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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-09-05 Daily Xml
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Legal Services Commission

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:01): My question is to the Treasurer.

1. What consultation did the government undertake with the Legal Services Commission before announcing the efficiency dividend announced in the budget?

2. Has the government undertaken any modelling on how this will affect the already stretched services of that organisation?

3. Does the Treasurer acknowledge the increased pressure this measure will have on other crucial pro bono services like that offered by JusticeNet?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:02): The detailed arrangements in relation to individual decisions in minister's portfolios, such as the Attorney-General's, are essentially the responsibility for the individual minister, so in this case the Attorney-General. In relation to the general process, the budget process, given the confidentiality of cabinet—I was asked this question in relation to decisions in relation to the Adelaide Remand Centre, for example—does not provide for a provision where you go out and consult directly the individual institutions or organisations that might be impacted because it's all part of the confidential budget process within cabinet.

But in relation to, obviously, getting advice, ministers are in the position, with policy officers, right up to the chief executive officer of his or her department, to get advice to say, 'Okay, this particular decision in our view will have this particular impact in this particular way.' So the Attorney-General in this case, but ministers generally, would take advice from the senior advisers they have within the department, and that doesn't mean that there is direct consultation in all instances with individual groups or organisations that are being funded by that particular department, it would be the view of the people within the minister's department in relation to the potential impact.

So the minister would be aware of advice on most occasions, I would imagine, from people within his or her department in relation to what they saw as the impacts. That view can and has, on many occasions in the past, differed from the view of the individual stakeholder groups; that is, the view that the department might have as to a particular savings dividend may well be significantly different from the view the stakeholder or the organisation might have.

I have seen enough of these over the years to accept the fact that one particular decision of a government may be viewed in one way by a minister's department but viewed completely differently by another organisation that is directly funded, or not, by the department.

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