Speech: #legalaidmatters campaign launch

16 May 2016

Kym Goodes, CEO

I want to start today by firstly acknowledging the traditional owners of this land and pay respect to their elders past and present.

I think it is important to start this speech today by being clear - we are a wealthy country.

We are not a country struggling economically. Despite what our leaders would have us believe, we are doing well. We have survived the GFC. We have lived for many years with a federal budget in deficit - it is not the end of the world, the sky is not falling.

We are also not a country that should be a follower.

So rhetoric around the need for austerity measures – because that is what this is about– we don’t need that,

We are not the UK,

We are not New Zealand and we are certainly not Greece.

Federal budgets are actually about priorities, and this government starting with Abbott and now Turnbull, have decided that access to a fair and equitable legal system is not a priority.

What we do need our leaders to do is make some decisions about what kind of country we want and need to be.

The economies around the world that are doing well are those economies where the gap between the haves and the have nots is small.

Where inequality is not an issue. Where human rights and first principles about looking after vulnerable members of our community are seen as a strength of our state and country, not a conversation they are avoiding.

And certainly not the first line of attack by a government when making budget decisions and setting priorities.

Funding cuts to legal assistance services in Australia and Tasmania are denying people a fundamental human right.

Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all are equal before the law and are entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law.”

This isn’t just a case for no funding cuts but a case for greater funding of legal assistance services in Australia.

From the outset legal aid has never been adequately funded in Australia – but recent years have shown that demand has grown, costs have increased but funding has not.

What we now have is a justice gap – between the rich and the poor that is leaving so many people behind.

Cutting funding to the services which help these vulnerable members of our community, at this time, is short sighted and ill conceived.

In 2014/2015, a National Association of Community Legal Centres census showed that 84 community legal centers around Australia gave 208,000 thousand people access to legal services.

The census also showed that those centers collectively also turned away 156,000 thousand people because for a majority of those cases there was a lack of resources to be able to help.

And if anyone is wondering what 156,000 thousand people looks like – it is 75% of the population of Hobart.

It is more than 1 and a half packed MCGs.

And even before we knew that fact, the 2014 Productivity Commission report had recommended that an extra $200 million dollars per year be spent on legal assistance services by State and Federal governments.

Because for not just low income, but many working poor in Australia, access to legal support is out of their reach.

Instead what we got was a funding cliff with cuts that will amount to $34.8 million dollars between 2017 and 2020.

These cuts mean that everyday people on low and inadequate incomes, people who have lost their job, people who live with disability or illness, people who are discriminated against and people who are isolated and vulnerable are denied access to justice.

They are denied access to a fundamental human right.

They are denied access to support.

They are denied access to the means to represent themselves.

They are denied access to the means to protect themselves.

They are denied the very things that the people at the top, the budget makers, the ministers, and members of parliament take for granted each and every day.

Without access to these things, the most vulnerable members of society can lose their homes, they can lose the right to see their children, they can lose their income or they can lose their freedom.

And if those aren’t enough reasons we know that the repercussions of not having access to justice produces massive costs for society.

Because there are the costs of keeping people in prison; treating health problems caused by, anxiety and despair, depression and ‘self-medication’; of providing support for victims of family violence – and the list goes on and on.

These are the reasons that our legal system exists – it is there to protect people.

With so much at stake, this should not be a decision about whether we should find the money. This should be a decision about ensuring the money is found and found at a level that is appropriate to needs of Australians.

We don’t want to live in a society where our protection of human rights is dependent on our ability to pay or a society where the wealthy benefit from the poor.

We want to live in a society that is just, that is equitable, that supports our most vulnerable when they need it most.

Let’s use this opportunity to call for change – to show the consequences of the increasing justice gap.

And to support the Attorney Generals of every state and territory who have already written to their federal counterpart imploring him to reconsider.

Like the AGs, we call on all those who seek to be part of the next government to commit to fully funding legal assistance services – and to ensure that funding

We want to ensure that access to justice and equal protection of the law is a reality not just for some Australians, but for all.

Ends