Turei Metiria: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11837. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Green):I agree with all of those who have spoken before in opposition to this legislation arising from the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill which is just frankly mean-minded. It is just another set of provisions that will suck money out of the pockets of the poorest New Zealanders for no benefit to anyone and it will not even make significant savings. I would like to check with the Hon Phil Goff that he said that there was what $138 million in savings being made?Hon Phil Goff: That’s right.METIRIA TUREI: That is right. So that is about the same amount of money that this Government has spent on selling Mighty River Power and also about the same amount of money that it has now set aside for the bailout of Solid Energy. This Government has got the money to make sure that every New Zealander who is entitled to it gets access to the justice that they deserve. The Government just chooses not to give it to them. It just chooses to make sure that those who are the wealthiest get access to the public’s resources and it will do everything it can to suck the money for that out of the pockets of the poor. This legislation comes hard on the heels of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill which as we also saw was a deliberate cost-cutting measure—not saving huge amounts of money in the scheme of things but certainly making it much much more difficult for the most vulnerable including women and their children to access the justice and the protections that they deserve.The legislation also comes just over a month I think after the Minister of Justice had to withdraw her appeal against a Court of Appeal decision on previous legal aid decisions that this Government had made—legal aid decisions that were declared in part to be unlawful. I refer to the criminal fixed fee and complex cases policy where actually the Criminal Bar Association took the Government and this Minister to court and was found to be right—that part of that process was indeed unfair. The original legal aid changes to the fixed fee and complex cases policy were also designed as a deliberate attempt to suck some money back into the Government coffers so that it could spend it on wasteful produce like the sale of our State assets of which another one is due to happen soon—more spending on that like bailing out Solid Energy and like the billion-dollar motorway madness that this Government is undertaking.Where does all that money come from? Bit by bit the Government is sucking it out of the poor. What does it mean? It means that those who have the very least are the ones who are paying the very most. If you just look at the changes that the Justice and Electoral Committee has made or at the provisions of the bill there are three areas I would refer to. One is that those who are in arrears—those who have received legal aid at some point but who are in arrears—are subject to a potential declining of any further application for legal aid. I mean that is not going to save the Government hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars but it is going to mean that those people will not get access to justice. It will mean that they are much more likely to suffer from unsafe convictions. It means that they are much more likely to get prison time for example that they should not be receiving. It means that the number of the currently 20000 children of prisoners will significantly increase as more and more families find themselves subject to legal processes that they cannot defend themselves against unable to get decent legal representation because of these cuts and find themselves subject to unsafe and unfair convictions.There is interest to be charged. Where does this Government come from when it thinks that the best thing to do with a family or person who is living in poverty is to charge them more money? If someone has no money this Government seems to think that it will just keep on squeezing them and squeezing them dry with ridiculous provisions like charging interest where clearly there are cases where these people do not have the money to pay. What is the point of that?Richard Prosser: Beatings will continue until morale improves.METIRIA TUREI: The beatings will continue until morale improves—that is right. Then of course you have the $50 fee. The select committee has brought that fee down and for that we are very grateful but by putting a financial barrier right at the very start of the process you knock out those who simply cannot afford it. The whole point of the legal aid system is to provide access to justice for those who cannot afford it. So why use this legislation simply to put in place more financial barriers to those who have the least resources?I can hear the Minister of Justice over there sighing like a—I do not know; like something.Sue Moroney: A panda.METIRIA TUREI: Maybe that is right. She is just sighing away there but that is because she is not one of those who will be subject to this legislation—