Tuiono Teanau; Webb DuncanClause 4 Section 99 amended (Secretary to refer claim to Commissioner for decision) CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We come now to clause 4. Clause 4 is the debate on clause 4 amendment to section 99 of the principal Act. The question is that clause 4 stand part.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): This may be the bit where the Minister stands up and gives a soliloquy.Hon Paul Goldsmith: I can do it again. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well I didn't understand it the first time so perhaps I would the second time Minister. Who knows?Look Minister I do know that you have the interests of the justice system at heart. I guess I really would like to understand from you how you think this will impact the wider justice system. Of course we're all grown-ups here. We've all read the regulatory impact statement and the disclosure and we know that you've received advice which is contrary to the course of action that you've adopted: that the status quo was in fact as good as what you're doing now and other options were presented to you.Look this is essentially an introductory contribution in the sense that I would invite you to do more than say It's in our 100-day plan." because New Zealanders are not naive. They know that when you come to a question like this it's tough. You've mentioned the work of Kiri Allan before you and the fact that there was inconsistent quality and value in these reports. We agree that we need to make sure that the best possible advice is delivered to judges and that the best possible value for money is given to the Legal Services Agency for its legal aid spend. We agree.But what we know is that what you're doing here is a very blunt tool. I accept that you went to the hustings and you won—and you went to the hustings with a whole lot of proposals. But I put to you that you would satisfy your election promises by addressing the flaws which perhaps exist in the current system and not simply cutting out the entire liver of the legal system and not just the little cancer that was touching on it. Because that's what you've done: you've taken out a fundamental part of our criminal justice system—just thrown it away—and it's going to really affect people.So I would invite you—I know there's a little joke that you spoke a little earlier in a general sense when perhaps it was inappropriate. But I'd invite you now to just respond to that: why you feel the need simply to do exactly what you promised where a more nuanced and kind of grown-up approach would actually be better for everyone Minister.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Webb for the opportunity. The broader context of this of course is in the election last year with—all members across the House were out talking to many many New Zealanders; knocking on doors. The very clear message we got on the doorstep was the number one issue of concern was the cost of living.Number two—consistently—around most parts of New Zealand was a concern around law and order and that is why there has been a commitment in this Government to restore law and order as one of our key priorities. This bill forms one very small part of that broader agenda and so there are many other pieces of legislation and Government decisions that are being made in that broader context. Such as changing the focus to reduce the prison population by 30 percent—which the previous Government focused on regardless of what was going on into the community—and switching our focus to reducing the number of victims of crime. A second one is the gang legislation that we'll be discussing later and there are many more to come.This bill is a very focused one which is dealing with a small area of the legal aid spending and the judicial process where through the sentencing part of the legislation there are a whole lot of things that judges need to consider—and the background of the offender is very much part of that in a number of elements of the sentencing law. There is one particular clause clause 27 which is talked about in the context of cultural reports. This was introduced in the early 2000s and for a very long period of time it was supposed to be an oral report to give some background—generally from family members—on the background of the offender to be considered.Then about six years ago it became available for legal aid funding and there has been a very steady increase. Just so people understand: in 2016-17 there was $38000 spent on these reports and then if I go every second year it just went continually upwards. So 2019-20 it was $1.5 million; 2021-22 it had gone up to $5.6 million; and it kept on accelerating. So 2023 it was up to $7.2 million and it was just taking off steadily. This last year it's dropped a fraction and that is clearly a reaction to the public pressure that National and our coalition partners who were also concerned about this were raising. So what we were concerned about was an industry was developing whereby all these reports were being written.Now previous members have said "Well did you consider doing other things?" Yes we did. You could consider regulating the industry and that would be a very Labour Government thing to do: to regulate the industry and get some regulator in to decide whether these reports were good reports or bad reports and probably requiring an MA in history or criminology or something for the report writers and you could set up a system to regulate it and we didn't think that that was a very clever thing to do.Another thing you could have done was to repeal section 27 full-stop. Some people were advocating for that and we decided not to do that. We have left the section on the book but we have decided that our focus is not to allow this industry to keep on growing and growing and growing. Because of the fundamental cost—and $7.5 million might not seem like a lot to members on the other side of the House but in the context of legal spending it's quite significant and we think that money could be better spent elsewhere in the system. So that was the purpose that we're trying to achieve."