Page 3031 - Week 08 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
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The Attorney-General at the time confirmed that the most important aspect of the levy was certainty. At the time they sold this based on these funds going directly to the services and providing certainty. Let me quote:
The Treasurer has made clear that we believe there is a need to identify a secure and ongoing funding source … There needs to be an ongoing and guaranteed level of funding and the best way to do that, in the government’s view, is to effectively hypothecate a revenue-raising mechanism to provide a dedicated income stream to address this problem in an ongoing way.
This was meant to be, and it was sold as, providing certainty to those front-line organisations, to the services that I have listed previously where jobs are being cut, wholesale, across the board. It was never intended for “innovation”. If we go back to when this levy was instigated, there was no talk about innovation. That was not mentioned. That is yet another weasel word being used by the Attorney-General and the other ministers to justify cuts to front-line domestic and family violence services.
This funding was always there to provide certainty. It was intended to be, in the words of the ministers, “legislated and locked in for the long term”. It was intended to be “ongoing and guaranteed”. But we know that the funding is anything but locked in and guaranteed because the funding for these very important front-line services has gone. It has disappeared. All we hear, in answer to the opposition’s question about where the money is going, is, “It’s off to innovation.” Clearly, what is happening is that it is being sucked back within the bureaucracy.
It is an absolute tragedy that these cuts are being made to crucial services relating to family violence. It is a travesty, and all of these front-line agencies are now in a situation of uncertainty, wondering what the hell is going to happen when they are providing these services to migrants and refugees, to people suffering from domestic and family violence. There is no guarantee from the government that any of these services will continue, when we were told back in 2016 that it was all about providing a guarantee.
I reiterate the following recommendations put to the estimates committee:
Given the evidence of the Legal Aid Commissioner that the cuts would have ‘a big impact on hundreds of clients who are predominantly women’, I call on the government to reverse those cuts to Legal Aid to at least maintain current roles in support of domestic violence roles;
I call on the government to restore funding for vital services in our courts, including translation services.
This government is reaping millions and millions from that levy. It has a budget in the billions. It talks about fairness, it talks about equity, and this government is cutting front-line services for domestic and family violence and for refugee and immigrant services providing translation. It is absolutely disgraceful.
I will not support these cuts; absolutely not. It is a really disappointing thing that this government has done. There is an opportunity, hopefully, when the minister speaks, to
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