Webb DuncanHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Chair. I see the friends on the other side of the Chamber are jumping up but obviously there's a number of Amendment Papers that haven't yet been discussed. To date we've been discussing some of the general points. I do want to ask directly—and I'm happy to sit down if the Minister indicates he will answer this question but it's the question about Corrections documents which have been prepared within the corrections system being used. The Minister has suggested that these wider documents can kind of be funnelled into the sentencing process and my question was a very precise one: is it the case that Corrections have stopped preparing documents that can be used? Not as—yes thank you.Hon Paul Goldsmith: I have no information on that.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: OK. Thank you for that Minister. If I may just continue Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mm-hmm.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I thank the Minister for being so responsive on that. And that is the purpose of my Amendment Paper entitled E" to make it absolutely clear that documents prepared for another purpose including in the Department of Corrections can be put in front of a judge for the purposes of section 27 so that you can get you know kind of double duty from those documents. But the Minister doesn't have any information on that so I'm hopeful he'll support that.The other Amendment Paper that I'd like to then talk about is my Amendment Paper—and I think it's "I" although the Clerk's handwriting is sometimes worse than mine!—that's just to address the issues that the Minister has identified. It essentially says that these reports can't be legal-aid funded unless they have met a couple of criteria. One is they're less than $2000 or such other sum as the commissioner sets and it's provided by a person approved by the commissioner. This isn't some big regulation this is pretty straightforward stuff. Legal-aid providers are approved by the commissioner and there's absolutely no reason why the legal-aid commissioner can't simply—on the basis of evidence—you know historical reports the quality of the reports that they provided to date—say "You know what you're doing and you don't." Or on the basis of perhaps a little bit of consultation with the Bar and judges: "These reports have been helpful to the court; those ones haven't." So that would be a very very easy way to address much of the ill that the Minister has identified in these reports—that they're too expensive and that they're not value for money.Now that number in there—$2000—well it might be too much who knows. The Minister or the Legal Services Commissioner who's independent from the Minister as he rightly notes—I see he's texting him now so good on you. See what he thinks—I'm pretty sure he'll be happy with this. So perhaps that's a really useful—unless he was tweeting of course because it's such a good idea he wants a bit of feedback! That'll be the most consultation the Minister's done so far on this bill would be a good tweet. But anyway so it's a very simple proposal but it does address the ills. And I know that sometimes in this House we get a bit positional and if the Labour Party puts it up the National Party votes against it. Now look it's not the approach we in the Labour Party take we—Hon Paul Goldsmith: Ha!Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No no no. That's simply not true. You know we've supported legislation that you have introduced into this House and we would hope that there would be a little bit of reciprocity there that you would look at these Amendment Papers—we only saw this bill goodness knows when. So we have worked hard to come up with—all of these are constructive you know. Admittedly the title ones I didn't think I was going to get those through calling it the you know the "Bash the Poor"—I didn't call it that but you know the "Legal Services (Removing Access to Reports for Poor People) Amendment Act". It was a fair point but these are serious amendments that—and you've got your official behind you and I can see why they might not be too keen on this bill. But this is something that they can no doubt assist you with in saying "That's a goodie; go with that. That Duncan Webb he knows what he's talking about." So this one here is a good one Amendment Paper I: cost of the report is less than $2000 excluding GST or such other sum as may be set by the commissioner from time to time; and the report is provided by a person or entity who was approved by the commissioner for that purpose. I recommend that one to the Minister. I'd be interested to hear what he says."