Mark Ron: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Mark Ron: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1748] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First in this Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) debate and I just signal from the start that New Zealand First will support the second reading. We look forward with interest to the discussion during the Committee of the whole House where no doubt the issues that have been raised by the National Party in particular will be represented with Supplementary Order Papers and supporting debate. 
Let me signal quite clearly right from the word go that New Zealand First can see clearly through the very thin veil of the explanation given by National Party members as to why they are opposing this bill. It is very clear to us. In the commentary on the bill the second numbered point of the National Party minority report states: “the Government has refused to address the need to fairly remunerate lawyers who undertake legal aid work.” and we have just heard the explanation given by Mr Finlayson who has expressed exactly those concerns. So what does that mean? It means the National Party wants lawyers to get more money. It is as simple as that. The National Party wants to increase the amount of legal aid that is paid out to the criminal fraternity. I was hoping that the lawyer and political correctness eradicator Dr Wayne Mapp would take a call on this bill because after all it is he who will eliminate political correctness from the planet. He could start in this House right now by getting his own people to cut right to the chase and talk about what they speak of in plain terms. 
The fact of the matter is that many of these lawyers are defending the criminal fraternity and we can talk about the man who defends the Road Knights down in Christchurch and defends the highly suspect activities of a certain businessman who is opening up drug shops in Kaiopoi. Now it is one thing to give legal aid to a person who is on his or her first offence who is not known as a recidivist offender and who has got into a position where he or she is facing charges and has an absolute need for a fair trial but it is another thing to be fronting up for the twentieth or thirtieth time backing some piece of—I am not allowed to use the word in this House—but defending some member of the criminal fraternity and helping him get off. We all know and we do not have to talk to too many police prosecutors to find out how this game is played. Many a Mercedes has been bought and many a house has been bought in the plush suburbs of New Zealand by very wealthy lawyers who have made their killing on the back of legal aid defending members of the criminal fraternity who do not learn by their mistakes and who in fact consider court appearances as being just an occupational hazard that they must bear. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: It’s a necessary part of doing business. 
RON MARK 
: It is a necessary part; it is part of the risk management of doing the type of business that they do—dealing in methamphetamines supplying marijuana to kids and running prostitution rackets and extortion rackets. I would love to know how much money Mr Ruth down in Christchurch has had out of legal aid defending the sort of excrement that he supports walking the streets of Christchurch—be it Road Knights be it White Power be it Epitaph Riders be it Hell’s Angels or be it whoever. 
A society is judged by the way in which it treats its most vulnerable and by the quality of justice it lends to those who are brought before our courts. But we have to ask ourselves whether there is not a line where we say there is a limit and where we say that those people are recidivist offenders who appear time and time again—and the poor old taxpayer continues to wear the lot. 
Let us not be blind to the tactics and strategies that some of those State-funded lawyers use for their clients. For instance client Joe Bloggs from the Road Knights commits a crime for which there are dozens of witnesses and for which the evidence is clear. On the advice of his legal aid lawyer he pleads not guilty. He tells the police and the court that he will defend the case. The police have to go through all the rigmarole of producing evidence of disclosure and of depositions—the whole lot—only to find that he has realised he has run the road as far as he can and on the advice of his lawyer he pleads guilty and mitigating circumstances and expresses how remorseful he is for the crime he committed. We can sit down and tally up the hundreds of hours of police time and the hours taken by his lawyer on his behalf and how quick and simple and correct the right path might have been had his lawyer simply said to him: “Look mate you have told me you are guilty. Let’s just get this done and dusted take your medicine and move on.” But oh no that is not now the pattern. Everybody knows how busy the courts are. Everybody knows how long cases will be delayed. 
The only question New Zealand First is left with when we see statements like this—“… the Government has refused to address the need to fairly remunerate lawyers who undertake legal work.”—is that National should tell us upfront how much it wants lawyers to be paid for legal aid work. At least if we had a figure on it if the National Party could put up a dollar rate per hour so that we could debate it we might be able to move forward. But we cannot because no figure has been floated. It is just: “We want more money.” Well tell me how much more. I am involved with Maori business. We run a rather large and successful Maori agriculture-based business in the Waikato. Our yearly plans are based on business plans whereby we budget how much we are going to spend in each and every sector of the business. So I say to National members pray tell the House how much money they want the Government to budget per annum for legal aid and what that is based on. What is the hourly rate that National now wants all lawyers who suck off the hind teat of the taxpayer picking up legal aid money to earn per hour per day per week per month per year? The last time I looked I thought that about $100 million was going into their pockets. 
That is on the back of tax cuts for the very same people because National also wants to give high-paying high-earning lawyers a big tax cut as well. National members should tell us what the taxpayer will be expected to pay. I can see a farming man opposite shaking his head. I thought that that man in National would keep his mouth very very tightly closed when it comes to shelling out money to lawyers given the difficulty that the farming community faces when it comes up against lawyers who use the Resource Management Act to stop farming businesses from developing. Imagine that right now its current partners the Maori Party and the Greens want legal aid made available on a wider basis for people who challenge the Resource Management Act and resource consents because clearly they cannot afford it. 
So I ask National members now to tell me not only how much money they want the lawyers who are currently representing the criminal fraternity—the recidivist offenders who continue to fill our jails and who are going back there in increasing numbers—to be paid but also how much of that legal aid money they now want to go to the Greens to help them fight resource consents against farmers and people in the agricultural industry who are simply trying to make a hard-earned living out of their lifelong and intergenerational family investment. I tell the member opposite not to shake his head at me. He knows exactly that that is the issue that National has not thought through. I simply say to National members that we will be listening during the Committee stage. We will listen intently to the debate on the Supplementary Order Papers that no doubt they will wish to put up. But I ask National to give us an hourly rate per lawyer a daily rate and an annual budget so that we can work with it and we might then be able to make a decision in a very informed manner.