Chauvel Charles: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17028] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I wonder whether we could hear from the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson on a number of matters that are of particular interest to the Opposition. As I said in my initial comments before the dinner break to date the Opposition has chosen to offer support for the Legal Services Bill but obviously that continued support is subject to its being satisfied about the concerns that it wishes to raise. 
The first matter that I would be very interested to hear the Minister speak on is the issue of how it is intended that the Legal Services Commissioner a role that is to be created under clause 70 is to function. That person is to be an existing employee of the Ministry of Justice or is to be appointed as an employee of the ministry on taking office as the commissioner. The first issue is what is the guarantee if any that the commissioner will not simply be a cipher for the Secretary for Justice—subject to in particular budgetary constraints—and will ensure that the overall aims and objectives of the legislation are met? Why should the Committee assume given the wording of the legislation that there is any desire on the part of the Government to see the commissioner in particular take care that the objects of the legislation are met? What safeguards does the Minister think are built into the legislation to ensure that the commissioner really does have regard to the purposes and the functions set out for the commissioner particularly under clause 71? 
I anticipate that if the Minister does choose to take a call and reply to the issues I am raising he may point to clause 71(2) which describes the duty to act independently in respect of the functions set out in clause 71(1). But is that really enough of a safeguard given the breadth of the transfer of powers that is proposed? Of course what is happening here is that an independent body which is at the moment a Crown entity at arm’s length from the Crown is being taken into the Crown itself. Presumably one of the reasons for taking those powers closer to the Crown is an economic one and I think it would be helpful if the Committee were to hear from the Minister on whether he feels that there are sufficient safeguards as to the exercise of those powers and particularly whether they will not simply be able to be exercised at the direction or the discretion of the person who is in charge of the Ministry of Justice. 
The second point relates to the ability of the commissioner to delegate powers functions or duties which is set out in clause 72. Although there is a power of delegation for the commissioner there is no guarantee that once any delegated powers are exercised they will be exercised in an independent way. Even if the guarantee of independence conferred by clause 71(2) is pointed to by the Minister there is still the ability to delegate powers under clause 72. There is no requirement that the delegate of the commissioner should act independently. I think those are significant matters that we need to hear about from the Minister. 
The next issue that the Opposition has a particular concern about relates to Subpart 2. This is the quality assurance provision in the legislation. At the moment there are a couple of important quality assurance provisions in the existing legislation. There is a public advisory committee which when we debate Part 4 we will see is disestablished by clause 118. There is also a review panel which is to be disestablished by clause 128. What is proposed in place of these two means of assuring that legally aided persons receive reasonable quality in terms of the legal services that they consume is the regime to be set up by clauses 74 to 83. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister on what deliberations have occurred inside Cabinet when comparing the existing quality assurance provisions and assurance of public input into the system with the proposed provisions. Has there been such an exercise? Can the Committee take any guarantee from the provisions contained in the bill as to whether this regime is likely to be superior or inferior to the one that exists at the moment? 
The other issues that it would be helpful to hear from the Minister about in respect of this part relate to Subpart 3 “Community law centres”. Clause 94 empowers the Secretary for Justice to enter into contracts with community law centres so that they can provide services to communities on the terms of the arrangement entered into with the secretary and then there are provisions concerning reporting and auditing. It is clear and hopefully a matter of consensus across the Committee that community law centres provide a very helpful and important service to the community. Again it would be helpful to hear from the Minister in the chair as to how these provisions compare with the existing law and in particular how the Government intends to ensure that the very good level of service provided by community law centres at the moment will continue under the regime set out in the legislation that is being considered by the Committee. 
Finally as far as the matters that I want to raise in this short call are concerned I was interested in the Minister’s view on Subpart 5 and in particular on clause 108 which deals with the limitations in respect of the disclosure of information. There is a provision in clause 108(1) that every person should have the same privileges in relation to giving information answering questions and producing documents in respect of an application for legal aid for a civil matter as any witnesses have in court. Then there are provisions in the remainder of clause 108 that effectively derogate from that provision. It would be useful to hear from the Minister as to the levels of protection that are provided for people who go through the process of providing information. What protections are intended to apply to those people and how do they compare with those in the current law? Is this Committee being asked to derogate from those protections or does this legislation actually supplement them? I fear it is the former and I think it would be helpful to hear some sort of assurance from the Minister on that point.