Pillay Lynne: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 It will come as no surprise that along with my colleagues I too oppose the Legal Services (Sustainability) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the sterling speeches made by members on this side of the House and also the contribution from the Green Party. It is really sad that a former speaker—and I am not attacking him because I know he was speaking from speech notes—used the term “sustainable”. That seems to be the chant and the cry from National. We know that the definition of sustainable which is not the definition we would find in the dictionary in terms of this Government is just clearly about cuts. Why would I say that? Let me tell you why Mr Assistant Speaker Roy—well not just you but I want the whole House to know why I would say that “sustainable” means cuts. 
Paul Quinn 
: We’re all ears. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Thank you very much. Paul Quinn is all ears and usually is when I am speaking. That is very good; he shows respect so that is really good. When do we hear the term “sustainable” from the Government? We hear it when it is justifying its cuts to ACC. When we see its cuts to ACC it says that the current form of ACC and services that it provides are simply not sustainable. So what did the Government do? It ruthlessly cut the services to ACC whether it is relating to victims of sexual abuse the most vulnerable people whether it is getting people back to work whether it is assisting people in terms of avoiding injuries—all of those things were cut because they were unsustainable. 
When again do we see the cuts? We see the cuts to KiwiSaver because it is no longer sustainable. We see the early childhood education cuts. The building blocks for our children’s future have been cut. Why was the Government not just honest by saying: “We don’t want to put our money in this particular area. We just want to give it in tax cuts to the wealthy.”? No Government speakers used that term again: “It is not sustainable.” 
I acknowledge that Simon Power will be leaving Parliament and I would have thought that his swansong his final action before he leaves would have been something really progressive; that it would have been something members on this side of the House would celebrate. We know that Simon Power is certainly by no means amongst the worst on the Government benches. In fact I would go so far as to say in this House that he would be up there amongst the best of what some would say are a motley lot but certainly I know that others on the Government side would not say that. He is certainly not someone whom we would expect to use the term “sustainable” to cover what are actually cuts. 
When we talk about cuts in terms of legal assistance it is really serious. All the cuts in the name of sustainability that I spoke about before were serious and have a very dramatic effect on people whether it is children’s ability to have access to quality early childhood education whether it is about people’s ability to save or whether it is about people having their rights and entitlements as were originally designed under ACC. All of those things are really important. But what we are talking about in this case in the name of sustainability is cutting access to justice. That is at the very heart of our democracy. If we ask any New Zealander what they hold very dear it is the ability for anyone of no matter what means to have access to justice. Unfortunately this bill takes New Zealand backwards in that regard. 
We note that there is more expectation of community law centres. I acknowledge as I have many times in this House the work that community law centres do throughout this country. I do not think anybody would argue and I do not think there would be any dissent about the work they do. We see a Minister who wants a greater role for community law centres but it just cannot happen if those law centres do not get the resources they need to handle more work. We already have the Minister on record telling community law centres that there will be no more money. We see community law centres—such as the one that I know of in Waitakere and I know it is the case in most places throughout New Zealand—that operate on the sniff of an oily rag. They provide a fantastic service. This Government is saying that yes they are doing a great job and it wants them to do more but by the way there is no more funding. So that will not work either. 
Whilst we are talking about this I see Chris Finlayson in the House and I know he will not be surprised if I relate a couple of things. The Domestic Violence Reform Bill which was introduced under Labour is still languishing on the Order Paper very near the bottom and I think that is a severe disservice. That is another area where the Minister has let us down. That bill is still on the Order Paper and instead we have seen some measures that certainly improve conditions for victims of domestic violence but they have been introduced in a piecemeal way that do not complement each other and do not give complete protection. So that is another area that we are very disappointed in. 
I refer to the Sentencing Council. Members on this side of the House know that if under Labour there had been a Sentencing Council as Labour was very keen to have and as was recommended by the Law Commission then we would have enhanced sentencing processes in this country and that would be a very good thing. But instead no this Government instead of working on improving the justice system has rolled back the expansions that Labour did in 2007 making it harder now for people to access lawyers. I remember that when Labour was in Government we were criticised by National because we were not making enough legal aid available. It seems pretty bizarre that following that National gets into Government and in the name of sustainability introduces a new repayment and debt management scheme that penalises low and modest income people in terms of accessing legal aid. How is it that a single person who earns $22000 a year or an adult on $51000 a year with two dependants will not under this regime have access to legal aid? That is appalling; that is absolutely appalling. There were high-income earners who received $22000 in tax cuts a few months ago yet this Government— 
David Bennett 
: Rubbish. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It is not rubbish. This Government is now saying that $22000 is ample money for somebody and that they do not need access to any legal assistance. I think that is very very unfortunate. 
I want to talk about the public defence scheme because as members of this House will be aware Labour initiated that trial—initially in Auckland—and we support the concept. But there is a lack of balance in what this Minister is proposing. We are concerned that by cutting access in the name of sustainability to people and then putting more resource into the public defence scheme which Labour does support there is going to be an imbalance there. We are hearing information from countries—quite recently there were some reports in terms of England and Wales—that a vastly expanded public defence scheme will cost the taxpayer considerably more than it does currently. What worries me is that if that is the case then what else is this Government going to do? It has already considerably lowered the threshold for people’s access to legal aid. My concern is that this is going to deprive New Zealanders of their access to justice in this country and that is not a good thing. Thank you.