Fairbrother Russell: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Fairbrother Russell: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21979] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour—Napier) 
: 
 Elections are exciting times because sometimes we put an end to the meaningless drivel that passes under the guise of informed knowledge. If that man had had any legal training at all he would know that since time immemorial files and court decisions are the property of the judge. So one goes to the registrar or now the court manager and makes an application. 
Stephen Franks 
: Which is exactly what we did. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: No one makes an application to the judge—not to the registrar not to the Minister for Courts not to the Minister of Finance not to Rodney Hide not to the  
Truth 
 newspaper not to one’s wife but to the judge—and one asks to peruse the file. One states one’s grounds and the judge considers whether one is being a nosy parker a political troublemaker or someone who has a legitimate interest and concern. 
Of course that man who once claimed to have a practising certificate—and in a few months’ time he may need it again but he may find he has trouble in having it awarded what with the drivel that now seems to emerge from his mouth because there are standards these days for practising in law—will learn when he goes back to the Bar that legal aid may well be the only source of income he will find. His erstwhile clients who previously paid out large bills without having insight into the advice they were getting will no longer cough up after having read the parliamentary debates and the contribution made to them by that man. Instead he will have to front up. The public will hear every word he utters in open court and they will say they will not have that man on legal aid because they can do a better job themselves. They will say that there is no merit in the defences advanced on their behalf by that man and that he should usher himself back off to the Securities Commission. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: But this is an important debate about the estimates for the Attorney-General. It is not one that should be trivialised by the meanderings of a lost left-winger looking for a soul on which to attach his conscience. The Attorney-General sits as the titular head of the Law Society. He is not answerable to every want and every scurrilous prurient concern of a constituentless member of ACT; he is there to administer the law in a political sense and in a titular legal sense. The Attorney-General takes advice of course from the Solicitor-General. He discusses matters of operational efficiency with the judges but he leaves the running of the judiciary entirely alone. 
The fact that the member knows nothing of the separation of powers is a reflection on him not on the Attorney-General. The fact that the member needs an education on the role of the Attorney-General should not be a charge on the estimates of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General should not be required to come to this Chamber to teach that member what he should have learnt 45 years ago in law school—that is assuming he went there at the age of 30. When I read through the report on Vote Attorney-General I note that the member was on the Justice and Electoral Committee which considered the vote. The matters he raises now of course were not raised boldly by that member when the Attorney-General came to the select committee. They were not raised boldly when the staff from the Solicitor-General’s office were there to answer those penetrating questions. No the member carefully avoided the embarrassment of being told what the law is by people who know the law. Instead he stands up in this Chamber while some people in New Zealand are listening to these proceedings by radio and he expounds a line of drivel that the  
Truth 
 newspaper stopped printing many years ago when its circulation dropped to below 2 percent. 
I endorse Vote Attorney-General. The previous speaker who was once a lawyer can point to no area in this vote that is unjustified. If he were to bring himself to the issues he would find that he would be better off to sit down and retain what seat he has left. I support the vote.