Little Andrew: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11825. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):Rising as I do to speak on the legislation arising from the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill let me begin by saying that if the Minister of Justice has demonstrated one thing tonight it is her uncanny ability to speak through both sides of her mouth. That was an outrageous speech. That was an outrageous set of propositions that that Minister put up to justify this unjust hopeless and very unfair legislation. You cannot talk about access to justice in one breath and then talk about all the measures you have got in place in this legislation to cut access to justice. That is unconscionable and it is irreconcilable. That Minister has tried to do it and it just totally lacks credibility. Members opposite know that which is why they sit there in their seats crowing and bleating away. They know that the Legal Services Amendment Bill is designed to do one thing and that is solely to cut the funding to legal aid. It is not about justice. It never was about justice. It is about cutting funding to legal aid. If there is one thing that has become demonstrably clear about this Government it is that it has no interest in justice it has even less interest in the rule of law and it simply does not respect the fact that people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and that those who are imposed upon or who face an injustice are finding it harder to get access to court and to court representation.Let us look at the measures that this bill puts up—let us just look at those measures. Now the Legal Services Commissioner will have the power to charge interest on unpaid legal aid debt. Let us remember that the people who get access to legal aid by and large are the poorest those on the lowest incomes. That is why they get legal aid. This Government wants to make it even tougher for them now and to say: “If you have the temerity in your low-income status to put your hand out to the State for even more assistance because you have to front up to the court whether on a criminal matter or a civil matter we are going to make it tougher for you because where that legal assistance is in the form of a loan we are going to charge your assets and we are going to charge interest on that grant. We are going to charge interest on that grant.” Far from making it easier to get access to justice this will make it harder.Then this bill goes on to give the Legal Services Commissioner the power to authorise deductions from a legal aid claimant’s sources of income whether it is their pay whether it is their benefit or whether it is any other source of income. The Legal Services Commissioner will have that power. That is a huge power. The power is not over just small little bits of money small contributions; that power extends to the Legal Services Commissioner being able to deduct up to 40 percent of a legal aid claimant’s after-tax income—40 percent of a legal aid claimant’s after-tax income. And that Minister has the cheek to come here and say: “We are improving access to justice.” There is no improvement in access to justice in this legislation. This is an outrage.Then if that were not enough there is this. What the Minister has proposed in the bill is that if a legal aid claimant has moneys owing on previous legal aid grants they can be denied further legal aid. Never mind that they need it and never mind that they may be compelled to go to court to answer a charge or they may be placed in a situation where justice demands that they take a claim to court and they need the assistance of the State to do it. Never mind any of that. If they have a previous grant to which they are required to contribute in part or in whole if they have not made those payments they can be denied further legal aid. This is on top of the interest that will be charged this is on top of any deductions that have already been made and it is also on top of any user charge that has already been levied.Let us be very clear. Legal aid in this country is under threat. This Government has already introduced a fixed fee system for legal aid that is making it harder for lawyers to provide the quality of service and the extent of the service that once they were able to. Their time is constrained because the fee is constrained. And whereas once upon a time the user charge may have been able to be absorbed and the lawyer act on legal aid for a client that is much less likely to be the case. So the pressure is coming from all sides. The pressure is coming from all sides and this Minister says that this legislation is about improving access to justice. This will not improve access to justice.This is about a Government that has spent years spinning a yarn that it cannot afford some things things like justice and things like looking after people. It can afford other things like bailing out Solid Energy and like spending up its fast mover improvement fund—what does it call it the fund it set up from the sale of State assets which it has spent six times over already—Sue Moroney: The Future Investment Fund.ANDREW LITTLE: The Future Investment Fund that is it—the Future Investment Fund. The Government can spend money. It can spray money around on all sorts of things that suits it. It can spend it six times over. But for the little people of this country who look to the State for assistance when they most need it when they need to go to court when they need to defend charges when they need to deal with family proceedings they will not get it—not from this Government not from this lot. This Government just does not care about those people who every day face struggle face hardship face poverty and look to the Government for support and assistance.This Government is driven solely to drive down the cost of legal aid. It is not about the demands of justice. It is not about the fact that we live in a society now that is more litigious than it was 10 15 or 20 years ago. The Government does not care about the fact that more people are more aware of their legal rights whether they are fathers or mothers or whether they are people facing the sanctions of the criminal law. More people insist on their right to be heard in court which is their right and they do look to legal aid to ensure that that happens. There is nothing wrong with that. So when this Government says that it is concerned about access to justice we know for a fact that under this legislation it does not care one little bit.We see in the Family Court reforms which this bill will have a bearing on that this Government is rapidly reducing the right and access to legal aid for those who need it most in a very difficult time in their lives. The point is this. The Family Court reforms are about removing access to legal representation for people when they need it most. The Government in that legislation is enacting a process that means that people will not be able to get access to legal representation and therefore will not make claims on legal aid. The one concession that has been made in that legislation will cost very little in terms of legal aid. This Government is driven solely by the savings it wants to achieve. Of course the other aspect that legal aid has funded is counsel for the child. That is being cut. That will be much harder to get now. That is being almost totally cut and so that will drive down the cost of legal aid.This Government in order to achieve its surplus in 2014-15 does not care who pays for that. It does not care who pays for its boast when it goes into 2014-15 that the books look good. It does not matter that there are people in hardship who cannot get the representation they need in court. This Government does not care about that. What it cares about is a set of figures that look good for its mates whom they cosy up to for the purposes of an election. That is all that is about—that is all that is about. This is about driving down cost and making the books look good so they can cosy up to their corporate business mates and say: “Look we know how to cook the figures. We can cook the books and we can show a surplus.” And it will not be a surplus at all. The deficit will be in the working lives—or at least in the lived lives—of the working poor and the beneficiaries and the other low-income people in this country. They are the ones who are paying the price of this bad Government of this immoral Government. They are the ones who will pay the price of legislation like this which will deprive them of their rights.The other ones who will pay the price are every New Zealander because our reputation will suffer. We will no longer be able to go around the world and say that we are a country that understands the rule of law and understands that the rule of law means that anybody irrespective of their means can have access to the justice system and can be supported in doing so if they need it because this Government is taking that away. It is taking away that support it is taking away access to justice and our country will be poorer for it because there will be people who will not be able to get their legal rights determined and sorted out. For that reason we are deeply opposed to what this Government is doing on legal aid and deeply opposed to this legislation.