Page 789 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 1 April 2008
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There are amendments to the Public Trustee Act to allow the Public Trustee to appoint more than one deputy public trustee. That is sensible. It acknowledges innovative business approaches being taken and developed by the Public Trustee, as well as her ultimate goal to become financially self-sufficient and not rely upon government budgetary funding.
That brings me to two elements of this bill with which we have a difficulty, and I will be moving amendments at the detail stage. They deal with two clauses of the bill where we have a problem. The first is in schedule 1, parts I and II, the amendments relating to the AAT Act, specifically the clause that omits section 62 from the act. It is interesting the government today introduced a similar amendment. Obviously, that one is going to get up. I do not know why; they could have perhaps indicated they would be supporting my amendment because it does exactly the same thing.
Mrs Dunne: We can’t have that.
MR STEFANIAK: But we cannot have that. So we have got two amendments saying the same thing. At least, I suppose we can be thankful that this error is to be rectified by omitting section 62. The intent here was to remove the ability of individuals to apply to the Attorney-General for financial or legal assistance in AAT matters. That was on the basis that the Legal Aid Office is the principal body responsible for the provision of legal assistance and is provided with a grant of government funds annually for that purpose.
The problem, however, is that the Legal Aid Office does not in fact provide assistance in some matters. Only recently I met a constituent—I am not too sure whether the attorney did, too—who had brought a public housing matter to the AAT and had applied to the Legal Aid Office for assistance. The Legal Aid Office told the constituent that they do not provide legal assistance in housing matters and, indeed, the office’s guidelines do not include housing matters in the list of classes of matters in which legal assistance may be granted.
Indeed, the guidelines of the Legal Aid Office do not talk about provision of any assistance in relation to any administrative decisions of government that are referred to the AAT, and the office will only consider providing assistance in cases of appeal in relation to decisions of the AAT itself. So a person potentially could be at a considerable disadvantage were they to proceed with a matter before the AAT against the financial and legal might of the government.
Such is the case of the constituent I referred to earlier. He has a public housing case before the AAT. It is an amazingly complex case—I had a look at it—in which even the Department of Housing has allocated a budget of $5,000 outside the AAT proceedings to try to unravel the complexities of the case. In the AAT hearing, ACT Housing is represented, I am told, by a barrister and a solicitor but the constituent can no longer afford legal advice. He is forced to represent himself. In the complexity of that matter, that is very, very difficult indeed.
Where are the human rights there, and where is the government’s supposed sense of justice? I am pleased to see the government at least seems to have appreciated that
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