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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4068 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.07): Mr Speaker, I present the Legal Aid (Amendment) Bill 1997, together with its explanatory memorandum.

Title read by Clerk.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

Members will recall the turmoil which followed the 1996 Commonwealth budget announcement of a $33m legal aid funding cut by the Commonwealth for 1997-98. This announcement effected a unilateral termination of the various legal aid agreements between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories across Australia. From this step ensued major and protracted disputes between the Commonwealth and all States and Territories.

The Commonwealth explained its actions by asserting that a significant part of its contributions to State and Territory legal aid commissions was being used for cases arising under State and Territory laws. The Commonwealth declared it was no longer prepared to pay this "subsidy" and from 1 July 1997 would provide funds only for cases arising under Commonwealth law. However, in the case of this jurisdiction, a detailed analysis of the ACT Legal Aid Commission's operations in 1995-96 revealed that, in fact, the ACT was subsidising the provision of legal aid to Commonwealth applicants. The bottom line was that the funding of the commission was in the ratio of approximately 56 per cent by the ACT to 44 per cent by the Commonwealth. However, Commonwealth cases were costing almost 70 per cent of the commission's budget.

After protracted and very difficult negotiations, in March 1997 I reached in-principle agreement with the Commonwealth Attorney-General that the Commonwealth would provide funding for each of the next three years on the basis of what Commonwealth cases had actually been costing the commission. The result is that for the next three years the Commonwealth will provide funding at the rate of $3.006m per annum, which represents an increase of approximately $600,000 per annum over and above the Commonwealth's payments to the Commission in 1996-97.

The result for the ACT, given the provocative and intractable position initially adopted by the Commonwealth, is highly satisfactory. It means that there will no longer be an ACT subsidy for cases arising under Commonwealth law, there will be more funds available for the provision of legal aid in the ACT than in the past, and the basic structure for delivering legal aid in the ACT will remain intact. However, the Commonwealth insisted that its moneys must be expended on Commonwealth matters according to the priorities and guidelines which it would prescribe.

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