Dalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDalziel Lianne: Legal Assistance Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:10974. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East):I would like to add weight to the comments made by my colleague Denis O’Rourke in respect of the Legal Assistance (Sustainability) Amendment Bill as it was introduced but now to be known as the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill. The reason that I think the Government has taken the word “sustainability” out of the bill’s title is really to take away from our reflections the legislation’s real focus which is actually about cost cutting. To use the word “sustainability” when actually you mean “cost cutting” is I think unfortunate so I certainly approve of the removal of the word “sustainability”. But I question whether it was put there in the first place for reasons that are unhelpful to a public discourse around something that perhaps is not a very popular subject which is access to justice.Obviously there are people who are very easy targets when one is looking for cost-cutting measures and those who face criminal charges in our courts are the very easiest of targets.I want to remind the Committee why this legislation was introduced in the original format that it was. Again it was not a desire to address the overall issue of sustainability; it was to look to where cuts could be made to legal aid that would be acceptable in terms of the public eye. I want to remind the Committee what one risks when one goes down this track helpfully summarised in the original regulatory impact statement that was prepared for the original legislation. I do think it is important to place on record when we are dealing with Part 1 because this is the substantive part of the legislation what the particular risks were that were discerned right from the outset. The first one was that “A change of purchase approach is required but is likely to be resisted by some parts of the legal profession particularly those who may feel that it will reduce their incomes or curb the choices they can make when managing cases. This is likely to lead to an increase in the number of legal challenges of legal aid grants as well as public concern.”I just want to unpack that language a little bit. What it is about is actually blaming the legal profession who devote their lives to supporting people through the criminal courts particularly those at the lower end of the offending range who day in day out in the courts in South Auckland provide a level of service that most of the legal profession who are their colleagues do not have anything to do with and can have no understanding of. My former colleague Charles Chauvel and I both met with the South Auckland Bar and we were incredibly impressed with the commitment and the work that people were prepared to do for clients who do not fit the normal corporate lawyer’s waiting room shall we say.The examples that they gave us were of clients who could not keep appointments because they were not out of bed before 10 o’clock in the morning. They had clients who could not communicate easily in English because that was not their first language. They talked about clients who were so disoriented and confused and really excluded from wider society because of their drug and alcohol addictions and by the way that they had been disenfranchised from their communities and from their families and in many respects were lost in a city that really did not feel like home. They talked about people who got themselves in trouble very early on who did not have good lawyers representing their interests and who ended up on a trajectory that was a never-ending trajectory to prison. They would end up taking on these cases and as one of my colleagues mentioned paying the $50 if there was a fee that needed to be paid from the outset just to get them in the ball park.The number of times that they told us about the examples of young men—in particular Māori and Pasifika—who pleaded guilty to offences that they were not guilty of because they did not know that there was a difference between an action and an intention and who ended up in a place where they were down this track and potentially under the three-strike legislation facing very very serious charges. They talked about the commitment that they made to people whom we really would rather we did not have to deal with. The thing is that this legislation was all about making sure that those lawyers did not get to talk about how it might reduce their incomes or curb the choices they can make when managing cases. I am sorry but the regulatory impact statement advice does not match the reality of lawyers working in South Auckland.And then the regulatory impact statement talked about how “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.” Well actually that is a risk that has alreadybeen realised and we know that. “The introduction of income and asset thresholds for the criminal means test …”—which we know has been addressed—“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.” I think we must remember these things; that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act exists with these protections for a reason. It is about access to justice. It is about people who require adequate 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.” Then the regulatory impact statement goes on to say: “Withdrawing legal aid for low income groups is likely to lead to additional costs elsewhere in the justice system. In particular it may increase the number of self-represented litigants”—which we have heard are all the way through the Family Court cases—“with flow on costs due to delays additional assistance required from court staff and the judiciary and higher numbers of appeals of decisions.”These were the risks. They were all calculated they were all assessed they were all set out in the regulatory impact statement and the truth is that they are really important risks. There are things that we do not like to say in this country but I am going to say one of them here and now: if you are Māori you are much more likely to be stopped and questioned; if you are Māori and you are stopped and questioned you are much more likely to be arrested; if you are Māori you are much more likely if you are arrested to be charged; if you are Māori you are much more likely to be charged with a much more serious offence or a higher number of offences; if you are Māori you are much more likely to be found guilty; and if you are Māori you are much more likely to end up in prison. We cannot allow that to continue to happen and I believe that this piece of legislation is part of a package of measures that continues to perpetuate the problem that we have in this country. It does not address the problem; it only perpetuates it and unfortunately it is another wasted opportunity to address the real issues that we must confront as a country if we are really to move on and to address things that are important.I want to agree entirely with my colleague Denis O’Rourke who talked about the fact that this bill continues to propose that an application for legal assistance may be turned down if the applicant is in arrears and repaying any part of a previous grant of aid that he or she may have received. I believe that this could be the opportunity in the Committee stage in the Chamber to actually redress that problem—to actually address that problem to fix what we have in front of us and to make it good. That would help us to see this bill pass but we cannot support it in the way that it is drafted.