Garrett David: Legal Services Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Garrett David: Legal Services Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2392] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to support the first reading of the Legal Services Amendment Bill. Members will be aware that it is not very often that an ACT MP when standing up in this House is standing up to support increased Government expenditure. But we are not the anarchists nor are we Mr Perigo’s tiny Libertarianz party. We believe that the Government does have a role to play in our society and its most important role is to ensure that New Zealanders are kept safe from thugs bullies and sex offenders. Sadly that cannot always be the case. We have criminals in New Zealand and unless human nature fundamentally changes which is unlikely we always will have. 
When those criminals commit crimes against the person by definition they leave victims. There is a role for the State in reducing the effects of criminal offending and indeed in reducing the incidence of crime itself. I make no apology—like my colleague Amy Adams when speaking on the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill—for being concerned primarily about the rights of victims and about ensuring that they go through as little further harm as possible. It is for that reason that I rise today to support this bill. 
The Legal Services Amendment Bill seems to make three key changes. Firstly it will allow the Governor-General by Order in Council to make regulations to exempt particular classes of persons or proceedings from financial eligibility testing or repayment or both. Secondly it will enable the Legal Services Agency to write off legal aid debt when the individual circumstances of the persons who have received legal aid make it inequitable for the agency to seek recovery. Thirdly and lastly it will ensure that victims of crime who attend a Parole Board hearing or coronial inquest are not subject to financial eligibility testing. 
I am very happy to be on the same side here as the Hon Lianne Dalziel who spoke earlier about representation at a coronial hearing. I had the dubious pleasure of attending a recent Parole Board hearing on behalf of some victims—family members whose loved one had been murdered in a most gruesome and horrible manner more than 10 years ago. Every year that family because of the law in place at the time have to appear before the Parole Board—or they feel they have to; there is no legal obligation on them to do so—to keep the memory of their loved one alive and to keep reminding members of the Parole Board of just what they have lost. I will not provide any more details about the person or the family for obvious reasons. 
Those people having been appearing before the Parole Board for some years are now unable to represent themselves. If I was not in the Chamber I would use a colloquial expression which I am sure members can guess to describe their situation. They are so affected by having that experience every year that when I met them I was appalled. They were shaking. They were in a terrible terrible state so they had asked that they have legal representation. They had asked that I come up and advocate for them before the Parole Board. I was there pro bono for the victims and because of my own association with the Sensible Sentencing Trust. I suppose that technically the family were not my clients as I was not being paid as was the case with the Hon Lianne Dalziel’s clients. 
Other victims in the community who are unaware of the various support agencies or organisations available are not able to access legal representation at no cost. Those people have every right to legal representation. All members of this House should make an effort at some point to meet a family who have suffered a homicide particularly gruesome homicides that have left dependants behind. If they did it might give them a bit of the perspective they now lack. 
It is estimated that $20 million a month is claimed in insurance for the costs of crime and that is only for people who are lucky enough to have insurance—people like us in this House: generally educated middle-class people who are all insured. But what about the people who are not insured—the very poorest in society whom the members on the Opposition side of the House claim to have the most concern about and to represent? They are the ones who can least afford the debilitating costs of crime and they certainly cannot afford to pay for lawyers to represent them at Parole Board hearings. The members opposite seem not to grasp that the victims are primarily their former constituents. They are the poor people and the people living in South Auckland; they are not middle-class white guys like me by and large. The costs for those people of replacing their stolen television set fixing their broken window or reseeding their torn-up lawn because some hoon decided to do a doughnut on it are significant one-off or ongoing costs for those people. 
But financial costs are really the least of the costs faced by people. When the crime is physical the psychological scars—as I have recounted to the House regarding my own clients recently—are there for life. I do not think the people I met and represented will ever get over the crime. They have certainly made every effort to—they have had counselling; they have taken advantage of whatever is available—but they will never get over it. Up to now those people have had to apply for and in some cases be declined legal aid for representation. That is the kind of situation that this bill addresses. 
In closing I will say a couple of words regarding the comments on parole of one of the previous speakers David Parker. It is correct that under our present system the ultimate arbiter of whether a person is released is not the victim. Let me personalise the situation and talk about whether Mr William Bell or Mr Graeme Burton should be released. I hear that Mr Burton has just had another go at killing someone today so he will be charged with another attempted murder. He will keep on doing it because what does he have to lose? He is a psychotic but an intelligent psychotic and he will keep on doing it. I make no apology for saying that that man should never ever see the light of day except in a box. Members on the other side of the House say that we need to reserve judgment on the matter; I am sorry but I do not agree. 
That is our present system and it is correct to say that the victim is not the ultimate arbiter of whether a person is released from prison; it is the Parole Board. But under the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill presently before the Law and Order Committee the elements contributed to the bill by both National and ACT will take away that discretion in certain circumstances. The National parts of the bill provide for life without parole for our worst murderers like Mr Burton and Mr Bell; they will not be eligible for parole. I support that view wholeheartedly. The “three strikers”—the people who persist in committing serious violent offences and who have served at least two lengthy prison sentences and then committed similar offences—will go away for 25 years to life with no parole. I will be very glad to see that happening. In closing I say that we fully support this bill. 
Debate interrupted.