Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

On 24 September, the newly appointed Minister for Women, Senator Michaelia Cash, was asked on ABC Radio National whether the coalition government's recent announcements of a range of measures aimed to combat family violence would make up for $12 million of drastic cuts to community legal centres in 2017—almost fully one-third of their Commonwealth funding. In what could only be described as patronising and disrespectful comments, the senator stated:

It concerns me that there continues to be a false and misleading campaign of misinformation. It does disappoint me that there continues to be this myth perpetrated that there were funding cuts. The cuts never came into being.

For this government to accuse community legal centres of leading a false and misleading campaign of misinformation is really beyond the pale. It really does go to show just how arrogant this government is and just how arrogant this new Prime Minister is. The senator's comments demonstrate a complete lack of respect for the critical work conducted at community legal centres all across the country. They highlight what millions of Australians across the country already know: the government is out of touch and has no regard for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of our society.

The Abbott-Turnbull government have presided over the most swingeing cuts to legal assistance services in many years. Now, apparently, they not only deny their appalling record on this issue but they actually have the audacity to attack those who point it out. There are four Commonwealth funded institutions providing legal assistance across Australia: community legal centres, legal aid commissions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, and family violence prevention legal services. Each is critically important to ensuring access to justice for all Australians, not simply those wealthy enough to afford it. It is self-evident that, in a civilised prosperous nation like ours, justice must be available to the many and not the few. As I have said in the past, a right only able to be enforced by the wealthy is really nothing more than an arbitrary privilege.

Thanks to cabinet leaks earlier this year amid the disunity of the Liberal government, we now know that the Attorney-General Senator Brandis spoke grandiosely in cabinet of his role to:

… stand for the rule of law.

It is encouraging that the senator appears to understand what Sir Anthony Mason referred to as:

… a responsibility of the first importance.

However, I would remind the Attorney-General that his deeds must match his rhetoric. In the words of former Federal Court judge the honourable Kevin Lindgren:

The rule of law and a strong independent judiciary are empty ideals if people cannot access the courts.

Ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society can access justice is a cause particularly close to my heart. As Attorney-General, I was proud to have expanded funding for legal assistance services by $52.3 million over four years as part of the 2013-14 federal budget. But it is clear that Senator Brandis and the government do not share my respect and appreciation for the importance of legal assistance services. In one of his first decisions as Attorney-General, Senator Brandis slashed $43.1 million from legal assistance services and community legal centres. He cut $10 million from environment defenders offices, $9.6 million from CLCs more broadly, $13.4 million from ATSILs, $6.5 million from legal aid commissions and $3.6 million from FVPLSs.

The government went even further in last year's horror budget. They cut another $6 million from CLCs and $15 million from legal aid. Then, in the 2015 budget and in the new national partnership agreement that this government negotiated with the states, the Commonwealth ripped another $12 million from CLCs, a cut conveniently scheduled to fall on the community legal centres just after the next election. Senator Cash has accused community legal centres of being 'misleading'. But it is the senator who is misleading, not those working hard on the front line. Senator Cash insists that her government's 'cuts never came into being'. She should talk to lawyers and staff working on the front line. She should go and visit those centres where programs have been cut. She should talk to the clients who have been turned away—and there is only more to come.

In 2017, legal assistance funding in Australia is due to fall off a cliff, with funding to community legal centres falling from around $42 million to around $30 million—a total drop of around $12 million. Peter Noble, the chief executive of ARC Justice, who oversees the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre in Bendigo and the Goulburn Valley Community Legal Centre in Shepparton, has correctly observed:

Whichever way you look at it, $12m will come out of the budget of community legal centres nationally from July 2017. Whether you want to call it non-renewable funding or a cut, that doesn't matter in my books, and it won't matter to women in court who receive our help.

Everywhere around Australia when I have visited community legal centres I have heard a similar message to that expressed by Peter Noble of the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre. It is a story of cuts that have produced staff losses. It is a story of cuts that have produced a drop in the services provided to our community. This is coming at a time when the government is saying that it wants to support extra services in relation to family violence. I know, and community legal centres across Australia know, that a large proportion of their work is directly bound up with family violence services and this government needs to reconsider the cut—what the community legal centres sector describes as 'funding falling off a cliff in 2017'—that it is going to inflict. 'Funding falling off a cliff in 2017', a cut of about a third of the funding that is made available by the Commonwealth for community legal centres, is not consistent with providing support for extra services for family violence. In fact it is the reverse. It is a failure to recognise the immensely important work that is done by community legal centres in this area.

If Senator Brandis is serious about standing up for the rule of law, I urge him to repudiate Senator Cash's comments and to commit to properly funding vital access to justice services. If Prime Minister Turnbull is serious about 'respecting the people's intelligence' and leading a consensual, consultative government, I urge him to discipline Senator Cash for her insulting comments and engage in a constructive dialogue with a legal assistance sector that simply wants to have its voice heard.

On that last point of having its voice heard: while the government is reconsidering, as it should, the cuts that it is planning to inflict on the community legal centre sector from 2017 onwards, it ought to be reflecting on and removing the gag that it has imposed on community legal centres in the national partnership agreement that it has negotiated with the states. It is entirely wrong for a Commonwealth government to seek to remove entirely the role that community legal centres have played for many years in making their voice heard for law reform and making suggestions to governments as to appropriate changes that can be made to the law—changes that can, in effect, remove the need for legal advice for thousands and thousands of people. That is why we need to hear from community legal centres, which are often best placed to make comments to government about what is appropriate law reform.

So, not only should the government be reconsidering the cuts it is seeking to inflict on community legal centres and not only should the government stop pretending that there were no cuts but it is about time it removed the gag it is seeking to impose on community legal centres in the form of the national partnership terms. (Time expired)

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