Beaumont Carol: Legal Services Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Legal Services Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17681] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 4 of the Legal Services Bill. I note in relation to the bill in total that we have supported it to date but Labour is keeping its support for the bill under review. As Mr Chair said Part 4 “Transitional and savings provisions amendments to other enactments and repeals” is a very narrow provision. 
Part 4 has five subparts. Subpart 1 is “Transitional arrangements for transfer of Legal Services Agency to Ministry of Justice”—we have raised concerns about potential issues of independence there—Subpart 2 is “Transition of matters commenced approvals granted and funding provided under former Act” Subpart 3 is “Transition of matters commenced under Legal Services Act 1991” Subpart 4 is “Amendments to other enactments” and Subpart 5 is “Repeal and revocation”. 
One of the transitional arrangements under Part 4 is that employees of the Legal Services Agency will be transferred to the Ministry of Justice unless they do not consent. That provision is very important. In these times of high unemployment it is very important that people have employment security so I certainly support that provision. We have 158000 New Zealanders out of work at the moment so at least the people in the Legal Services Agency have the option of transferring to the Ministry of Justice and the transfer will see that their terms and conditions of employment are no less favourable than what they currently have. I put on record that in these tough economic times of high unemployment that transitional provision is important. 
I want to ask the Minister of Justice a couple of questions that are more to do with non-legislative changes. In terms of the transition from one system to the other a number of announcements have been made in conjunction with the bill that I think reflect the transition. First of all there is the decision around expanding the Public Defence Service to Hamilton Wellington and Christchurch which my colleague Carmel Sepuloni referred to and also working with community law centres to develop uniform sets of standards. I am just wondering what the transitional provisions will look like and whether there will be continuation of them given the Minister’s departure from his role. The Minister has made a number of undertakings and a number of announcements in relation to the bill so I seek from him his commitment that those transitional provisions will continue after his departure. 
The other thing I want to ask the Minister about is the funding gap that my colleague Charles Chauvel mentioned when he was speaking on Part 3. I understand that there is a funding gap of $400 million. Again I ask what the transitional arrangements will look like in relation to some of these non-legislative changes—like the expansion of the Public Defence Service to Hamilton Wellington and Christchurch—given the $400 million funding gap. Of course we know that the Budget the Government will be announcing this May is likely to see cuts in public services across the board and many important core services that assist New Zealanders like Working for Families will be under threat. 
Going back to the transitional arrangement that is alluded to in Part 4 I want to check with the Minister about the certainty that these other announcements that have been made by the Minister in relation to changes like expansion of the Public Defence Service will be able to be honoured by the Government in light of the funding gap of $400 million and the reality of the cuts to public services that we are all expecting. I think they are fairly important transitional arrangements too. I acknowledge that they are non-legislative matters but it is important to note that the announcements have been made in conjunction with the Legal Services Bill. I ask the Minister for his comment on those matters.