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Australia: Boost legal aid funding with levy on alcohol, gambling, Australian Bar Association says

Australia: Boost legal aid funding with levy on alcohol, gambling, Australian Bar Association says

 

ABC News Australia

By Kim Landers

September 8, 2016

The Australian Bar Association has proposed placing a levy on the alcohol and gambling industries to raise more money for legal assistance.

 

It said it was proposing alternative funding methods because it was unlikely federal and state governments would commit extra funds to legal aid.

 

Patrick O’Sullivan, president of the Australian Bar Association, said they had not given up hope on receiving extra funding from governments, but they recognised they faced budgetary pressures.

 

“We have two choices — we either accept that and keep banging on the door to try and get more money from a government when the money is not coming,” he said.

 

“Or we take the opportunity, in a practical way to say well, what can we do as a society, as a profession to address the problem.”

 

Federal budget expenditure on legal assistance increased 2.5 per cent this financial year, to $257 million.

 

However a 3 per cent decrease is on the cards for the next financial year.

 

Mr O’Sullivan said the current increases would not be enough, given that the recommendation from the Productivity Commission in 2014 was for an immediate injection of $200 million in funding.

 

“That [figure] will have gone up since that time,” he said.

 

Mr O’Sullivan said one approach he and the Australian Bar Association thought the Government should consider was placing a levy on the alcohol and gambling industries.

 

He said there was a high number of people coming into contact with the justice system because of alcohol and gambling, and so the proposal was that the monies from the levy on those industries could be put into legal assistance funds.

 

“It’s not just a question of the alcohol and gambling industries,” he said.

 

“As far as we’re concerned nothing is off the table — with one exception which is any sort of levy or impost on the disadvantaged.

 

“Ask any judicial officer and they will tell you that there is an element of alcohol and or gambling in a vast majority of matters that they see in the criminal justice system.”

 

‘It’s not a new tax’

 

Mr O’Sullivan said they had not worked out yet how the levy would work.

 

“It’s a matter that we’ll look at. As I say, nothing is off the table and it’s not just alcohol and gambling,” he said.

 

“We’re looking at the potential of a levy on any criminal conviction — speeding fines, high income corporate may well be one option, and the legal profession itself.”

 

Mr O’Sullivan said the association was proposing was not a new tax, but a “recognition that the justice system is the cornerstone of our society”.

 

“Part of the reason we enjoy the stability in society is the rule of law, and part of that is access to justice,” he said.

 

“This is society’s response to a problem with access to justice and a way of funding the chronic problems that we have with underfunding.”

 

He said they were still considering exactly what the size of the businesses targeted by the proposed levy on high income corporations would be.

 

“But you may think for example, corporates with gross profits of in excess of $500 million, that sort of thing,” he said.

 

Government ‘must maintain their funding’

 

Mr O’Sullivan said the bar association had hosted a round table forum in Brisbane with representatives from state bars, the Queensland Public Defenders Office, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service and the National Association of Community Legal Centres.

 

The table forum examined innovative ideas to how they could address the funding system issue.

 

Mr O’Sullivan said they had not put their ideas to the Government yet.

 

“Bearing in mind that this is not about allowing government to stop funding or reduce their funding levels,” he said.

 

“It is absolutely imperative that they maintain their funding levels and that those funding levels increase — this is a way of adding to that funding.”

 

The next step, Mr O’Sullivan said, was to put together a position paper that was “well reasoned” and supported by information and appropriate data.

 

“And put to them [the Government] that the requirement for appropriate funding is something that is just not negotiable.”