Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The biggest barrier to justice in this country is financial—that is, the capacity of ordinary people to have their day in court and seek justice. Class actions are crucial to that end. We should be making it easier for people to organise and collectivise to seek justice and take legal action. We should not be making it more difficult, which is what the government is trying to do. The Greens will be supporting this disallowance motion because it is essential that everyday people can access the courts to have the opportunity to fix wrongs they have suffered. In the main, those wrongs have historically been suffered in this country through the actions of governments or the actions of big corporations. The government's Corporations Amendment (Litigation Funding) Regulations do not make it easier for ordinary Australians to access the courts when they've suffered a wrong, a loss or an injury. In fact, they make it harder, and they make it harder deliberately and by design.

The government's regulations require litigation funders to hold an Australian financial services licence. That would include not-for-profit funders like, for example, the Australian Farmers Fighting Fund. The regulations also specify that class actions are managed investment schemes. The government's regulations treat everyday, ordinary Australians who are seeking compensation from corporate or government wrongdoing as if they were some kind of investor seeking to make a profit. Even the corporate regulator ASIC says that the government's regulations are not suitable. The government is trying to make it harder for everyday people to right wrongs by seeking justice through having their day in court. We're talking about people, for example, who are being poisoned by toxic PFAS chemicals. And let's not forget the thousands of people who were totally shafted by this government's robodebt debacle. Research has shown that people who rely on class actions are people who would normally face considerable barriers to asserting their rights in court and accessing the justice that we actually established our court system to deliver. Many are elderly or injured, have disabilities or are dealing with incredible grief or distress because of things that they are suing about. And yet the government wants to make it harder for them to achieve justice.

A good government would begin by making a formal response to the Australian Law Reform Commission's report into litigation funding, which the Attorney-General has had for almost two years now. A good government would consider the 24 recommendations in that report and use them as a base to develop solid and sensible regulations that enable everyday Australians to access our justice system a little bit more easily. Going to court, particularly to get relief from corporate or government wrongdoing, should not be an obstacle course. Everyone needs transparency and certainty and, of course, appropriate regulation, but we should be generating regulation to protect and assist those who are constantly locked out of the legal system simply because they cannot afford to access justice. But this government's regulations are not that kind of regulation. They are actually designed to make it more difficult for people to have their day in court and to access justice, and that is why the Australian Greens will support this motion to disallow them.