Legal Aid

The Law Society welcomes the Ministry of Justice’s announcement that it has established the Accessible and Affordable Justice Programme in response to the 2025 Triennial Legal Aid Review. In a letter to the profession, the Secretary for Justice has advised that the Programme will involve “work with the profession, Justice Sector agencies and the Judiciary to address the drivers of the significant cost increases in recent years and consider changes to legal aid settings.”

The Law Society has urged for more detailed and systems-wide analysis. Such work is necessary if we are to map out a fair, sustainable and effective legal aid system for all. Engagement with the profession will be essential, and the Law Society looks forward to working with the Ministry on this.

In the interim, Budget 2026 will provide an additional investment of $30.28m in 2026/27 for legal aid, to meet ongoing demand and cost while the Programme is underway.

Criminal Justice and Budget 2025

Corrections

The Department of Corrections has received additional funding of $477.130m over the next four years, to address costs associated with the growing prison population, including the hiring of additional frontline staff.

As noted in the Ministry of Justice’s Justice Sector Projections 2025, the sentenced prison population has been increasing since June 2023 and this is expected to continue as a consequence of new policy settings and legislative amendments, which are resulting in an increasing rate of imprisonment and longer sentences.

Budget 2025 had funded Corrections for a prisoner level of 10,860 by the end of the 2025/26 year, with $472 million in additional funding to manage prison growth, including 580 new frontline staff. Budget 2026 now funds Corrections for a prisoner level of 12,118 by the end of 2026/27. As at March 2026, the prison population was reported to be 11,255.

The Courts and Budget 2025

New courthouses

In December last year, the Law Society and its Waikato Bay of Plenty Branch joined local organisations in urging Associate Minister McKee to prioritise funding for a new Rotorua Courthouse.

The Law Society therefore welcomes the announcement that $100 million of funding has been allocated for two new courthouses in Rotorua: one for the Rotorua Law Courts (the High Court, District Court, Coroners Court and relevant tribunals) and one for the Rotorua Māori Land Court.

Construction of the new Rotorua Law Courts is expected to commence in early-2027, and the facilities are expected to be operational by mid-2030. Demolition of the old Rotorua courthouse, and construction of the new Māori Land Court, will commence thereafter.

Budget 2026 also includes an increase of $9.189 million for project operating costs relating to courthouse maintenance and repair, as well as an increase of $7.749 million for remuneration costs for staff delivering frontline services, including court and security staff work to be completed on priority courthouses.

Court and coroner-related costs

Demand-driven cost pressures for court and coroner services will be met with time-limited funding of $12.154m in 2026/27, while the Ministry of Justice progresses work through the Accessible and Affordable Justice Programme. Secretary for Justice, Andrew Kibblewhite, has outlined that this funding will be used for professional and administrative services, including:

• specialist reports for psychological, medical or background information
• professional services appointed by Family Court judges, such as court-appointed counsel and specialist report writers
• post-mortems directed by a coroner
• non-violence programmes for respondents to a protection order and offenders in family violence cases who have pleaded guilty
• safety programmes for people protected by a protection order.

Te Au Reka

$34.112m has been allocated for Te Au Reka, the new digital case management system for the courts. This represents a significant transformation of administration in the courts, and is due to commence piloting in the Family Court later this year.

The rollout of Phase 1 of Te Au Reka (Family Court jurisdiction) will begin in the Christchurch and Ashburton District Courts, as well as parts of the national services teams on 23 November 2026. This will introduce the new digital case management system for registry and judicial functions only.

The new courts portal will then go live for lawyers in March 2027 for the Family Court in Christchurch and Ashburton together with the remainder of the South Island. Once the courts portal is live, it will be mandatory for lawyers in those regions to use the system for all new cases in centres where it is live.

Other funding increases of interest to the profession

• $46.331m over four years has been allocated to the establishment and ongoing operation of a Planning Tribunal, which will be established by the Planning Bill as a part of the resource management reform.
• $2.228m of funding for the 2026/27 financial year for meeting existing demand for low-level dispute resolution in the Employment Relations Authority (up from $2.180m of funding that was allocated for the previous financial year).
• Funding of $831m per year over the next four financial years to implement Holidays Act reforms to achieve easier and lower cost compliance.
• Police will receive an additional (unspecified) funding for replacement of the Automated Biometric Identification System, as well as additional funding of almost $50m for frontline and operational delivery.
• $44.903m to enable the establishment of Firearms Safety and Education New Zealand as a new independent entity, alongside modernisation of the Information and Communication Technology systems for firearms licensing, case management, and registration.
• $18 million over four years to strengthen New Zealand’s response to migrant exploitation and immigration non-compliance, with three new frontline teams to respond to serious offending, protect people from harm and exploitation, and increase the number of cases investigated.
• Increased funding for the processing of claims for refugee and protected persons status from $85.697m in 2025-2026 to $87.553m for 2026-2027.