Coalition Protects Legal Aid from Hulls’ Raid Attempt

Friday 31 October 2008 – The Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition has stopped the government from raiding the Public Purpose Fund, through an amendment passed by the Legislative Council, Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said today. The Brumby Government attempted to give itself the power to take money from this fund, which provides money for legal aid, education and research, and use it to pay running costs for its new Costs Court and the Legal Costs Committee.

The Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition has stopped the government from raiding the Public Purpose Fund, through an amendment passed by the Legislative Council, Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said today.

The Brumby Government attempted to give itself the power to take money from this fund, which provides money for legal aid, education and research, and use it to pay running costs for its new Costs Court and the Legal Costs Committee.

The Coalition won the support of the Greens and the DLP to remove this power from the Courts Legislation Amendment (Costs Court and Other Matters) Bill when the Bill was debated in the Legislative Council yesterday.

“At a time of great shortage of funds for legal aid, when many Victorians can’t even get help to pay for legal advice, the Attorney-General wanted to further reduce the funds available,” Mr Clark said.

“Rob Hulls is trying to divert funds that should be going to legal aid and to improving the legal system, in order to pay for costs that up until now have been met by the government as part of the general operating expenses of the courts and the legal system.

“He ought to be scaling back the massive increase in staffing in his own department, instead of further cutting the funds available to help Victorians obtain legal representation.”

The Public Purpose Fund is comprised mainly of interest earned on clients’ money held by solicitors in their trust accounts and is used to meet the costs of regulating the legal profession, to provide funding for Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) and to improve the legal system through the Victoria Law Foundation and various grants.

VLA uses part of its funding to provide funds to community legal centres. Last year (2007-08) the Public Purpose Fund paid out $59.2 million in grants and other payments, including $31.9 million to VLA.

At present, disputes about the amount of legal fees payable for proceedings in various courts and at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) are decided by the court concerned or by VCAT, as part of their general running costs provided under the budget of the Department of Justice.

Disputes between solicitors and clients about the amount of other legal bills are decided by the “taxing master” of the Supreme Court. The Legal Costs Committee sets the scales of fees that can be charged by lawyers for non-court matters.

The Courts Legislation Amendment (Costs Court and Other Matters) Bill proposes to establish a new Costs Court division within the Supreme Court to decide most disputes from all sources about amounts of legal costs. The Coalition supports the Bill provided the raid on the Public Purpose Fund is removed.