Prime Willow-JeanHon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call for the third and final reading of this bill the Legal Services Amendment Bill this morning. I want to start by highlighting for the House that this bill is being rushed through under urgency and that the impact of this bill is going to be severe for those who are in the justice system. Why we know this is because numerous numerous organisations have provided comments to the media outlining their concerns about the proposal to scrap the legal aid funding for section 27 reports. That comes from the New Zealand Law Society the Māori Law Society the New Zealand Bar Association the defence lawyers former judges and even a Supreme Court judge.To quote the president to the Law Society: Access to justice will be seriously limited with the proposed defunding of cultural reports" with one report calling it a "racial weapon". The Law Society went on to say "With funding for these reports removed the only way a person facing sentencing will be able to access them is by paying privately. Those who can afford this would then have a greater level of representation in the Court than those receiving Legal Aid." The New Zealand Law Society said that "this is a significant breach of fundamental rights". So I want to start my contribution by outlining this.Don't allow the Government to downplay what they claim is a small change. As I spoke in the committee of the whole House yesterday a small change yes but it has profound impact on the justice system. And this Minister of Justice should hang his head in shame. The reason Government are doing it is to save money. They don't care about access to justice. They don't care about a fair justice system. They don't care about the tools that we have given to judges to perform their jobs. What they care about is saving money and I think that that is abhorrent. In another report what we saw is that in fact defence lawyers are saying that this will increase court sentencing times and it will undermine judges' ability to pass fair accurate and humane sentences. That is what the impact of this Government's decision to scrap the legal aid funding of section 27 reports will have.I want to talk to the issue about this being rushed through Parliament under urgency to deliver on the Government's 100-day commitment. Fair access to equal justice and a fairer justice system—completely pushed to the side in their determination to deliver on an election promise. In this own Government's regulatory impact statement it says regarding these time frames that the proposals in this paper have been assessed in a significantly truncated time frame that it has had limited ability to test the assumptions underpinning the problem definition and proposed response to investigate and understand the intended or unintended consequences to undertake consultation with Māori and stakeholders and to consider a broad range of options. A shortened time frame to undertake this policy analysis means that none of that has been able to be done and the scope of options has also been significantly limited. And the conclusion of the officials is that the Government's 100-day commitment to end taxpayer funding for section 27 reports significantly limits detailed consideration of alternative options to limit or otherwise improve section 27 reports.Now in the debate last night the Hon Willie Jackson asked questions around consultation. In the departmental disclosure statement it points out that there has been no consultation with Māori. We know from the evidence in the Government's departmental—oh sorry—Hon Paul Goldsmith: It's called an election.Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: I'll tell you what they say about an election Mr Goldsmith. Hon Member: The process is called democracy.Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: If I did go to one of these reports it says here—Shanan Halbert: Oh that old line: democracy. Is urgency democracy?Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Yeah democracy—"even where policy promises have been made during an election the Law Society expects to see robust policy work supporting their development and consideration of alternatives alongside consideration of the wider implications. There may be other means of addressing what appear to be largely financial concerns and concerns related to the perceived impact of these reports on sentencing outcomes." The Law Society said an election result does not provide the robust process that they would expect to see when you are making fundamental changes to something in the justice system.Now to quote the Minister last night he said "Given the urgency with which we've moved on this there has not been formal consultation with different groups—with the legal community or with iwi—but it is something that we've flagged very carefully and clearly in our election campaign. We said we're going to do it and lo and behold we are going to do it." So my concern is that the Government is rushing this under urgency. They have no respect for parliamentary process. They have no respect—only in the most significant of cases. They have no respect for the parliamentary process. They have no respect for the legal profession—no respect for victims because in your own statement it says you haven't been able to consult them. You haven't consulted Māori who we know from the evidence are disproportionately impacted on this. The Government's own department Te Puni Kōkiri said it does not support these proposals.We had a lot of—well could I say a lot of discussion last night and questions and answers on the committee stage of this. The Minister basically came back to just defending the Government's rushing of this through in urgency to "100 days; we must complete it within the 100 days"—totally disregarding whether we're meeting any of our international obligations. And particularly I discussed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination—no consideration for that. No consideration for Te Tiriti o Waitangi no consideration for the unintended consequences and costs that this would impose on the justice system.So to those that may be tuning in to this debate this morning I would say this Government is saying that it's tough on crime that it's saving money that it's shutting down a cottage industry but their own analysis provided by officials in December says that this is likely to increase the costs on the justice system. We tried to explore that last night—the Minister didn't even engage on that—to increase the cost on the justice system.So do not buy into their argument that this is a cost-saving exercise that this has been unfair use of taxpayer money when the evidence and the commentary provided from the legal profession—the experts actually in this field: the New Zealand Law Society Māori Law Society Bar Association defence lawyers former judges and a Supreme Court judge—all say that they have grave concerns about the impact that this Government's rushed policy to remove funding for section 27 reports will have on access to justice and on fair and appropriate sentences. That's what this Government is doing; that's what they are prioritising.This is just politicking. This is just them and their arrogance being absolutely determined to implement something within 100 days with not even taking it through a proper process and inviting submissions from the experts from this. No. They know best—they know best. They don't want to hear from anybody. Apparently the new standard is if you campaigned on it and you won the election—I was just going to say "Stuff all the parliamentary processes we're just going to do it." I do not commend this bill to the House."