escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links for full page descriptions

Media Articles Legal Aid vs Student Debt

Legal Aid versus Student Debt

This was sent out for publication on 7th March 2004

Poor old Bruce Howse, this pathetic excuse for a man will cost the taxpayer yet again!!

With an annual cost of approximately 8 billion dollars the criminal justice industry makes our student debt pale into insignificance, however, the student debt is user pays: it will be paid back.

Think of the thousands of poor students who slog away to get a good education so they can be tax paying contributing members of society. They work hard, spend years at school and enter the work force knowing that more years of hard work will be required to pay back their student loan.

Then compare that with the recent announcement that the Privy Council has agreed to hear an appeal from double murderer, Bruce Howse, and recommended that Legal aid should be considered on the grounds that Howse is a poor person.

The poor student will pay interest on their debt at a compounding interest rate of around 7 percent, for many this debt becomes an insurmountable hurdle, driving thousands of students offshore to enable them to meet their payments.

Poor old Bruce Howse of course will never have to pay his debt back, it is totally written off and you and I will pay for his accommodation and keep for the next 25 years at least.

Howse cost the tax payer $157,000 in legal aid for his last trial alone, with his many previous offences and with the Privy Council bill it would be a pretty fair guess that this criminal will cost the tax payer in excess of $250,000.

Imagine the public outcry if a student welshed on a debt like that!

Legal Aid was introduced in 1970 to ensure that everyone had representation in Court, a very noble and patriotic reason indeed, but let‘s look at what has happened since. Legal Aid now costs close to one hundred million dollars per year, ($100,000,000) and has actually had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. The fact that criminals know they will never have to pay for their defence lawyer means they are never held accountable or responsible for their crimes, the criminal justice industry is New Zealand’s fastest growing enterprise, with more than just the criminals having their snouts in the trough.

New Zealand now has a huge reservoir of apprentice criminals, some with over two and three hundred convictions, and yet they are still entitled to Legal Aid. The revolving doors of our criminal justice system and recycling of criminals must stop.

A sliding scale of legal aid must be introduced, after three offences the legal aid bill should be debited to the criminal and be entered as a debt owing with compounding interest and deducted from their benefit or any other form of income they may have. All other fines should be treated on a similar basis.

What a pathetic bunch of losers we have become when we mollycoddle our worst criminals and yet drive our brightest and best offshore!