Dalziel Lianne: Legal Services Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Legal Services Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13514] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I too was caught by surprise at the brevity of the contribution of the previous speaker Chester Borrows on the Legal Services Bill. I was looking forward to the opportunity to engage with that member in particular because unfortunately we did not have a justice Minister to present the motion in favour of the introduction of this bill. Although we support the bill’s referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee there are some challenging issues around this particular habit of the Government. I think this was the comment that my colleague Charles Chauvel was making. He simply made reference to the fact that this was occurring under urgency. 
The point that Charles Chauvel was making was to ask why on earth the select committee has to have these obligations thrown on it to meet outside the normal sitting times for select committees thereby missing out on opportunities to participate in debates in the House. We had the ridiculous situation recently where I was sitting on the Justice and Electoral Committee and an electoral bill was before the House. That meant that it was impossible for those who have a particular interest in speaking on the bill to do both jobs at the same time. I think that was a very reasonable point for my colleague to make. If we are going to have requirements on select committees to sit for extended hours either during the course of the sitting of the House or on Fridays as well then it really is helpful if members of the Opposition are consulted. The only reason that I ever get consulted on the Commerce Committee is because I am the chair of that committee and it would be rather foolish of the Government to move a motion like that without telling me about it first although the Government did manage to tell me about it only 5 minutes before it moved the motion in support of such a referral on one occasion. But I have received undertakings that that will not happen as a matter of course. 
It would be useful if we were told that this was an approach that the Government was trying to take on this particular matter. There is no need for it. The reason that there is no need for it is that as I said we are supporting the reference of the Legal Services Bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee. We genuinely want to engage in the process around this. I made a submission to the Bazley review on legal aid. There are not many people in this House who actually did that but I did because I believe it is really important that we engage on something as fundamentally important as this is—that is access to justice. It is an important component of access to justice and that is why I wanted to make a submission. 
I was pleased with some elements of what Dame Margaret came up with but I was disappointed with the allegations in relation to up to 200 lawyers in Auckland and South Auckland—it was identified that 80 percent of the people were working in the Manukau area—and I found that completely unacceptable. I have met with many of those lawyers. Charles Chauvel and I went and met with them. The people whom we talked to were not people who were afraid to raise concerns about those they felt were taking advantage of the system but they felt that their concerns fell on deaf ears. For those deaf ears who failed to listen to them well the consequences are the Legal Services Bill and the disestablishment of the Legal Services Agency. I think it is really important to note if we think about where the complaints were made that if lawyers complained to the Legal Services Agency about the nature of concerns they have about other lawyers ripping off the system and nothing happens as a result then this is what occurs. I believe that some of the proposals within the legislation are perfectly sensible and therefore we need to take some action. 
I make the point that demand for legal aid has been increasing over time. But there are two particular components of the legal aid system where we see marked increases in their requirements and they are in the criminal jurisdiction and in the Waitangi Tribunal jurisdiction. They are the two that have the most increases. I have a personal view and I did express this in my submission to Dame Margaret that the legal aid component of the Waitangi Tribunal work should be funded separately through Vote Justice. It should not be seen as a cost to the legal aid system because it gives an impression of a total blowout in expenditure which is not justified when we think of what the legal aid system is there for in terms of both the criminal and the civil jurisdiction. 
Paul Quinn 
: You had 9 years to do something about that. The problem was there for 9 years. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I know that that member likes to interject really loudly from a seat that does not belong to him. I know that he has moved up close so that he can be close to me to do that. I am getting used to it but ignoring such a loud voice is quite difficult. When I do not find it so loud then I find it very easy to ignore everything that he says. The point I was making is that this is not something that relates to anything other than the public perception of the blowout in legal aid. A big chunk of that blowout relates to the Waitangi Tribunal’s jurisdiction and I believe that should be funded separately. It would be useful from a public perception point of view to get a clear understanding of what belongs to civil legal aid and what belongs to criminal legal aid. 
There is an issue around the questions that have been raised in the regulatory impact statement. In the problem definition— 
Paul Quinn 
: Lianne—Speaker’s ruling 63/1. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I am finding it very difficult as I am constantly being harangued by the other side. Maybe I could look the other way but I am trying to address the Speaker. The options that were put up in the regulatory impact statement relate to a universal system of public provision of legal aid services as implemented in some of the Auckland courts. What they said was that this could generate significant economies of scale and be a low-cost option. But—and here is the phrase; here is the rub—the following statement is typical. I almost thought that this was a Treasury regulatory impact statement because it sounded like Treasury words. But this comes from the Ministry of Justice and I think our spokesperson on the State sector should be worried about this because it states “Public provision has however only been tested in large communities and in criminal cases. As well universal public provision creates a risk of an inefficient bureaucracy over time due to the absence of any competition.” Well I am sorry but one can understand why I thought that came from Treasury. 
The point I make is this: I went to the Croydon Family Justice Centre in London in the UK last year and one of the things that I saw was that it was—I am finding this difficult; maybe those two members who are talking might like to take over—the Croydon Family Justice Centre itself that contracted in the outside legal work to work with the families and if the families did not like working with the particular lawyers then those contracts came to an end. That was a much better system I thought of bringing the local community into the decision making on who will be getting that range of work and it is all tied up with a properly funded legal aid system. It is the best of all worlds. There are the economies of scale that the centralised work can provide but there is also that outside expert input from the private sector from time to time as is required. 
I think that this bill has a considerable amount of work to be done on it. I do not agree with the way the Government has tried to play around with the sitting arrangements of a select committee without consulting with the Opposition but we will support the bill’s referral to the select committee.