Chauvel Charles: Legal Services Bill — First Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Legal Services Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13511] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I intend to move that all the words in the Minister’s referral motion appearing after the word “Committee” be deleted 
. 
On that issue there is simply no justification for a referral motion that was phrased in the terms the Minister of Education read out in her prepared speech. If the Minister on behalf of the Minister of Justice has foreshadowed that we are in for yet more meaningless urgency on bills that do not merit it then members on this side of the House protest greatly about that. I think that other members ought to be concerned as well because it is an abuse of the processes of this House to deal with issues as serious as the ones we are dealing with in this session under urgency without proper justification. Although the Minister clearly foreshadowed the use of urgency she did not deign to tell the House why there might be the need for urgency in respect of a bill like this one the Legal Services Bill or in respect of other bills for the rest of the year between now and the foreshadowed deadline for reporting back. 
Paul Quinn 
: The taxpayer wants us to work Charles. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well Mr Quinn has interjected with one of his learned interjections again. He says that taxpayers want us to work. Some members on this side of the House work pretty hard I tell Mr Quinn and we are prepared to do that without the need— 
Hon Members 
: Only some! What are the others doing? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: All members on this side—some members of the House and all on this side of the House—work hard. We do not need an urgency motion to tell us that that is what we should be doing. It would be helpful if members on that side actually worked out that doing the business of this House properly did not involve urgency but involved a considered consideration of legislation. That is something they seem to have forgotten because this Government is using urgency more often than any other Government for many many years. It is just not justified. If we look at the programme we see there is no justification for it. It is an outrage especially when we should be doing our job. The taxpayer will not thank Mr Quinn if we are back in here in a year’s time amending shoddy legislation that had been rammed through this House under urgency and—mark my words—if those members on that side of the House continue as they are then that is what they will see. 
Paul Quinn 
: The Opposition agreed to the urgency. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Mr Quinn says that the Opposition agreed to the urgency motion. I can tell him and his colleagues that there will be no more agreement to such motions if the sort of motion we have just seen from the Minister of Education continues. 
In the prepared speech that the Minister read out she referred to the report of Dame Margaret Bazley. Some aspects of that report are worth having a good look at. It found that there were some serious problems with the current system which was set up in 1991 by the then National Government when Parliament passed the Legal Services Act 1991. That Act merged the civil and criminal justice legal aid schemes. Some members opposite know a lot about the detail of that matter. I look at Mr Borrows in particular and it will be interesting to hear his contribution on the bill. 
Clearly there are some problems with the current system. There are problems in defining the respective relationship between the Legal Services Agency and the Law Society. It has been suggested in the report and elsewhere that the fact that the legal profession asserts control over the legal aid system through the Law Society creates a real risk of there being no independent oversight. Even though the Legal Services Agency can at the moment provide some oversight it is said that it does not have the necessary means in all cases to remove legal aid providers who are found to be performing poorly. 
The other salient structural criticism in the report was some highlighting of how legislation makes the market for legal aid arguably more inefficient than it needs to be. One of the instances cited in the report was that the current law has inflexible provisions for procurement which makes the Legal Services Agency’s processes overly bureaucratic and stops it from procuring services in the most efficient way. An example is the lack of flexibility to choose between the Public Defence Service a community law centre and legal aid. That ought to be an easy choice for somebody in need of legal representation. When public money is at hand one would think there would be room for the relevant authorities to use it as efficiently as possible. 
Dame Margaret’s report made a series of other recommendations and those included raising the barriers to entry so that it was absolutely clear that lawyers working in the legal aid area were absolutely competent and equipped with the requisite integrity. That is obviously something that nobody could argue with. It has been recommended that a mechanism be put in place for the swift ejection of lawyers who do not satisfy those criteria. 
There is a recommendation that there be a clarification on the regulatory side as between the legal services authorities and the New Zealand Law Society and there be an option to use publicly funded services such as the Public Defence Service when those are the most efficient option on the table. That option is not available under the current arrangements but it ought to be. It is good to see some of those matters picked up in the version of the bill that has been tabled for first reading. 
Some important changes are intended to the administration of legal services. The administration of publicly funded services is to be transferred from the Legal Services Agency to the Ministry of Justice. Similarly the Legal Aid Review Panel will be disbanded its function to be carried out by the Legal Aid Tribunal within the Ministry of Justice. The position of Legal Services Commissioner will be created to have an oversight of the operation of the system—an independent eye cast over the legal aid system to make it more accountable. 
Labour will support this bill being referred to a select committee because as far as we can tell those recommendations are good and the bill implements some good and sound policy. But we have some concerns. I have already dealt with the first concern which is the fact that we are dealing with this legislation under urgency and that the Minister has clearly foreshadowed that the Government intends further unmerited urgency throughout the year. 
The second concern relates to Minister Simon Power’s conduct in the wake of his receipt of Dame Margaret’s report and some of the allegations that were made in it. I know that my colleague Lianne Dalziel dealt with this matter publicly at the time. She and I also went up to meet members of the Manukau bar many of whom rely in large part on legal aid to provide access to justice for their clients. They are by overwhelming majority reputable lawyers who work hard in unforgiving situations to provide access to justice when it is needed by ordinary New Zealanders. They are to be praised for the hard work dedication and integrity that they exhibit. 
Unfortunately there were some obviously quite inaccurate allegations in Dame Margaret’s report. She said that up to 80 percent of the bar may be abusing the legal aid system out at Manukau. Clearly that is not right. We have met many of those providers and as I say they are good people who deserve better than that sort of allegation. They deserved for Simon Power to have refuted that allegation rather than simply accepting the report in the way that he did. Surely the principles of fairness would have required that. 
We have some other concerns about the substance of the bill. The area of legal aid in employment disputes needs further attention. Frankly we have some misgivings about whether the wider aims of the bill will be able to be achieved in the wider context of other legislation already passed in this Parliament and in this session. If the whole purpose of the bill is to curb the out-of-control cost of legal aid in New Zealand as it is alleged to exist which is particularly high in the criminal area the Government cannot on the one hand try to achieve that and on the other hand pass the completely misguided “three strikes” legislation which will work directly against that objective. Because of the higher prison sentences that judges will have no option but to bestow in criminal cases under the “three strikes” legislation pleas of not guilty have been positively incentivised. That will inevitably lead to the prolonging of trials and will place extra cost-pressure on the justice system. If the Government had any regard for proper policies working comprehensively let alone fairness that issue would have been looked at instead of using the piecemeal approach that has been adopted. 
We place real value on having a well-functioning legal aid system. It is essential that everybody has proper access to justice and that such access be one of the rights that are guaranteed by the State. We will support the bill going to a select committee but we have the reservations that I have stated in my speech.