Parker David: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Parker David: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I want to also address the concern we have for the rising cost of legal services which the Minister addressed in respect of Part 1. As we heard from the previous speaker Stuart Nash Part 2 sets out the mechanisms to gauge when legal aid should or should not be granted. 
In the Minister’s contribution on Part 1 he said that there is an expectation that costs in the legal aid system are going to increase. There are two drivers of that. If more people are getting legal aid for mainly criminal matters which is one of the big— 
Hon Simon Power 
: No. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No more people are getting it? It has flatlined has it? 
Hon Simon Power 
: I wouldn’t say flatlined but it’s not the biggest area. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is still going up. It is not going up quite as fast as the rate of crime but it is still going up a little bit. I am sure that part of it is just the increase in some sorts of crime particularly serious violent crime which is on the increase and will flow through to legal aid costs. That situation is obviously of concern. The underlying way to deal with it is not through legal aid legislation but through better interventions earlier in life so as to reduce the rate of offending. 
Civil legal aid is another area of concern to the Opposition because it is plain that the cost of living is rising for most New Zealanders—not just petrol prices. I admit that petrol prices are largely beyond the control of the Government— 
Grant Robertson 
: Except for the GST. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —except for the GST increase that is right—but in respect of most other cost increases National does have to accept some responsibility after 2 years in Government and two Budgets. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Can I put a point to the member? If they had done their public transport the way that they should have— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We are on Part 2 of the Legal Services Bill. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The point I will come back to is that if these costs are not being met by the legal aid system it is yet another area where costs will be transferred to New Zealanders from the State. The cost of living pressures on New Zealanders will be getting worse as a consequence of more of the total amount that is required to be spent on legal services in New Zealand being met by New Zealanders and less by the Government. 
I am not as members will have heard from earlier contributions saying that all legal services ought to be funded by the Crown. I am not saying that at all but the cost of living pressures that are being borne by people from increased electricity prices through to legal services are something that we on this side of the Committee are concerned about. 
When it comes to clauses 10 and 11 which set out when legal aid may be granted in civil matters I would be interested to learn from the Minister whether the income thresholds will be lifted to reflect the fact that the cost of living is rising ahead of wage growth through inflationary increases. 
We want to make sure that New Zealanders are in a position to effectively resolve their disputes through civil methods. One of the reasons we have courts is to stop people using uncivil methods to settle their disputes. If people do not have access to court processes they are more likely to resort to fisticuffs or employing stand-over tactics to resolve their disputes. The importance of civil proceedings in maintaining civil society is not to be underestimated. For civil proceedings to be a real avenue for people to resolve their disputes people have to be able to access justice as Grant Robertson said in an earlier speech. 
We are interested in the fact that wages are not rising as fast as inflation—that is people are facing an increase in the cost of living that is not reflected by their average earnings. People who are unlucky enough to be made unemployed through redundancy—following the earthquake for a small proportion of people in Christchurch for whom we feel very sorry but also elsewhere in the country before the earthquake and no doubt after the earthquake from other causes—need to be able to rely upon legal aid properly covering their costs otherwise they will not be able to access justice. Without access to justice they will suffer injustice which is something that this Parliament ought to be concerned about. In respect of Part 2 I invite the Minister to address—