Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

One of the major concerns behind the Greens amendments to remove any possibility that a person may be able to use their restrained assets to defend themselves is the implication on legal aid funding. That is because the only alternative then, if anyone is to be able to have any representation in court, is to be thrust onto the legal assistance sector. I would draw your attention to the submission from Victoria Legal Aid in relation to the Senate inquiry into this legislation, which looks at the potential implications for legal aid. The submission indicates that the National Partnership Agreement on Legal Assistance Services currently lists unexplained wealth proceedings like this as a Commonwealth priority for legal aid funding.

The submission suggests that the effect of this bill, whereby there is no possibility of a court determining that it is appropriate for a person subject to the proceedings be able to use their restrained assets to defend themselves, is that it will most likely mean that these persons will now be eligible on financial grounds—because they will potentially not have many assets to their name at all—and having been declared a Commonwealth priority matter, applications, if made, will generally be approved. We know that there is a significant degree of unmet need in the legal assistance sector and that legal aid commissions are struggling to meet the need in relation to minor criminal, major criminal and civil proceedings, and yet we potentially have this effect that these will be priority matters for Commonwealth funding.

The commission goes on to say that:

It is true that legal aid commissions can be reimbursed for the cost of these cases, but a case must be finalised and a bill of costs provided … before reimbursement occurs.

The submission points out that:

As cases can run for many years, significant sums of money can be spent along the way…

Therefore, reimbursement to legal aid commissions will be down the track significantly, in an environment we would all acknowledge is extremely pressing for the legal assistance sector. My question is this: what would be the effect on legal aid funding? Has there been any modelling by the government as to what that effect would be and its consequent effect of less money being available for other very pressing matters?