Late yesterday afternoon the LNP’s Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb took questions on the the LNP’s policy costings. Almost lost in the fog of that presser and subsequent fallout was this response by Hockey to a question. QUESTION: You’re talking about $42 million, sorry billion, of savings, sorry, by re-prioritising indigenous policy reforms, which is a third of the savings… HOCKEY: Sorry, 40. Sorry, which number are you referring to? 9.3. QUESTION: The last page, the reprioritisation of indigenous policy programs. What does that mean and is that in breach of the… HOCKEY: That effectively deals with legal aid services delivered by contractors at various sites. There has been some change in that program. What we’ve said is we’re scaling it back by about 20 per cent. Indigenous aid. That exchange relates to a single line item of savings – totalling $42 million over the next three years – listed under ‘Other Coalition Savings‘ at point 9.3 of the LNP’s costings list that would ‘reproiritise’ Labor’s Indigenous Policy Reform program. That program: … funds high-quality, culturally sensitive and accessible legal assistance services for Indigenous Australians. It ensures Indigenous Australians can fully exercise their legal rights as Australian citizens. The program also funds law reform, policy development and community legal education activities that advance the legal rights of Indigenous Australians. The Indigenous Policy Reform program funds eight organisations – all Aboriginal legal aid services – to deliver legal assistance to Aboriginal people in all States and territories. As I noted here yesterday, the Coalition has been very light-on in terms of providing details about its plans for indigenous policy over the next few years. That changed yesterday afternoon with the last minute release of it’s Indigenous Affairs policy. That policy is full of the usual warm-and-fuzzy guff that is typical of the indigenous affairs plans from both major parties. Of note is that there is nothing in the Coalition’s Indigenous Affairs policy about these swingeing cuts to Aboriginal legal aid. In a piece in The Australian today Melbourne barrister and member of the Law Council of Australia’s access to justice committee, David Neal SC, examines the current state of legal aid funding, which he described the system as ‘in crisis.’ Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told Neal that Labor was has committed to further funding increases. Neal quotes Shadow Attorney-General George Brandis – who presumably would have been aware of the looming cuts to Aboriginal legal aid when he made these comments responding to a Law Council questionnaire in a piece in The Australian late last week: … the Coalition cannot commit to increase funding for legal aid services, nor can we stipulate a proportion of total legal assistance funding that will be provided by the federal government. Following the release of news of the Coalition’s cuts Attorney-General Dreyfus was scathing.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:52:59 +0000
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