Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak on the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee’s Access to justice report.

Leave granted.

As you know from Senator Ludlum’s contribution, I chaired the Access to justice report, which was commissioned in February last year and reported in December last year. It was a lengthy report and it was an honour to chair that committee with Senator Crossin as the Deputy Chair, Senator Feeney, Senator Fisher, Senator Ludlam, who has spoken in the chamber, and Senator Trood. It is a unanimous report with additional comments from the Australian Greens. I just wanted to thank those other members of the committee and also at this stage to thank the secretariat for their work, not just Peter Hallahan but also Monika Sheppard. She has done a powerful amount of work with respect to the preparation of this report and she has been very diligent throughout the committee process. As I indicated, it is a lengthy report. We had hearings in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra and received 71 submissions. I want to thank all of those who presented to our inquiry.

Just briefly: basically, we do need a re-examination of the access to justice issues. That is what the report did. I think it pushed the envelope. It reviewed the earlier reports of March and June 1997, July 1998 and June 2004, so we went back a fair way to get a comprehensive look at the importance of access to justice in our nation. We discovered and confirmed that there are many members of our community who do not the have access to justice that they should. There are many impediments to accessing justice and potential means of improving that access to justice. We did criticise the overall levels of funding and we accepted that the legal aid system was not adequately funded and needed further reform. We have made 31 recommendations in total. I want to refer to a few of them. In particular, I want to highlight those promoting the pro bono work of the legal profession. I want to thank on record those in the legal profession involved in pro bono work. The work that is undertaken is tremendous. Many people probably are not aware of the extent of it. The report highlights this. I place on record on behalf of the committee—and, indeed, those in this chamber—our thanks for the work that they do.

We made recommendations with respect to encouraging small- and medium-sized legal firms to further participate in the provision of pro bono legal work. Likewise, we recommended the federal, state and territory governments create and fund a specific disbursement fund for pro bono matters, with eligibility criteria designed to promote the provision of pro bono legal services by the private legal profession. Senator Mary Jo Fisher, who is not in the chamber at the moment but who participated, was particularly keen to recommend that incentives be considered to encourage lawyers to practise in rural, regional and remote areas. I and other members of the committee strongly support that. We are keen for the government to respond to the report as soon as possible and we have indicated that we hope it will do so by March 2010, but hopefully it will be sooner.

With respect to Tasmania and the number of Tasmanians refused legal aid—and this is set out in the report—I made comments in July last year; my understanding is that the figures have not changed. Specifically, 200 Tasmanians—or 10 per cent of all applications for legal aid—are refused each year due to lack of funding. This figure was based on advice from Norman Raeburn, Chair of National Legal Aid, who confirmed the above evidence in answering a question from me in a Senate committee hearing in Melbourne in July last year. Mr Raeburn said that the Legal Aid Commission of Tasmania was the only one in Australia that refuses aid on the basis of a lack of money. The commission confirmed this in a letter to an applicant, where it said, ‘You passed all our tests but we do not have enough money today to help you.’ This is unsatisfactory. This is inadequate. That type of approach has been brought to the government’s attention, and they need to deal with it—and fast.

The Legal Aid Commission of Tasmania advises the federal Attorney-General of how many of these cases are refused every quarter. Interesting, Mr Raeburn indicated that other states, including Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, perhaps were in a similar position through lack of funds. I do not know exactly what the government will do in response, but they should definitely provide a response—and quickly. I am not going to go through all of the recommendations in light of the time but I do want to put on record that the committee has received a letter from John Corker, Executive Director of the National Pro Bono Resource Centre and note a media release by that centre on 9 December 2009. I just want to place on record that we note that correspondence and its contents. It expresses the view that the centre was misquoted and a recommendation of the committee was based on that misquote. The committee notes the suggestion at the end of the letter:

It is suggested that the correct interpretation of our evidence would lead to a recommendation as follows:

2.87 The Committee recommends that state/territory governments and legal professional associations throughout Australia take such steps as are necessary to: …

• Ensure that all classes of practising certificate authorize the holder to undertake pro bono legal work, including those issued to government employees;

It concludes:

Otherwise may I congratulate you, fellow committee members and staff on an excellent report.

Yours sincerely

John Corker

Executive Director

I note that correspondence. It is taken into account. I think we are at one in terms of our objective: to support pro bono work wherever possible. In conclusion, I just wanted to also note while we are talking about access to justice and legal fees that, with respect to the Rudd Labor government, there seems to be record spending on legal fees. This is a point that has been noted recently, including by the shadow Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis. Legal fees may be worse than first thought; according to a new report, spending on lawyers on 2007-08 rose $100 million to $510 million and then to $555 million in 2008-09. That is despite Mr Rudd’s pre-election promises to cut spending by $15 million per year after the first budget. He promised to cut funding by $ 15 million and that spending would go down. But what has happened? It has actually gone up by almost three times that. Instead of $15 million less, it is $45 million more—three times more than what he had predicted. That is just another broken promise by the Rudd Labor government. Shadow Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, pointed out:

Not only will the Rudd Government break its election promise, but its own review has found the election promise was not a sensible commitment in the first place.

That is from the Australian Financial Review of 12 January. Labor’s spending on legal fees is just another broken election promise. This is one of the concerns that I—and I know others on this side of the chamber—have with respect to the waste and mismanagement of our economy and specifically of the Attorney-General’s portfolio. That approach and behaviour should stop. In conclusion, the report is worthwhile and contains many recommendations. It is nearly 170 pages in length and it is worthy of consideration. I look forward to the government’s response. I thank the Senate.

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