Dalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9380. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I too rise to speak in relation to the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill. I like my colleague Andrew Little believe very strongly that this is certainly an improved bill from the one that was introduced but it is not one that we can support. I refer to the comments made by the Minister of Justice. She reflected on the $41.3 million over 3 years that the Government intends to save from the cost of legal aid in care of children cases in respect of a piece of legislation the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill which is still before the Justice and Electoral Committee. I just want to comment on that becauseeveryone has so far mentioned that particular piece of legislation and talked about the impact of those savings. But when we hear Government members talk about the savings in their fiscally responsible way they never ever talk about who will carry the cost if things do not go the way that they anticipate they will.Let me just let the House know exactly what the Minister means when she says that there will be $41.3 million worth of savings “Legal aid would not be available for simple track proceedings and up to and including settlement hearings in standard track proceedings. This would only apply to care of children cases. Lawyers could be engaged and privately funded. Legal aid would still be available for without notice proceedings and for standard track proceedings once they were set down for hearing.” What that means in fact is that without a claim of essentially abuse within the relationship or an abusive environment there is no capacity to get lawyers involved in the early part of proceedings unless you can afford to pay for it yourself. Where you already have a disproportionate relationship between two people in terms of their capacity to afford legal assistance that immediately puts the more vulnerable of the two on an unequal footing yet again where one party can obtain legal assistance that they can afford to pay for while the other cannot. “This option only affects those parties who because of their low income are eligible for legal aid. If they cannot get legal aid they are likely to be unrepresented. But the opposing party may have a lawyer.”—this is what the regulatory impact statement sets out—“This could lead to the represented party’s view being put more strongly and create or exacerbate power imbalances between the parties. It may also lead to a perception that access to the court is the preserve of those who can afford it.”Well that is correct. That is absolutely spot on. They have acknowledged that that is the impact of it but the advantage that they see is that it “manages legal aid expenditure.” and that just does seem to be the overriding consideration. The regulatory impact statement then goes on to say that “some people may have difficulty completing the forms proceedings may take longer and a judge may feel he or she needs to see the parties in court more often. There is likely to be greater demand for court staff and non-governmental organisations to assist people. Better information resources clearer court processes and use of support persons (McKenzie friends) would help mitigate these disadvantages. For lawyers legal aid work would reduce but other work would not.” I think they are missing the point. This whole figure of $41 million assumes proceedings with the mandatory family dispute resolution option and the whole purpose of this option as the Minister herself stood in this House just a few minutes ago and said is about getting people to sort out their private disputes away from the court and not coming near the court and therefore saving her budget this extraordinary amount of money.But the judges do not agree that that is going to happen. Certainly the lawyers that we have heard at the Justice and Electoral Committee do not think that that is going to happen as well. In fact what they are fearful of is that the most vulnerable of individuals who come before the courts will find themselves in an even more vulnerable situation. They talked of people who cannot read—adults who cannot read; people for whom English is a second third or fourth language who will not have the capacity to understand necessarily what they have to include in their affidavit; people who have intellectual disabilities who we know find themselves much more vulnerable to abusive environments than those who do not; and others with disabilities and again we have had people give evidence in relation to that matter. We have had lawyers give us examples of cases that I think when we do get around to debating that bill members of this House would be moved to hear the details of them. We have heard evidence in private that we will be able to refer to when that bill does come back to the House.What I am concerned about is that we have already heard two speeches from the Government that reflect a mind-set that is about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Of the examples that we have had given to us I will just reflect on one lawyer who gave evidence down in Christchurch because I think it is incredibly relevant to this. She was working for a larger law firm and of course when the legal aid changes were first mooted the entire law firm decided that it would not make itself available for legal aid cases any more. That law firm in Christchurch is not alone in terms of its pulling out of legal aid work. This particular lawyer who presented I think a very compelling submission to the select committee said that she could not desert the clients that she had. They were largely refugees recent migrants people with difficulty with English not being their first language people who had some of the most vulnerable situations that they were having to confront. She said that her conscience her ethics said to her that she could not stop providing that service to her clients so she left the law firm and set up on her own in a difficult situation in Christchurch. This is post-earthquake. This is with all of the stuff that is going on. She set herself up in her own practice so that she could continue to provide legal aid support to that particularly vulnerable group of clients.I think that members of the Government have to remember that when you start talking about big numbers like $41 million that is actually potentially taking away the capacity for vulnerable New Zealanders to access our courts. That is what the legal aid system is all about. I just want to remind people of the risks that were set out in the regulatory impact statement for this bill when it was introduced: “reductions in the price paid to lawyers could create gaps in provision particularly in the family and civil jurisdictions where there is more choice of private work and in some smaller centres where there are already supply issues.”—we have already seen that come to pass—“The introduction of income and asset thresholds for the criminal means test will be in tension with section 24(f) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act providing for the right to an affordable defence. It could also delay some court cases if judges defer proceedings because of inadequate representation. Restrictions to eligibility will disadvantage people on low incomes who have few options to find legal services elsewhere. Generally this includes young Māori men in the criminal jurisdiction and women and children in the family jurisdiction.” And I do want members of the House to think about young Māori men in the criminal jurisdiction and women and children in the family jurisdiction. Then it says: “Withdrawing legal aid for low income groups is likely to lead to additional costs elsewhere in the justice system.” which is where I began. “In particular it may increase the number of self-represented litigants with flow on costs due to delays additional assistance required from court staff and the judiciary and higher numbers of appeals of decisions.” I think this is very poor legislation. It may have been improved at the select committee as a result of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 134 but it is still not worthy of passage through this House.