Walters VanushiVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I agree that at its core this is a bill about ensuring access to justice which for me is an issue very close to my heart. Having spent nine years working in community law at YouthLaw Aotearoa as a solicitor and then as the general manager I cannot tell you how much we relied not just on volunteer lawyers but also law students who really helped us deliver to those people who otherwise simply wouldn't have access to legal services.But with such a significant and long history in community law I have to say I like a few other colleagues find it very frustrating this evening. My colleague Duncan Webb mentioned the word hypocrisy" and that is what I'm feeling now—[Interruption]—or he may not have but I do think that he spoke about the fact that there wasn't adequate funding for community law. Over the nine years that I was in community law it was a time when the National Government failed to adequately fund us to do the work that we needed to. Our funding was essentially frozen. With increased costs and increased demand what it actually meant was that we had a decrease in funding. What was also really frustrating is during a period of those nine years the National Government at that stage decided they would no longer fund community law centres to do law reform work which meant that we couldn't identify those systemic issues and make submissions on them.So yes it is about ensuring that lawyers are able to provide voluntary services but actually it's also about ensuring that there are adequate services—adequate funding for our community law services—as well. This will never replace those fundamental services that we already have in place.I am supporting this bill to proceed to select committee but I will be looking forward to hearing the submissions that are made by community law centres and others particularly in relation to issues like my colleague Arena Williams has referred to in ensuring that there is proper oversight for the advice given when there needs to be. I do think we need to reflect carefully on that at select committee. I am a member of the Justice Committee.There's an article on point just speaking to the broader reasons why we should be supporting pro bono work and for lawyers to be engaged in pro bono work and it's written by Nadine Strossen and published in the Michigan Law Review. It highlights what I would call the three goods rationale for why we should be encouraging lawyers to engage in this work. The first is for the public good. It is an access to justice issue and we do need to supplement the work of community law centres with that volunteer connection that all lawyers should be delivering to communities—albeit some potentially under supervision.The second is actually for the good of the profession itself. There's a saying that goes "Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." and this bill enables the whole profession to further develop its ethical connection to its function and what is right to do.The third and by no means the last is we should make changes in this area—we should encourage lawyers to engage in pro bono work—for the good of the lawyer. In 2018 the Mental Health Foundation estimated that one in five lawyers would suffer from mental health issues in any given year including from depression and anxiety. As senior lawyer Sarah Taylor said it's time to kick the door down on conversations about mental health in the legal profession. It's time to ensure that we're encouraging lawyers to engage with their communities and for them to be able to respond and say yes when they're asked to help. It's time that we encouraged entities that are companies of law firms to get involved in that giving community space as well. I commend this bill to the House."