te Heuheu Georgina: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2227] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 We are here at this point in the day to debate the title and the commencement date of the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) and I want to make some preliminary comments relating to the debate in the Committee just before members rose for dinner. I was very disappointed that the Hon Mark Burton the Minister in the chair at the time did not stand to allay some of the difficulties that my colleague Kate Wilkinson had with this bill. I thought she made a very worthwhile contribution on the transitional provisions—small as they are but as she said very important. They are so important that in my view they can wreck the operation of an Act if not carefully crafted but the Minister did not stand to answer any of my colleague’s queries. 
I was also disappointed that Russell Fairbrother who was one of only three lawyers I think on the Government side present in the Chamber at the time saw fit to shout out during most of Kate Wilkinson’s speech but when I invited him to take a call he did not see fit to do that. He should have done so because I believe that a large part of his practice before he came into Parliament was around legal aid cases. One would think he would know better than most whether this bill so titled the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) actually does what the Government intends it to do. 
On the basic underlying theme of access to justice particularly for those who are not in a position to pursue their own side of a case before the courts legal aid is hugely important. This bill on the face of it increases the number of those people eligible for legal aid but in essence it was an opportunity given to the Government and the Minister of Justice at the time the Hon Phil Goff to make sure that in conjunction with the 2000 legislation it really covered the area of legal aid comprehensively. Only then might National have been in a position to say that we thought this Government was serious about access to justice and about ensuring that those who should get legal aid do in fact get it. But we do not think the bill’s provisions do that for a couple of main reasons. Those reasons have been covered in earlier parts of the debate but certainly one reason is a lack of certainty on the process. National members think that the legislation that will be replaced by this current legislation adds more certainty in some cases. 
I want to spend the rest of my time now though speaking around the issue that National has raised several times. Every time we raise this issue members on the other side of the Chamber including New Zealand First members seem to think that we are looking after our rich mates. I do not know that I have any rich mates but I do know that Maori people—mostly—are the ones who are affected if we do not have an effective and efficient legal aid programme in New Zealand. The issue is this: the Justice and Electoral Committee that took submissions on the bill was told in a financial review of the justice system that no consideration of legal aid rates would be made until after the bill was passed and National members on the committee noted the publicly reported comments of the Prime Minister that that issue was a Budget item. Of course it will be a Budget item but the very fact that the Prime Minister had to make that comment puts doubt immediately over whether the Government will indeed reconsider the rates at which defence lawyers are paid. Those rates have been fixed at 1996 levels and we do not want the lawyers who make themselves available for legal aid to be only the younger ones in the legal profession. While those young lawyers are good and they are learning eager and motivated there is no doubt that more experienced lawyers would be in a better position possibly to defend people before the courts.