McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party to support this Legal Services Amendment Bill. This bill came about after a legal aid review back in 2018 and the setting has largely been unchanged since 2011. And what this bill will do is remove the user charge as well as the penalty interest requirements that are placed on those that need and use the legal aid facility. It will change the income eligibility thresholds by 15 percent and that's going to start on 1 January 2023. It will increase the debt repayment thresholds by 16.5 percent for debt established also from the beginning of 1 January 2023. It will increase eligibility and debt repayment thresholds by an additional 1.9 percent per year for the next three years.So what does this mean? Well in 2013 the user charges were introduced. This meant that every person who uses legal aid had to pay $50 in order to have that privilege and that was for most civil and family legal aid applicants. Some also have to pay a portion of their legal aid grant back. And as has already been canvassed amongst this House there are many people who have caveats upon their property caveats upon their homes for just trying to get access to justice. While we can say that it's OK to do this it's actually not when it ends up that families especially children become affected by the fact that there are caveats over homes especially if it means the inability to seek second mortgages which could be needed especially at this time during a cost of living crisis. It's estimated that there's going to be 100000 people who became ineligible between 2013 and 2018 but about 98000 people will become eligible for legal age once these thresholds have been moved and changed at the beginning of next year.Of note is how much debt has been accumulated in the short time since 2013 when the $50 user charge and interest payments were made. Currently there are 52500 individuals that owe $178 million to the Ministry of Justice. Those that needed help the most because they had no money to pay for legal assistance are the ones that are suffering with this massive debt. By dropping the user charge and penalty interest requirements the Crown does lose some revenue. It's not much on the bigger scheme of things to the Crown but it's a lot to the estimated 7500 people who will benefit each year and it's those that are on low incomes.On the face of it this looks good. But when I was reading the departmental disclosure statement I found a few things that I thought were quite alarming. Because we're doing this under urgency and the review was in 2018 I thought that there would be more policy information around the bill available but there's been no inquiry no review or evaluation done. The Treasury document the regulatory impact statement I've only just found on the Table this morning. I could not find the cost-benefit analysis I could not find the Auditor-General's New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report and it appears from the departmental report that the Ministry of Justice have not even been consulted. And in fact Budget confidentiality means officials couldn't consult on any of the policy proposals. There's been no testing or comparisons to test provisions and no retrospective effect has been confirmed either. So this bill looks good. It addresses the expense that some of our most vulnerable actually cannot afford. It provides access to justice for many people and that access will increase once this goes through because those thresholds would have also increased and it will of course decrease a lot of debt for many many people. But I'm surprised that under urgency the departmental statement is not complete. This is not sound policy work.So I like the idea it's good but we need to make sure that when we make good ideas law they need to be good law and that includes having all of the data and evidence behind you to make sure you can make good decisions. So the idea is good but good law is made when the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and the policy goes through its full process.So we will support this good idea that will help those most vulnerable during this cost of living crisis and expected recession that is nearly upon us. But I guess we look at the policy further and its implementation during the select committee process because that's our only chance to delve into the documents that are missing from the Table from the website and from this bill. But the idea is good and that's where we need to start if we can work together across the House to be able to provide good access to justice for those that deserve it.And so the ACT Party will support this bill through its first reading and I look forward to working with the Justice Committee to flesh out the issues that we may find and make a better piece of legislation for those that will be affected from it and for it come 2023. Thank you.