CPA - The Guardian

Legal aid in Australia is drifting further into crisis. More than a decade of inadequate funding has left legal aid, community and Aboriginal legal centres ill-equipped to deal with the rising number of Australians seeking assistance as the economic crisis bites. The truth about the very unequal access to legal services in Australia has been laid bare recently during a Senate Committee inquiry. Workers in the field are seething at the attitude of buck-passing state and Commonwealth authorities and the lack of commitment to funding. As a result the old adage, that the rich get long trials and short or no sentences while the poor get short trials and long sentences, is ringing truer every day. Low-income earners are not getting the help they need with complex family law and other legal matters.

The current Senate Committee is due to report in August. No doubt it will hand down a damning report and make recommendations for a far bigger commitment to provide the sorts of worthwhile legal services currently denied to many of the low paid. A similar report came out of a similar committee of inquiry in 2004. Sound recommendations to alleviate the problems were ignored then and there is little indication they will be taken onboard now.

The federal budget delivered just last month contained a paltry one-off payment of $20 million to legal aid and legal community centres. This will go nowhere. “All Australians have a fundamental right to access legal advice and services, regardless of their means. The Law Council is disappointed that the federal government has not seen a need for more responsible Commonwealth legal aid funding at such a crucial time,” Council president John Corcoran observed at the time.

Various bodies working in the area of legal aid have made their representations to the Senate body. These include the National Association of Community Legal Centres, the National Pro Bono Resource Centre, the Law Council, Aboriginal law groups and chief justices from the Family and Federal Magistrates Courts. They report growing numbers of poorer potential clients being turned away by overbooked centres. Eighty percent of these people earn less than $26,000 a year. Their chances of obtaining justice from the legal system without access to these resources are greatly reduced.

Centres complain of their inability to retain lawyers who earn up to 40 percent less than the average public servant. In spite of this, centres manage to provide invaluable services to the community. The National Association of Community Legal Centres says that its lawyers alone provide $20 million worth of free legal assistance every year in the face of an 18 percent funding cut over the last decade.

Responsibility for the funding woes is shared by state and Commonwealth authorities. A major setback for the system was the Commonwealth’s decision in 1996 to restrict federal funding to grants for Commonwealth legal matters. Family law straddles both state and federal jurisdictions while child protection and family violence are state matters. This complex situation often requires families in crisis to make two applications for legal assistance.

The current system of legal aid is failing those most in need of its assistance. This should not come as a surprise – it reflects realities in the areas of health, education, housing, workplace relations and elsewhere. Fixing the current funding shortage for legal aid won’t ensure “justice”. The injustices facing workers and the other exploited people of the country are not limited to the legal system. In fact, a great many of the poorest in the community find themselves in court and in need of legal aid as the final consequence of the widening opportunity gap in Australian society in those areas listed above. The most obvious examples of this deplorable state of affairs are to be found in Aboriginal communities but it is not restricted to them.

The current financial crisis will continue to take its toll on working families with job losses, unsustainable household debt and sharply declining living standards. Pressure on relationships will continue to grow resulting in family breakdown and increased levels of drug and alcohol abuse. The problems are huge but governments are not absolved for their failure. They must be reminded again and again to adjust their priorities – away from massively wasteful military spending, for example. They must heed the voices of protest in the community about issues like the legal aid crisis and spend the money to fund them appropriately.

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