrows 
: For who? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Those are the rates for senior counsel are they not—about $160 or $165 an hour? 
Chester Borrows 
: Yes $160 for junior counsel. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well I would have been senior counsel when I was doing it but that is by the by. We want to get away from that car-boot lawyer situation. Some ethics issues are involved so we are putting in some assurances that there will be more competency tests for counsel which has to be a very good thing indeed. 
Finally I will say a word or two about preferred counsel. We had some discussions about this issue—and I had some concerns at the start—but I think in the end we in the select committee came up with a very good solution whereby there is not preferred counsel for the low-level cases yet there will be for the higher-level cases. I could say a lot more about that issue but I think we have struck a good balance—one that meets all the requirements I have already talked about. 
Ultimately we will have a system that hopefully will be less about and less for the lawyers and more about the accused who are up on charges and about the victims in the community. The system is not about people earning money from the system but about those who do not want to be in the system but are. We are reforming legal aid which is a crucial part of the justice system in a number of good ways in the bill.