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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 56 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

all people in Canberra as represented in this Assembly, so that there is a further weapon in Mr Humphries's armoury, if he needs it, to tell Mr Williams that this is what everybody in Canberra believes, and it is the responsibility now of the Federal Government to deliver what it promised; that is, that there should be no cuts to legal aid services.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.14): Madam Deputy Speaker, I certainly agree that the issue Mr Wood has put on the table today is a matter of considerable public importance and deserves to be debated in this place. I assume and hope that other members will join in expressing their concern about the position that the legal aid system in this country has been placed in by decisions of the Federal Government. I think it is obvious to members of this place that the ACT Government is prepared to indicate its position on matters of significance to the Territory on the primary principle that we should defend the interests of the people of the Territory rather than necessarily defend the views or protect the decisions of colleagues of ours at the Federal level. I can indicate that there is a likelihood of support by the Government for the motion which Mr Wood intends to move later this afternoon. It gives me no pleasure to have to be in the position of condemning Federal colleagues. It is a course of action which very rarely has been entertained by other governments in this place, but I believe it is appropriate for the Assembly to remain solid in its view that the decision to reduce legal aid funding in this country is a serious mistake.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the question could reasonably be asked, "Why is the ACT's position really any different to that of any other jurisdiction? Surely all jurisdictions will experience pain as a result of the reduction in legal aid spending. Are there not good reasons why the Federal Government should be reducing expenditure across the board?". I would concede that there is a strong case for the Federal Government to reduce expenditure. We can debate, and probably have in the past debated, the black hole that was left to it by previous governments. What we certainly cannot do is defend a decision to reduce expenditure in an area where the very fabric of the legal system, and in particular access to justice within that system, is placed at risk by the operation of cuts of the kind that has now been foreshadowed. The legal aid budget of this country is the lubrication which provides for access to the legal system in a timely and appropriate way, particularly for those who face considerable financial disadvantage. If we did not have a legal aid system, justice in this country would certainly be the prerogative of the rich or possibly of the very well educated.

I think that a reduction, therefore, in legal aid spending of $33m across this land has to be seen as a significant compromising of the delivery of justice to a large number of people. It simply is not possible - and in this I contradict the rhetoric of my Federal colleagues - to find efficiencies in the delivery of those services and sustain a $33m cut. Clearly, the result of that order of cut would be a reduction in grants available to individual applicants and a reduction in the access to justice of applicants, the vast majority of whom are very deserving and, I believe, are quite wrongly disadvantaged by the potential of this decision. The ACT is in a more invidious position, though, than other jurisdictions, as Mr Wood has pointed out. Of course, cuts of that order would hurt the ACT proportionately as much as they would other jurisdictions; but a cut of that kind imposed on the ACT is particularly unjust because, even applying the principles that the

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