Borrows Chester: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBorrows Chester: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister of Justice):I just want to address three points that have been raised by the previous two speakers and put their minds at rest in respect of those issues. In respect of clause 27 the point was made that the Children’s Commissioner had made a submission that the best interests of children were not mentioned in the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill. The fact is that clause 27 amends the Care of Children Act 2004 and the paramount principle of that Act is what is in the best interests of the child. When a decision is being made by a judge under these clauses that go to amend the Care of Children Act 2004 he must consider what is in the best interests of the child. So just because it is not mentioned in this bill it does not take anything away from the fact that when the Care of Children Act is amended by this bill the judge will have to make those considerations.Another question that was raised by the earlier speaker Mr Little was around how the costs of child contributions were going to be recovered by the court. I had I think quite extensively covered that in my previous speech which said that the regulations that willaccompany the bill make provision for the judge to be able to recover no more than two-thirds of the cost of counsel for the child. The judge can apportion that by default fifty-fifty but has the opportunity to move that or to remove it completely if he believes that there is hardship or that it is not in the best interests of the child to try to recover those costs.So then the question was around what “serious hardship” means and as this is not defined within the bill how a court could possibly understand what “serious hardship” means. The term “serious hardship” is a term that is used in other legislation and so is interpreted now by judges in the course of their deliberations in respect of these other Acts. Two examples are the Income Tax Act and the Tax Administration Act. This term has been defined by case law—by the common law—so judges seeking to interpret the term “serious hardship” have precedents that they can fall back on.I guess it is important to note in global comments in respect of this particular bill that the cost of legal aid had blown out by 55 percent over a 4-year period. That is something that any Government has to address. The previous Government which had the means and the resources to be able to do more in this area did a couple of unusual things. One of them was that it spent more money in this area by widening the boundaries for which legal aid could be granted. But what it did not do at all was take up the legal aid rates that legal aid lawyers were paid. So what we found when we came into Government was that there were a number of firms providing legal aid that were getting out as the previous member indicated. They were getting out because those levels of remuneration were not there.To be fair that member’s Government did nothing about it in the 9 years that it was there. I accept that what the National Government has done now is to restrict access to legal aid in some areas but at the same time it has extended it in others. Where an initial premise of restriction or constraint has been promoted in the bill and there have been submissions made against those constraints we have responded by way of folding those back. The previous speaker mentioned that too in respect of the filing fee moving from $100 back to $50.I can understand that there will be members of the Committee who will not be voting for this legislation. I understand that. I hope they do reconsider that if that is their current standpoint bearing in mind that even they accept—in rather derisory terms—that some improvements have been made. I believe that it is a bill that will ensure ongoing sustainability of legal aid. I do not expect that in a sector that is bound up in convention and tradition we are going to have huge accolades for changing anything until those changes have been proved to be worth their salt. Thank you.