Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has provided the following answers to the honourable senator's questions:

(1) The department does not record litigation expenditure for asylum seekers separate from other legal activities. It is not possible to extract costs relating solely to asylum seekers and detainees. As a result, the analysis to answer the question would require significant resources to identify the separate transactions relating to asylum seeker litigation costs.

(2) The department is able to extract litigation expenditure and provide details on our professional fees, counsel fees and disbursements for all related activities.

(3) (a)    $9.536 million was spent on external litigation services during 2011-12 financial year to 31 December 2011. This expenditure related to:

(b)    A total of five external providers provided litigation service so the department during the 2011-12 financial year to 31 December 2011.

(4) Each external litigation service provider submits one aggregated invoice to the department on a monthly basis. It includes all matters and the services provided to the department during the period. This arrangement has been put in place to minimise administration overhead rather than receiving separate invoices for hundreds of individual matters and services.

(5) Australian Government Solicitor, Clayton Utz, DLA Piper, Sparke Helmore and Minter Ellison provide external litigation services to the department under the current Legal Services Panel arrangements.

(6) During the 2011-12 financial year, for the period up to 31 December, the department received 91 advices that it should not pursue litigation due to the case being assessed as not having reasonable prospects of success. For the period from 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012, the department received 73 advices that it should not pursue litigation due to the case being assessed as not having reasonable prospects of success. The department did not pursue any cases to hearing for which it received such advice.

(7) No, a figure cannot be provided from the department’s financial system detailing the cost of defending and/or prosecuting legal actions by asylum seekers and detainees over the 2011-12 financial year.

No, the figure of $9.536 million is not the total cost of defending and/or prosecuting legal actions by asylum seekers and detainees for the 2011-12 financial year. As addressed in response to question one, this information cannot be extracted from the departmental financial system.

In the 2011-12 financial year, the department defended 1,090 claims to hearing brought by persons seeking judicial review of Independent Merits Review and Refugee Review Tribunal decisions. In the 2012-13 financial year to 31 July 2012, the department defended 71 claims to hearing brought by persons seeking judicial review of Independent Merits Review and Refugee Review Tribunal decisions.