Dalziel Lianne: Legal Services Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Legal Services Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I think that speech was the first time in the entire time that Labour has been sitting on this side of the House that I have heard the Minister of Justice acknowledge the work of our previous Minister of Justice. 
Hon Simon Power 
: You should have been here for the domestic violence bill last night because I did it then too. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I said it was the first time that I had heard it. It is interesting that the Minister chips me about this particular matter; I think he must be sensitive about it. I have written to the Minister on two occasions asking him to work collaboratively with the Opposition on important issues that go across party lines. I have had no response from him on either of those matters. The previous Labour Government had a very good track record on both domestic violence and children’s issues; we invited the Opposition to be part of a cross-party operation. In fact every other party in Parliament participated in that process except for the National Opposition. I think there are some issues where it is important that we work across party lines. 
On the question of the drivers of crime the Minister was kind enough to invite me to attend the meeting he held on the matter. I went away considered all of the information that had been provided at that meeting did some independent research and took the matter to our caucus. Our caucus agreed that it would be a good idea to offer a collaborative approach to the Government but the Government has not responded to that offer in the way that I would have thought would be appropriate in terms of the spirit in which it was made. 
The second area where I offered to work with the Government very closely was community law centres. I attended the conference of community law centres yesterday and I know that the Minister did as well. I made the point at that conference that legal aid which is relevant to this bill could take in a lot of the work that the community law centres do. In fact the community law centres could become the regional hubs as it were of the provision of civil services in terms of our legal advice and legal advocacy and the citizens advice bureaus could essentially be the spokes. I think Labour is putting up a very practical solution but again we are not regarded as stakeholders by those conducting the review. We are seen merely as participants by way of submissions to the review and I do not think that is sufficient. I certainly did not operate in that way when I was Minister of Commerce; I had in the Opposition spokesperson on commerce and indeed the ACT spokesperson who is now the Minister for Regulatory Reform. I did that for a reason: there are certain issues that go beyond party politics. They are more important than party politics and this is one of them. 
It is perfectly legitimate for me to say that that speech was the first time I had heard the Minister acknowledge the work of a predecessor—in this case the Hon Annette King. I want to put on record the tremendous work that she did in the time that she was Minister of Justice. It was for only a short period of time but in that time she contributed a significant amount of legislation to the statute book but also to the Order Paper—legislation that this Government has picked up. So I think we are on the same wavelength in respect of this bill and I do not know why the Minister reacted in such a strong way. 
There are a couple of points I want to make. I want this legislation whose second reading we are debating to be extended a little bit further. Maybe that is something we could consider when we come to the Committee stage. The bill focuses entirely on victims of crime. So there has to be a victim of crime in order for the provisions of the bill to take effect. I want people to cast their minds back in time to the mid-1990s when there was a crisis at Christchurch Public Hospital as it used to be known. At that time allegations were made that a number of patients had died because of a lack of attention being provided to them and that that lack of attention was a result of systemic failure within the public health system under the former National Government—that perhaps those deaths were untimely and could have been prevented. Four of those instances ended up before the Coroner’s Court. I attended the Coroner’s Court hearings with the families of the individuals whose cases had been brought to the public attention. When the cases were called—and this is something I want the House to take serious notice of—I noted that everyone was represented by a lawyer. The doctors had their own lawyer the nurses had their own lawyer the other allied health professionals had their own lawyer and the then Crown health enterprise had its own lawyer. Everyone there was legally represented except for the family of the person who had died. 
I stood alongside those individual family members and was given permission by the coroner to ask questions on behalf of the family of different people giving evidence. That was not something I could do as of right; it was simply that there was nobody else there to ask questions on behalf of the family of the person who had died. I think those families should have been able to apply for legal assistance and legal aid. When the circumstances surrounding a death are challenged in a setting like that I think family members should be covered by this legislation as well. 
A victim of crime is when there has been an unlawful taking of a life. A victim of systemic failure is when death has occurred in circumstances where it could have been preventable. I would find it very hard to make a call between the two. One could say that there was criminal negligence in some cases. There was certainly a criminal element to the systemic failure that we saw within our health system back in the 1990s. The point I am making is that when we come to the Committee stage perhaps we as a Parliament collectively could look at this particular issue to see whether we could expand coverage beyond straight victims of crime to those who need legal representation in a coroner’s hearing—which this bill covers—in circumstances where others are able to be represented in that situation but the family is not. I think that would add some weight to the point the Minister was making that this measure is to expand the availability of legal aid to those who have suffered from wrongful loss of life even though it may not be to the extent of being a victim of a crime—a victim of an offence as such. 
The second point that I want to make in relation to this bill is that the question of the writing off of legal aid debt creates an issue around whether the family can rely on the fact that the Legal Services Agency will write off the debt. The fact that this bill gives the agency the opportunity to write off the debt during the legal proceedings rather than only when the proceedings are concluded is an excellent provision. I think it will give considerable certainty to those who wish to seek legal aid in order to support them through either a Parole Board hearing or a coronial inquest. 
I am very supportive of the bill. I think a little bit of tweaking in the Committee stage would expand its coverage in a way that fits within the intention of the legislation. I think that issue was not picked up simply because of the focus on victims of crime. I hope that members of this House will consider supporting an amendment to the bill when we come to the Committee stage as that issue is something I certainly would like to see resolved.