Ardern Jacinda: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Legal Services Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17007] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I would have enjoyed hearing a little more from the Minister of Justice on his plans for our justice system generally as I am pleased to hear that he is a Minister who has a vision for where he believes the justice system needs to go and has identified all the tensions that exist within the justice portfolio. 
I come at the Legal Services Bill from the perspective of not being a lawyer but I am intrigued that we are having a wider debate about what causes pressure points in our court system and about the impact of our adversarial system generally. I am sure the Minister will also recognise given that he was the individual behind the Drivers of Crime work that at the very coalface the first intervention point to peel back the pressure on our court system is to stem the flow of cases coming through our justice system. 
There are many ways we can do that but I think we only need to look as a starting point at where a lot of our young people tend to enter our justice system to see what the precursors to crime are. They have been identified both by the Opposition and by the Government. But it seems that the tricky part is to actively invest in those areas when the demands of the public are often in the much shorter-term area of heavy retributive justice imprisonment and so on. That is where the tension in the end tends to be. 
The Legal Services Bill touches on a different element of the justice system but in an interesting way. We are talking about incentives and disincentives in our system but particular legislation has been passed by this Government that will put additional pressure points on our legal aid system and I will come to those. But first I acknowledge that the Minister raised the point that this is a two-way issue. We are talking about not just the quality of our legal aid lawyers but also the relationship that they in turn have had in the past with the Legal Services Agency and will have going forward with the Secretary for Justice and the Legal Services Commissioner and I acknowledge that too. However it strikes me that we are now at a point where those relationships must be rebuilt. 
This bill represents an opportunity to move forward for both the Legal Services Agency and lawyers operating in this field. The Bar in particular has called for the opportunity to meet with the Legal Services Agency. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Bar particularly in South Auckland has had that opportunity. The last time the Legal Services Agency met with us at the select committee that had not occurred. I think in terms of moving forward that would be at least a very good symbolic act. 
I will pick up on the purpose of the bill under Part 1 given that is what we are discussing in the Committee stage. I note that there are two things that stand out for me. The purpose of the bill is to promote access to justice. That is not a passive purpose. The promotion of access to justice implies that this has always been underpinned by two very important principles—that a successful justice system must have an element of accessibility and it also must demonstrate to members of the public whether or not they are using the system at any given time that they can have faith in the system that exists in New Zealand. That is where I think that really important word “promotion” sits. The second element is that the system should deliver those services in the most effective and efficient manner. 
The efficiency question is interesting. Although the Minister has talked about the $400 million funding gap that we will have to bridge I do not think he has acknowledged the perverse impact that some bills such as the “three strikes” legislation may have— 
Grant Robertson 
: He wouldn’t know anything about that. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I know that he is not the Minister responsible for the “three strikes” legislation and he may choose not to defend it. But because the principles of collective responsibility apply to Cabinet I am sure he would not mind addressing the Committee on whether he believes that legislation will change the incentives within our justice system. It is one thing to talk about procedural matters and depositions; it is another to talk about the overall impact that those—