Burton Mark: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Burton Mark: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9021] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call in response. Firstly I acknowledge one point that the member who has just resumed his seat Christopher Finlayson made. I think the Justice and Electoral Committee should be acknowledged in this Chamber as a committee that takes its work seriously. Certainly all the evidence I have seen suggests as the member said that it is a committee where members regardless of party take the job seriously and work collegially. Obviously there are differences from time to time but I think they do an important job for this Parliament and I want to acknowledge that. 
The member who has resumed his seat raises some important issues and I am not for a moment going to suggest that this agency is perfect in its performance. Clearly it is not. But equally I want to say that it is well and good to take a particular case—the member spent about a third of his time on one particular case—in which indeed there was judicial criticism. Such criticism is relatively rare. It happens maybe once a year in an agency that has to look after thousands upon thousands of cases a year. It is one thing to highlight a particular problem with a particular case; it is another thing entirely to run and operate an organisation effectively that deals with many thousands of cases and applications every year. 
There are a number of areas in which it is clear that there needs to be improvement. There will be and are clear expectations in terms of the agency’s coming year and the focus for that year in terms of key service delivery issues. There are a number of areas that clearly have to be enhanced where organisational capability needs to be improved or enhanced in some respect. A good example of that is the strengthening in management of the agency’s information technology systems. I think the functionality of that and its ability to meet some of the workload issues that have been highlighted concerning the increasing volume and complexity in those areas is critical to doing that effectively and well. 
The issues raised around continuing to monitor the quality supply and security of supply of legal aid providers are important. I have to say that the facts across the country are not as we often hear in this House but there is no doubt that from time to time there are areas in which supply is difficult. In any specialist service provision in a country like New Zealand that has 4 and a bit million people spread over a large land mass there will always be problems of supply whether we are talking about Government agencies or other professional services. That is simply a fact of life living in the sort of country we do. The critical thing is that this agency must monitor and have the willingness and capacity to respond when issues are raised with it and that is precisely what our expectation is. 
There are areas where re-establishing an appropriate level of community legal services needs to be addressed in the coming year. I emphasise Northland and Canterbury in particular following the termination of provider contracts. Such terminations are difficult issues but I would ask the member who has resumed his seat whether he would have the agency simply ignore concerns and problems when they arise. That is not an option when delivery of quality service has to be maintained. But the challenge has to be risen to in terms of re-establishing an appropriate level of community legal aid services particularly in Northland and Canterbury. That challenge has been laid very clearly before the agency for the coming year. Again part of the streamlining and improving of the service is the project to modernise legal aid management granting and information technology systems. Further work is being done now on the improvement of some of the paper systems which the member referred to. 
I acknowledge however that the agency has had a lot of new work to do in the last year and I think it has certainly done well with a great deal of that. It is a year that has been dominated by the implementation of the new Act and that has seen a significant increase in the number of those New Zealanders on low and modest incomes who now have eligibility. Several hundred thousand additional people have eligibility for legal aid who did not before. I make no apology and this Government will make no apology for making our first priority extending the access to legal aid service to low-income New Zealanders. That is what we have done. 
I am not suggesting for a moment that that is all we need to do. Of course it is not. But that was the first priority. I think it is one that we stand by because frankly it really goes to the sort of debate we all saw in 2005 around things like tax cuts. There are those in this House who would say that we should have the sorts of tax cuts that would deliver up to people in this House $100 $200 or $250 a week and to low-income New Zealanders $5 $8 or $10 a week. This Government says that those who should be targeted should get the first access to tax relief and that is what we have done. Unfortunately for members in this House they got nothing. But the consequence of that is that modest-income families raising children are getting $100 $200 or in some cases $300 a fortnight in tax relief. That is about setting priorities. It is the same philosophy that drove the decision to make low and modest income New Zealanders’ access to legal aid service the first priority. 
So are there challenges in the year ahead? Indeed there are. Quite properly some of those issues have been raised by the select committee. But has this agency also done a great deal of good work in the last year? Yes it has and that too should be acknowledged. 
Report noted.