Ardern Jacinda: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10677. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I am aware in rising to speak on activity within the justice portfolio that the justice sector is a really fundamental part of ensuring you have a fair and just society. That may be seen as a given but not all justice systems are built equal. In fact what is incredibly important is that in terms of building a society where people have faith in their institutions and ensuring that your justice system is transparent accessible and representative we must ensure that we are keeping a constant check on each and every one of those measures. If people cannot have faith in their institutions then everything is under threat. I think we are seeing examples—Mr Chair if I could be so bold—with the chaos that ensues if citizens no longer for instance feel faith in institutions like those that gather tax revenue. This is another reason why for instance Transparency International uses 12 data sources when assessing a country’s level of corruption and relative corruption and uses the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index as part of its measure.Taking that into account in terms of how fundamental it is to ensure that we have a transparent accessible robust justice system how have we fared over the past year within a New Zealand context? I fear that if you survey across the corrections system policing courts and justice we have a system where people are feeling increasingly like they are unable to access the justice system that is meant to serve them. Where is the evidence of that? Well it is pertinent that the Minister of Police has taken the chair because we have seen a cut in the policing budget in real terms—in real terms absolutely. The police are having to absorb $300 million in most recent times into their baseline in terms of a cut and that is having a tangible impact on the front line—and I know that my colleague will expand on that further. There has been a departure from the notion of community policing and burglary resolution rates are at an all-time low.But that is not the only the measure of an accessible justice system. If you are a small business owner for instance and you have someone who breaches a contract with you as a small business and you are left out of pocket how are you meant to seek redress on that matter other than through the ability to access our court system our civil court regime? If you are unable to do that in a cost-effective manner what happens? As a small business you cut your losses. You shrug your shoulders. Fundamentally the rule of law in New Zealand requires that people are able to access the justice system to ensure that the law is upheld. It is not just about criminals; it is also about those situations where if someone sees that the cost is too high they will not access our courts and the rule of law collapses.We have a situation now where to access our legal aid regime you basically have to be on an income of $22000 or less essentially. It is becoming increasingly less accessible—I know Louisa Wall will speak on this—but again that feeds into this growing problem we have where people have distance from their ability to access justice. That is something that should worry each and every one of us. It expands right across the sector; not just contracts. Even in the Family Court with the incredible role that it plays as a court of last resort when it comes to custody and property matters increasingly there are massive problems particularly stemming from the reforms that this Government has put in place. These may have been established with the very best intentions—the desire to keep access to the court cost-effective by not having to use a lawyer and by using mediation processes—but what have we seen as a result of those ill-planned reforms? People are making without notice applications to the court in order to (a) access a lawyer and (b) get to the court quickly and as a result we have an absolute backlog—we have an absolute backlog.The judiciary has been crying out saying that it is seeing constant failures and that people are coming to the courts representing themselves in unsafe situations. It is a disaster all round and the Government’s response? “We’ll review it in 2017.” We have massive problems—