The Australian Legal Aid Review Report: An Appraisal

Extract

Amidst the turmoil of the recent Gair controversy in the Senate the Attorney-General tabled the first report of the Legal Aid Review Committee. Somewhat in keeping with the real political significance of the subject under review, the report was tabled very late one evening. Little or no publicity was given to its tabling, any notice taken being washed away by the turmoil of the times. Some might say that the modest size of the report deserved no greater recognition, but such a view is ungenerous and most certainly naive.

The document tabled is quite bulky, the greater part being taken up by the appendices. The almost clinical dissection of the existing legal aid facilities throughout Australia will give the role of this Committee real impetus. For too long lawyers and politicians in Australia have been smugly satisfied with the existing legal aid services. A close examination of the Report's appendices will reveal that local legal aid is very much like a badly moth-eaten patch work quilt.