Page 2324 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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Professionals and support staff would be looking for career opportunities not just in the Legal Aid Commission but also in other areas of government employment. The next career move for support staff almost certainly would not be in the Legal Aid Commission. We took the view that we would adopt the model that applies in some smaller States.
There is all this hysteria and all this talk about infringing the independence of the Legal Aid Commission. I have never heard it suggested by any political party that the legal aid commissions in Tasmania or the Northern Territory, which operate under a public service model, are in some way any less vigorous in their defence of citizens or are subject to interference in any way. I have never heard Labor oppositions or Liberal oppositions make those claims about the legal aid commissions in those States. To suggest that the move that we had originally proposed and which we have now resiled from was somehow a sinister attempt to interfere with the independence of the Legal Aid Commission is mere stuff and nonsense.
I would also point out that in this year's budget we have again increased funding for the Legal Aid Commission. We are the jurisdiction that most generously funds the Legal Aid Commission. A lot of legal aid staff in a lot of parts of Australia accuse governments of attempting to interfere with the legal aid commission. The charge usually is that governments are quietly chopping their funds, to ensure that the legal aid commission cannot get out there and vigorously provide defence of citizens. In the ACT our record on the financial side is very sound. We have the most generous level of Territory-sourced or State-sourced funding to a legal aid body in Australia. Our decision to go originally for the public sector model of employment was made simply because it looks better for us to go with the small State model rather than the large State model. The Assembly has taken a different view.
In relation to the DPP, we had a lot of stuff and nonsense from Mr Kaine suggesting that it was outrageous that we were distinguishing between the DPP and the Legal Aid Commission and that we should be consistent. Mr Kaine, there has been an amazing transformation on the road to Damascus from the time that you and Mr Humphries, who reiterated the same material, were sitting around a Cabinet table drafting the DPP Bill, because it was your Bill. It was an Alliance Government Bill. The Alliance Government took the decision, a quite correct decision - we supported you on that Bill - to create a DPP but to staff it under the Public Service Act. There was no proposal when you created that DPP Bill - - -
Mr Kaine: That was four years ago. A lot of things have changed since then.
MR CONNOLLY: "Things have changed", he says. You did not propose a separate basis of employment; nor should you have proposed it. It would have been an extraordinary proposition. In every jurisdiction in Australia the DPP is created as an independent office-holder but the staff come from the public service. That is the model that you chose. That is the model that you introduced into this Territory. It is a good model and it is a model that we sought to continue. The pious puffing of the chest and
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