Faafoi Kris: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9389. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): That was call No. 5 from the National side of the House today. I think that speech by Jacqui Dean can be best summed up as another nothing speech from that side of the House. There was nothing to justify the miserly miserable implications that are held in this bill the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill. There were five speeches and nothing from that side of the House to justify what is being done in this bill.I recall a meeting in mid-January 2012 when my former colleague Charles Chauvel the justice spokesman and I attended a meeting with a local Porirua lawyer. That lawyer was up in arms about what was being proposed by this National Government inthis bill. If I can sum it up—basically after about an hour’s meeting with this lawyer a long-serving lawyer in Porirua she was very frustrated by and in horror at what this Government was proposing with this bill—one of her final comments to us to me and to Charles Chauvel was: “Where else do they go? If they can’t come to us and get legal aid where else do they go?”. Basically of those people whom that law firm represents there were quite few legal aid cases. When that lawyer a senior partner in the firm said to us: “Where else do they go?” the answer was pretty simple. They have nowhere to go. They could not represent themselves in court. Mr Goff has already spoken about that. These people do not have the ability to go to court and represent themselves. That is why they relied on the services and the help of legal aid to go to that law firm and try to get some equal access to justice so that regardless of how much money they had in their bank account or whatever their worldly possessions were they could have a fair crack at justice. Well the fear from that lawyer back in January 2012 was that those people had nowhere else to go. I am pretty sure if we gave her a call right now she would still say the same.In an unfortunate volley of interjections a Minister in the House the Hon Maurice Williamson said: “Speak from the heart—speak from the heart.” Where is the heart from the National Government in this bill for vulnerable Kiwis who no longer have access to justice because of what this Government is proposing in this bill? Where is the heart in this bill from the National Party from this Government for Kiwis who now will have a much much higher hurdle to jump to have fair and equal access to justice? Mr Goff and Mr Little and I am sure Lianne Dalziel who spoke earlier spoke about the fee that is being charged to people to access legal aid. These are people who probably do not have enough money and that is why they are applying for legal aid. This Government is asking them to pay a $50 fee. I understand through the Justice and Electoral Committee process that the members on that select committee heard from a number of submitters who basically said: “Yes we will represent them but we will probably just wear the cost ourselves.” So those law firms are going to incorporate the cost of that access fee into the cost of representing those people if they were to get legal aid. So in the end they are saying that if you charge this fee the Crown is going to be paying anyway. Introducing that fee is in no way going to help those people and those practices that are offering legal aid to give fair and equal access to justice.I want to reiterate what Mr Goff said. This bill is ill-informed ill-advised and was rushed. You do have to commend the select committee that saw this bill through. I think there has been quite a diplomatic way in which it has been described. I think they took an awful bill made some improvements and now it is just bad—now it is just bad. They have taken what was completely and utterly reprehensible and now it is just a bad bill. That is why we on this side of the House cannot support the bill. It goes against what is fundamental to this side of the House and fundamentally goes against the principles of fair and equal access to justice. I know that Mr Simpson said in his speech that this move has been made by the Government so that it could have prudent fiscal management. It has not got the balance right between prudent fiscal management and the principle of justice and equal access to justice.