Legal Aid and the Federal Budget

The Australian reports (on 17 May 2013) that "This week's [Federal] budget has confirmed that the federal government intends to impose a cut in the real value of its support for legal assistance services provided by the states". The next four years it is claimed will see the growth rate in total federal funding for the national partnership on legal assistance services reduce to less than the current inflation rate of 2.5%.

Further, it is reported that in Victoria, where the legal aid funding shortage has reached the point of crisis and has even triggered litigation, the cuts in the real value of federal funding will be greater than the national average in two of the four years covered by the federal budget papers relating to this matter. As the Australian further reports: "analysis of the commonwealth's figures by the Victorian government shows the state's allocation will grow by 1.1% in 2013-14 compared with a national growth rate of 1.3%".

Lawyers Weekly reports the chair of the Victorian Bar Fiona McLeod as saying "...the Federal Budget allocation of $30 million over two years to legal aid commissions won’t make a dent in the sector’s underfunding crisis," and also that the cuts had ... "resulted in criminal trials being postponed, children being unrepresented in Family Court matters and former partners cross-examining each other in court after violent relationship breakdowns".

In national terms it is reported that the budget papers relating to Legal Aid show that federal funding for legal assistance will rise from $198.1 million this financial year to $212m in 2016-17.

The Victorian Bar has called for a national summit on legal aid funding and said that an $15m a year increase in funding was needed. The Law Council of Australia is reported as backing an annual increase of $76.2m to return the Commonwealth's share of total legal aid funding to 50%.

The budget has also provided an additional:

• $12m across two years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services;

• $10.3m across four years for Community legal centres, and

• the appointment of three more judges to the Federal Court.

As well, the government is reported to have wound back one part of the January 2013 fee increases for the Federal courts allowing independent lawyers representing children to no longer be required to pay filing fees, a measure expected to cost the government about $4m in foregone revenue.

The Federal Attorney-General is reported as saying in respect of Legal Aid funding in the Budget:

"The key to this is that there were savage cuts by the Howard government in the 1997 budget which cut legal aid to the bare bones and caused lasting damage ...There was chronic under funding for some years which we have now started to repair and rebuild, starting with substantial increases in 2010".

Sources:

The Australian Budget eats into funding of state assistance services

Lawyers Weekly Federal Budget funding no cure for legal aid crisis

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