Collins Judith: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11823. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice):I move That the Legal Services Amendment Bill the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill the Care of Children Amendment Bill the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 2) the Family Proceedings Amendment Bill and the Property (Relationships) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These six bills have been divided from the Legal Assistance Amendment Bill.Access to justice is a fundamental principle of our justice system and this Government is committed to ensuring that those who require legal assistance can access it. Granting legal aid requires an assessment of the ability to pay for representation which the Legal Services Act 2011 manages through means testing. Although legal aid may be provided to a single person with no dependants on an annual income of $22000 it can also be provided to a person with an annual income of $72000 and several dependent children. The means test responds to the personal circumstances of each applicant.Administering legal aid is a balancing act. It is important to ensure legal representation is available to those who cannot afford it but also that the spending of public funds on legal aid is done effectively and efficiently. We must closely assess expenditure on legal aid and prioritise how legal aid money is spent. Legal aid expenditure increased by 55 percent between the 2006-07 and the 2009-11 years. That was from $111 million a year to $173 million a year placing the legal aid budget under extreme pressure. This growth was expected to result in a $402 million gap over 5 years between forecast expenditure and available funding. The Government had to act to bring this growth under control and did so through a comprehensive set of reforms to legal aid.There are three main ways that legal aid expenditure can be controlled. The first is to reduce the number of grants which has the largest impact on those people who rely on legal aid to fund their representation. The Government has been extremely careful in seeking savings in this area particularly for the criminal justice system. The Legal Services Amendment Bill makes fair changes to reduce the number of grants. These include tightening the criteria by which applicants can receive legal aid for civil proceedings when their income exceeds the prescribed thresholds. Special protections have been put in place in the case of asylum proceedings care and protection applications and domestic violence applications. In these cases the means test will be less stringent.The second method by which legal aid expenditure can be controlled reducing the cost of each grant has a smaller impact on legally aided people and largely affects the legal profession. Reducing the costs of grants ensures that limited taxpayer funds are spent as efficiently and effectively as possible.The third method by which legal aid expenditure can be controlled is by recouping a large proportion of legal aid debt. For 75 percent of those who receive legal aid the requirement to repay their debt is waived because they cannot afford to repay the debt because the debt is so small it is not worth collecting or because it would not be just or equitable to enforce it. The 25 percent of legally aided people who are required to repay their debt are those who have been assessed as having the means to do so.The Legal Services Amendment Bill puts in place mechanisms to ensure that a greater proportion of this legal aid debt is repaid in as prompt and as efficient a manner as possible. The bill extends provisions to allow interest to be charged on all finalised debt although the Government has decided to delay the imposition of interest for 6 months after debt is finalised. The bill streamlines the use of deduction notices to allow the use of this more efficient method of repaying debt by deducting money direct from people’s wages benefit or bank account. The bill also allows the Legal Services Commissioner to refuse to grant civil legal aid to applicants who are in arrears on repayments of a previous grant of legal aid unless the interests of justice require otherwise. Applicants will become eligible again once they have undertaken to restart their payments.The exception to this focus on increasing repayments of legal aid debt from those who can afford to do so is the reintroduction of the user charge for civil legal aid. The user charge was introduced in 1970 but was removed in 2006 due to an inefficient administrative process preventing it from being cost-effective. A more straightforward process has now been developed allowing for the reintroduction of the user charge which regulations will set at $50.The changes made by this legislation and the earlier reforms in 2011 are consistent with the obligation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and maintain protections for vulnerable people who require legal assistance. While the Legal Services Amendment Bill makes changes to the legal aid framework its supporting bills focus on sharing between the State and private parties the costs of court-appointed lawyers for children. By default the court will order the relevant parties to refund the Crown two-thirds of the cost of lawyer for child. The court has discretion to lower the proportion a party pays or waive it entirely if it would cause serious hardship to that party or their dependent child. The majority of these orders will be made under the Care of Children Act which requires the court to promote the welfare and best interests of the child.The Legal Services Amendment Bill and its supporting bills represent the best compromise between ensuring that legal aid expenditure is sustainable and ensuring that people without the means to fund their own legal representation receive any necessary advice. The bills ensure the legal aid scheme will be viable into the future. If a person is eligible for legal aid and associated legal assistance they will receive it. I commend this legislation to the House.