Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, is to a fellow servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. As the Attorney-General would be aware, one of the most serious issues facing a vast number of Australians daily is being able to afford legal representation in the court system, and particularly in the family law courts, including the Federal Circuit Court. Is the senator aware that it is estimated legal aid agencies require an urgent additional funding injection in the order of $200 million to be able to provide to needy litigants a decent level of legal representation? What additional funding have the government made available to meet this funding deficit? If they have not made additional funding available in this crisis area, when will they?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much indeed, Senator Roberts. I know you, like your leader, Senator Hanson—through you, Mr President—take a deep and serious interest in this issue.

Senator Waters interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In seats in Queensland—you've got it.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear interjections coming from the other side. I would have thought that the way in which we deal with family breakdown, families and relationships in distress, and women and children facing family violence is not something that ought to be the subject of partisan interjection and political point-scoring.

Senator Roberts, it is a deeply serious question you raise, and I thank you for raising it. There is pressure on the family law system; there is no doubt about that. And there is pressure on the legal assistance budget. But I can tell you where that pressure comes from primarily.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Your cuts!

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four years ago—I take your interjection, Senator Collins. Four years ago, in the final budget of the Labor government, the former Attorney-General, Mr Dreyfus, who continues to haunt this Senate today, apparently, like the ghost of Christmas past, announced a four-year funding program which would terminate in 2017. That is what members of the sector refer to as 'the Dreyfus funding cliff'. The expiry of that program on 30 June 2017 is not the result of any decision taken by me or any decision taken by this government; it is the result of a decision taken by Mr Mark Dreyfus in his submission to the 2013—the final—Labor budget.

During this government we have announced a national partnership agreement for legal funding that provides $1.62 billion over five— (Time expired)

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Attorney-General. A supplementary question, Senator Roberts?

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In terms of the distribution of such funding to community legal aid, Aboriginal legal aid and legal aid generally, would the Attorney-General advise whether or not he has advised those bodies that their funding is to be reduced by 30 per cent in the next allocation?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only decision that this government has made has been through the national partnership agreement, which provides, as I was saying in my answer to your initial question, $1.62 billion over five years to legal aid commissions, CLCs and Indigenous legal assistance providers, which will increase the funding in nominal terms and maintain it in real terms. The only cut of which I have had to advise members of the sector is the cut arising from the Dreyfus funding cliff as a result of a decision in the last Labor budget, when Mr Dreyfus took a submission to the Labor government's budget committee, whatever it is called, and decided that additional funding would terminate in 2017.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts on a final supplementary question.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Has the Attorney-General and/or his department conducted an actuarial analysis of the resultant additional costs caused by delays at the call-overs due to the extended time required by the judiciary in having to give advice to self-represented parties on such matters as procedure or their failure to comply with prior orders, and the resultant adjournments and further hearings—firstly, costs to litigants who may be legally represented and whose hearing call-overs are consequentially delayed; and, secondly, the additional costs incurred by the court system resulting from these delays? (Time expired)

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will come to your question immediately but, if I may, let me just say this in two sentences: This government maintained legal assistance funding in real terms. The only reductions in the amount of money going to the sector are as a result of the funding cliff decided upon by Mr Dreyfus in the last Labor budget.

Coming directly to the subject matter of your question, the problem of self-represented litigants is a problem with which judges, practitioners and everyone in the family law system are extremely familiar. That has been a feature of the system, by the way, for many years. It is why it is desirable to ensure, as the government has done, that legal assistance funding is maintained at real levels. It is why it was such a disastrous decision to build into future legal assistance funding the funding cliff that the last Labor Attorney-General, Mr Mark Dreyfus, did. (Time expired)