Borrows Chester: Legal Services Bill — Third Reading 
Borrows Chester: Legal Services Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17774] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and congratulations on your appointment. This is the first time that I have been in the House to have the opportunity to say that. It is good to see you back. 
I rise to speak in respect of the Legal Services Bill. I acknowledge the comments of the previous speaker Charles Chauvel and acknowledge that the concerns he raised are concerns that are held widely across the legal sector and that were well discussed within the Justice and Electoral Committee. I congratulate the committee members on the work they did in the consideration of this bill. 
Those of us who have worked as legal aid providers and duty solicitors around our courts in New Zealand can think of times when we were taking instructions under a tree while it was raining down outside or were leaning in the doorway of the very cramped public area outside the court trying to deal with people and to work with them in circumstances that were trying for them in order to access the justice they were entitled to in our free and democratic society. But we also have to take cognisance of those matters raised by Dame Margaret Bazley in her report—and I take the point made by Charles Chauvel earlier that very much anecdotal comments were made. To my disappointment those comments tended to feed a healthy appetite out there in the general public who do not normally interact with courts or at least with criminal courts anyway—an appetite for the belief that those within the legal fraternity were lower than the most low. 
The fact is that people within the legal fraternity have to work within very tight bounds and they frequently make a significant contribution to access to justice out of their own pockets by way of time and services they cannot claim for under the legal aid system and they have no way of funding. I think if we looked across the rest of the economy in New Zealand and expected a similar level of altruism from the abilities of various businesses and practitioners then we would be found wanting. The fact is that a number of areas within our current legal aid provision need to be addressed. Loopholes will be exploited. Given the way they are exploited in the high-profile way they are exposed it brings the legal fraternity into disrepute albeit as I have already said the public really want to believe that that fraternity is already there. 
The bill seeks to disestablish the Legal Services Agency and to fold it back into the Ministry of Justice—as was previously done and as it worked particularly well—and to establish a Legal Services Commissioner. It introduces a new quality assurance framework that will enhance the confidence of the public in the knowledge that those providing legal aid services on payment from the taxpayer and on behalf of society at large will be assessed and will be providing good legal services for those they are working for. The bill will allow the Secretary for Justice the flexibility to establish different legal services and to deliver services in different ways. To provide new ways and creative and innovative ways of enhancing and facilitating access to justice is something we need to do bearing in mind the spread and the changes we have in population bases around the country. 
The bill allows for the streamlining of eligibility for low-cost criminal cases in summary jurisdictions and it allows the Secretary for Justice to contract community law centres to provide legal services. That is something that community law offices are willing to do and the community is willing to have community law offices provide those services for it. 
Lastly the bill replaces the Legal Aid Review Panel with the Legal Aid Tribunal which will consider applications for the review of legal aid applications. I find this last point extremely important bearing in mind the gatekeeper role that the Legal Services Agency has at present and how difficult it can be for providers of legal aid to access the most minimal of funds in order to assist access to justice for the people they work for and bearing in mind that the public largely believes that those who appear before the court are already guilty and should be extended very little in terms of public time energy or taxpayer money. 
I commend this bill to the House. I am grateful for Labour’s assurance that it will be supporting the bill at this third reading and I commend the Minister for the job he has done in preparing the bill for consideration by Parliament. Thank you.