Smith Murray: Budget Debate 
Smith Murray: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13615] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 “The maintenance of court services with independent judges to adjudicate on disputes and to uphold the law is the hallmark of every civilised society. It is a fundamental responsibility of every Government to ensure their provision.” Those are the opening words under Margaret Wilson’s name of the Labour Party’s justice policy. However instead of following that this Government is making access to justice more difficult for New Zealanders and is grossly negligent in its funding of the lower tiers of justice in particular. The very place where most New Zealanders come into contact with the justice system is being inadequately funded and there is nothing in this Budget to help that. 
It is hypocritical of this Government to pour money into the Supreme Court—its key argument being that such a court would help to increase accessibility to justice—but to ignore the lower strands of our justice system. Millions of dollars have been poured into a court that when it was in England cost New Zealand taxpayers nothing. 
There have been significant increases in the salaries of judges. The Court of Appeal had the highest percentage increase in salaries in the years from 1997 to 2000. In order to pay for that this Government is making huge increases in court fees for the average New Zealander which will make it even more uneconomic for small business people in particular to access the courts in order to chase debtors. 
At the bottom end of the justice system sit the disputes tribunals where thousands of average New Zealanders are able to have a multitude of small disputes resolved in an environment that encourages parties to talk about their issues and seek to resolve them themselves. In this context disputes tribunal referees play an extremely important role in our justice system but are extremely poorly paid. A review of the fees of disputes tribunal referees by the Department for Courts in late 2002 found that disputes tribunal referees rank among the lowest paid statutory officers on the scale of charges of the judiciary generally. The review concluded: the current per diem rate for disputes tribunal referees did not reflect the significantly increased financial jurisdiction of the position; the environment was rapidly becoming more demanding with claimants more knowledgable and better briefed; the cases coming before the tribunal were more complex; the fee had not kept pace with salary increases of similarly sized statutory positions; the fee had not kept pace with the percentage increases enjoyed by the judiciary; the fee did not provide an inducement to recruit or retrain suitably qualified and experienced candidates; the fee had fallen well below the consumer price index greatly eroding the purchasing power of referees; and the fee was not subject to regular deadlined review. 
That report was given in February 2003 and despite strong pressure from the referees and even with the threat of industrial action the Government did nothing about it until earlier this year when it looked at it and made an extremely modest fee increase of about $40 per day. Disputes tribunal referees used to get $310 per day and now get $350 but Weathertight Homes Resolution Service referees get $1000 per day and sports disputes tribunal referees get $900 per day. In comparison with those referees disputes tribunal referees are being badly short-changed. 
Labour was or is meant to be a party for low and middle income earners. Those are the people who most use disputes tribunal referees and they are entitled to skilled and experienced referees. Referees should be paid at levels commensurate with the status they have in and the skills they bring to this most important role. After promising the review for years the Government has been extremely slow to implement its recommendations. It should implement them. It should increase the salary to at least $450 per day. It should regularly review that salary and I think should even look at giving the referees back-pay as well. The opening quote from Labour was: “It is a fundamental responsibility of every Government to ensure the provision of court services.” It is not doing that in this case.