LEGAL aid and other forms of legal assistance is the moral difference between the power of money and justice.
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If you are wealthy you can buy endless legal representation from the cream of the nation's lawyers. If you're a middle class battler you might be more frugal and circumspect about going to court. The biggest outlay in your life will probably involve conveyancing.
Battlers on the bottom rung will never have enough funds for time in court. The avenues for justice are limited. Legal assistance, including the Legal Aid Commission, costs the federal and state governments about $730 million a year. The federal government provides just under half the kitty, mostly for legal aid but also for community legal help, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island assistance and family violence legal assistance.
While litigation may be an irritant and an optional pursuit for the wealthy, for battlers it is all that lies between their livelihoods and ruin, or worse if the case involves family violence. A pro bono deal can be a battler's only friend in court. If litigation becomes lengthy, especially with court appearances, they haven't a hope. Usually big money on the side of an adversary will wait them out.
The emotive atmosphere of Family Court hearings demands the services of a lawyer, and so legal aid becomes vital.
The paltry amount of about $340 million annually, which the federal government stumps up for legal assistance across the nation, is immoral when so much is made about family violence. Governments always discover bottomless pits of cash for their own legal representation, but plead cash-poor over the legal needs of their constituents.
Whether it be a court appearance or services of a solicitor, only government can bridge the divide between money and justice.
The states have urged the Abbott government to increase funding, and so they should. Legal aid need not be a blank cheque, but it ought be sufficient to make proper legal representation available to all Australians.