Power Simon: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20621] 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration. 
The Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill marks the next step of the Government’s legal aid reform by addressing the financial sustainability of legal services paid for by the Crown and of course directly by the taxpayer of New Zealand. New Zealand’s current legal aid system is unsustainable and unaffordable. Legal aid expenditure increased—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Members leaving the Chamber please do so and show some courtesy to the member who is trying to address the House. 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Legal aid expenditure increased by 55 percent between 2006-07 and 2009-10. Over the 5 years to 2014-15 this growth was expected to result in a $402 million gap between the forecast and the baseline funding. The Government had to act to bring this growth under control. In April I announced a balanced package of changes that would begin to bring legal aid expenditure under control. The package involved changes to how legal aid services are purchased the eligibility criteria for legal aid and payments received from legally aided persons. This bill implements those changes. 
Part 1 of the bill will strengthen the legal aid eligibility test by tightening the merits tests for family cases reducing the discretion to grant legal aid to people whose income and assets are above the financial eligibility thresholds ensuring that people who can afford to pay for their criminal defence do so and removing the requirement to index financial eligibility thresholds to movements in the consumer price index. The bill will increase the contributions received from legally aided people and better incentivise the repayment of legal aid by introducing a $100 user charge for most family and civil cases and charging interest on outstanding legal aid debts. Furthermore family and civil matters for which legal aid can be granted will be put into a schedule that can be amended by Order in Council. This will provide the Government greater flexibility to manage legal aid eligibility in the future. 
Part 2 of the bill will make changes to lawyer for the child and youth advocate schemes to ensure that there is greater consistency across Government-funded legal assistance schemes. The changes include extending the quality framework for legal aid providers to child and youth advocates and requiring parties to contribute to the costs of the lawyer for the child services. Extending the quality framework will ensure that lawyers providing lawyer for the child and youth advocate services maintain and continue to provide high-quality legal services. It will ensure consistency between the Government-funded legal aid lawyer for the child and youth advocate schemes. Requiring parties to contribute to the cost of lawyer for the child services will help ensure that the services continue to be available and are financially sustainable into the future. This change is expected to recover approximately $15 million of the cost of providing these services over the 4-year Budget forecast period. The bill also makes small changes to the Legal Services Act 2011 to improve its operation and address issues that have arisen during its implementation. 
These changes along with other changes that do not require legislation will reduce forecast legal aid expenditure by $138 million over 4 years. However they will not meet the full funding gap. The Government will consider further changes in the coming months to bridge the remaining gap. 
The legal aid budget is under extreme pressure. The changes in this bill are vitally important to secure the financial sustainability of the legal aid system. They will ensure that legal aid is sustainable and will continue to be available for the people who need it most in the future. I commend this bill to the House.