Dalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11579. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East):Because of the time that has elapsed since we last spoke on this bill I am going to start again. That is actually quite useful because I cannot remember what I have already said so it is probably a good thing to start again.Part 2 actually deals with amendments to other Acts. Quite often when you get to the amendments to other Acts you are really just seriously looking at amendments subsequent to what is dealt with in the substantive part of the bill that we have already addressed. However there are a number of areas that I think it is worth traversing and that in particular relate to the Care of Children Act 2004. This is where a lot of the controversy has arisen in terms of some of the changes that have been brought into place. It is not clear in terms of the legislation exactly what all of the implications of some of these amendments might in fact be. I seem to recall from the hearings that we had at the Justice and Electoral Committee that there was a lot of discussion about whether parties would be required to reimburse the costs associated with counsel for the child. I am looking to the Opposition spokesperson on justice Andrew Little for some assistance here. I think that there was a lot of debate around contribution to the costs for a lawyer for the child potentially able to be ordered which would be split between the two parents.Andrew Little: They could be different proportions.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: They could be in different proportions. That was of some concern I think because there was certainly a fear that any payments that were required to be made in relation to the legal aid coverage or the payments for lawyer acting for child could actually make people feel quite uncomfortable about their role in the hearing itself. I must say that there is a degree of disquiet around this particular change so that each party must pay an equal share of the prescribed proportions. I know that we had a discussion on another bill the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill—which is perhaps not relevant to having a conversation about the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill—and there was a deep concern about it because of course some may qualify for legal aid and others may not. So you have got one of the parents up for a substantial proportion of the cost and the other parent up for a funded share. That I think created again some sense of disquiet about whether that would make the dealings between the parties more or less comfortable—and probably more uncomfortable—as a result. So there are some significant issues in respect of that.There are also issues around enforcement of orders to refund fees and expenses of court-appointed lawyers. There is a whole process to be gone through in the legislation to order a refund as a debt due to the Crown by that party and being enforceable in a District Court or the High Court as the case may require. Again this is forcing people into a situation—well in relation to the enforcement of a debt—of seeing themselves in a position where perhaps they are not seeing that their contribution is necessarily their legal responsibility.But it all really comes back to that same issue that we were debating before in the other legislation and that is that essentially when you have got a Government that thinks that family disputes between couples are private matters and therefore not eligible for any form of State assistance and the only interest the Government has is in helping parents agree to the care of the children arrangements it does seem to be a real mismatch because of course the whole focus is actually on reducing costs. This makes absolute sense when you tie it in with the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill but it does not make sense when you are looking at what might actually be in the best interests of children.When people are facing these enormous costs what they end up doing is entering into agreements that may in fact not be in the best interests of their child. I will give you one example that came up in one of the hearings that we had where a couple had agreed that they were going to share care. They were going to share the day-to-day arrangements for the care of their child. As a result of them reaching this agreement which was going to be 1 week about—so 1 week for one parent and 1 week for the other. The child—remind me again our spokesperson on justice. I think the child was 18 months old—Andrew Little: 6 months.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: 6 months old. The parents thought they were doing the right thing. They—Scott Simpson: The Family Court bill.Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes I know. The point that I am making is that it is relevant when it comes to cost-sharing arrangements because a lot of people enter into these arrangements because of the costs associated with them. There are three sets of costs that are now in play. One is the cost of now going to a family dispute resolution which of course is the other bill. The other is the cost of the child support because eligibility for child support is dependent on the number of days or the number of hours essentially for the primary caregiver. That has created an incentive for people to look for ways to share the arrangements so that basically it is like an insurance knock-for-knock arrangement where you can cancel each other out. But then on other occasions they are not able to achieve that so none of the costs that the non-custodial parent or the one providing day-to-day care—that parent is not allowed to take into account the cost of holding an extra bedroom open which is an issue for people especially who are renting. They are not allowed to take into account the extra costs for food and entertainment and things like that for that time. So they continue to pay their child support every week. The point that I am making is that all of these issues come into the decision-making process and have nothing to do with the best interests of the children.The final one that we have decided to add to the whole mix is that you can pay for counsel for child as well. Well we have already heard from our debate on the other legislation that there are some limitations around that. That lawyer acting for the child—in the best interests of the child—may in fact provide the only legal advice that anyone gets at any point in time and it is at the point that they get to family dispute resolution. Now we are going to send them the bill as well—to both parties.I actually think that people should take a serious serious look at what this Parliament does from time to time. We should join the dots. We have had an issue down in Christchurch around building consents where we have got a silo mentality within the council and we have got a silo mentality outside the council in all the different Government departments. Even with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in play there are still all these silos all doing their own thing and not joining the dots. Well for goodness’ sake when we are talking about the best interests of children should wenot be joining the dots? Is that not probably the most important thing that we could do for those little dots?I think that it is irresponsible to go through a process of decision making on these separate issues in silos and not see that they have a huge impact on children. That is why the word “sustainability” went out of the title of this bill; it is now the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill. The word “sustainability” has gone because actually it is not a sustainable proposition. I know that the Government took it out because it did not really want people to focus on the fact that it was only about the money but actually it has gone for another good reason and that is that this is not a sustainable approach. If we really care about the best interests of children and ensure that they are at the heart of all decision making then we would not be doing child support separately from legal assistance and separately from Family Court proceedings. I actually know that there are a number of people who agree with that point of view. I know that there are many actually on the other side of the Chamber who secretly agree with that point of view too and would like to see something done about it.The other part of this particular bill talks about the costs of court-appointed barristers or solicitors. When the court finally reaches the nightmare situation of having two self-represented litigants in front of them who are both going hammer and tongs at each other it finally brings in a court-appointed barrister or solicitor to help sort the mess out which is going to happen much more often as a result of the previous legislation that we have been dealing with. We are going to end up in the situation where the parties are going to be required to pay for that barrister or solicitor as well even though they were appointed to represent the interests of the court. I think that there has been a fundamental flaw in the thinking here. Early legal advice is what actually helps resolve disputes.