Pillay Lynne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Pillay Lynne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10489] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand and speak after the hard-working Minister of Justice and I would like to put it on the record that this Government is indeed investing heavily into justice. How do I know this? I know this because of the amount of work that comes before the very hard-working Justice and Electoral Committee. 
This Government is putting its money where its mouth is. It is investing heavily into justice in this country because we know that investing into justice and into the programmes in the justice sector gets the results. If we look at the appropriation which is what this debate is about then we see that the over $200 million that has already been spent on justice has been increased by another $30 million in this appropriation. That is very much a worthwhile investment. I know that much of that investment will be going into ensuring the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill. 
I was disappointed as was the previous speaker the Minister of Justice to hear criticism about the legislation from members on the other side of the Committee last night. We believe this legislation will be a major initiative for this country and certainly we were very disappointed to see the National Party opposing the establishment of the Sentencing Council. We know that it will produce real consistency and fairness throughout the country and will be a council that all New Zealanders will have confidence in. 
I also acknowledge as I have in earlier speeches the Law Commission because I know that this bill and many of the bills that have come before our committee have resulted from the very good work the Law Commission does. I will also talk about legal aid because I heard Dr Worth banging on as he always does about legal aid. It is really interesting because when the Minister came to the committee he reminded us that remuneration rates for legal aid are under review currently. Well under the previous National Government legal aid rates were reviewed and they were actually cut. They were cut. Those rates were cut under a National Government so it is a little bit rich for those members now to be banging on about how badly reimbursed and remunerated legal services providers are. We look forward to that review and I am sure along with everyone in the Committee we will be looking at that one with interest. 
I also heard Dr Worth criticising the Government’s position on electoral reform. Dr Worth was not at the committee but the Minister assured us that electoral legislation would be coming before the committee in the near future. We are very confident with our hard-working committee that that legislation will be in place for the next election. In fact the Justice and Electoral Committee secured a select committee trip to Australia on the basis that we would be looking at electoral issues over there. I will not ponder too much on that; the legislation will come before the committee and the legislation will be in place for the next election. It is as simple as that. 
The sexual violence task force is another big investment for this Government. The task force was formally established on 1 July—this month—so that is fantastic. I know that nine Government agencies will be working together on that as will many agencies from the non-government sector and we know that that move is good. Also in the area of restorative justice we are working on continuing to increase access to restorative justice. Again we believe that is very much a good investment for this Government. A centre will be opened at the Auckland University of Technology to further academic research into restorative justice. We know that this is a good investment being made by this Government. 
Vote agreed to.