Page 2952 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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matters were dealt with in-house by employed solicitors, which is a very efficient way of doing it, as opposed to 41 per cent in the national average. This last financial year, 1991-92, we are getting to 57 per cent in-house. We think that the national average is about 44 per cent. We are not sure on that national figure.
Mr Humphries: Is that a good thing or not?
MR CONNOLLY: I think it is a good thing, Mr Humphries. We are dealing with matters more efficiently and providing, from a limited resource, more grants of legal aid. We could refer more people to the private sector; but the private sector, even providing legal advice under the legal aid scale, is inherently more expensive than doing it with in-house counsel. We could choose to refer more matters out, but that would mean that we could help fewer people, unless we further expanded the budget for Legal Aid. As in all areas, we do not have bottomless pockets.
Our effort is above national averages. So it should be. We would all agree that we are a wealthy community, comparatively, in Australia and we ought to make an above average effort in legal aid, which we do and which we will continue to do. Despite trends in some States where legal aid is seen as an area where you can cut back, I am very pleased that we have not done that. We have continued to expand our legal aid funding. We have new services like the Tuggeranong Legal Aid branch office, which has worked well in the last 12 months and which Mr Staniforth indicated may be expanded. Members who were at the Estimates Committee would also recall that there was a proposal, which Mr Staniforth referred to, of expanding that service in Tuggeranong to an outreach service at Belconnen, again to make it easier for clients, potential clients, to come in and see the Legal Aid lawyer at a regional centre rather than here in the city.
Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, to briefly summarise, the Legal Aid Office in the ACT is funded by this Government at a level well in excess of the national average. It makes a very good effort. Its people work extremely hard, and I am sure that all members would commend the dedication of Legal Aid lawyers. It would be nice if I were able to fund it to an even greater extent - I would like to do that, Mr Moore - but governments have finite resources. We are well in excess of the national average and we should be proud of that. It would be nice to do more, but we simply cannot.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.30): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will be as brief as I can. Emperor Ferdinand I said, "Fiat justica, et pereat mundus", which means, as the Attorney no doubt would know and perhaps Mr Moore, being a schoolteacher, would know, "Let justice be done, though the world perish". Clearly, Emperor Ferdinand I had very little regard for budgets and felt that it was more important for justice to be done than to worry about where the money was coming from to provide those resources.
Money is, of course, extremely important in the question of whether we provide an adequate legal aid service. Money is a matter that the Attorney has indicated we cannot afford to ignore. I might say, however, that money is a matter which needs to be dealt with at a number of levels. There are important questions about the resourcing of legal aid. For example, are we providing enough in the pot that services legal aid in the Territory? Even if we are providing a certain amount of money in that pot, is the cost of justice that we can buy with the money in that pot too expensive? On that second question, members will be aware that the
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