Senator McKIERNAN (6:25 PM) —by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The response that the Senate has received to two reports of a Senate committee is, at the very least and at the kindest, an insult to the Senate. It is also a very sad reflection on a failed Attorney-General.

It is an insult to the Senate because it is a further example, if one was needed, that the current first law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia has no conception, no understanding of the havoc caused by the budget cuts made by the government in the area of legal aid; the government has no understanding of the havoc those cuts have caused in our community, and particularly within this country's legal aid system.

The Attorney-General (Mr Williams) was handed two quite mild reports from the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee. Those reports made constructive recommendations to the government—recommendations which, had they been implemented, would not have cost huge pain on the budget bottom line. The recommendations, had they been accepted and acted upon, would have gone a long way to easing the pain, easing the burden that has been wrought on the citizens of this country, and the great pain that has been levelled against those who operate within the legal aid system in this country.

But no, we have seen what can be described as a very pig-headed response. It is so bad that I think, to be kind to the attorney, the attorney himself has not read the report, has not fully digested the recommendations that were made, and has not taken into account the fact that the first report was a unanimous report of the committee—a committee which includes as its deputy chair Senator Eric Abetz. Senator Helen Coonan is also on that committee. The committee does have a National Party representative, but we never see that individual at the committee.

Senator Carr —Not good enough; not up to it?

Senator McKIERNAN —Not up to it.

Senator Sherry —Who is it who is never there?

Senator McKIERNAN —It is Senator O'Chee who is never there—but the committee thrives in his absence. That first report was presented to the chamber on 26 March last year. It has taken the Attorney-General, the first law officer, 14 months to prepare a one-paragraph response to the one recommendation that is contained in the report—a unanimous report. I repeat: it has taken him 14 months. That is something that we are getting quite used to in the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee—an inefficient administrator in the position of the first law officer of this country. We wait months, upon months, upon months for answers to questions in the estimates committee process, and we will go through that argument again on Tuesday of next week when the department appear once more before the legislation committee to respond to the answers.

The second report was a more considered report and was presented on 26 June last year. So it has taken 11 months to provide five pages of response to eight recommendations of the report—five pages which it has taken 11 months to prepare. The report itself, when it was presented—

Senator Cooney interjecting—

Senator McKIERNAN —My colleague has just intervened and prompted me to speak of a judge in New South Wales who has to report to the New South Wales parliament next week, I believe; he is to give cause and reason why, in the exercise of his judicial function, he should remain in his position as a judge. If it is fair enough for a judge to have to do that, I think the Senate perhaps ought to seriously consider whether or not the Attorney-General should be asked to give cause as to why it takes him 14 months to prepare a one-paragraph response and 11 months to prepare a five-page response to eight recommendations. Those eight recommendations, might I say without being insulting to the rest of my committee colleagues, were quite substantial but, nonetheless, they were not going to be a great draw on the government's budget.

They were serious and well considered recommendations. Indeed, most of the recommendations that were made were actually agreed to by my government Senate colleagues on the committee and they went through them in their minority report—a minority report, I might add, that stated a qualification as to why it was a minority report. It said in the second paragraph:

Whilst Government Senators were prepared, albeit reluctantly to provide unanimity for this inquiry's first report, such support cannot be forthcoming on this occasion due to the partisan nature and commentary of the Majority Report, for example paragraph 3.24.

How we became very partisan in paragraph 3.24 I do not know. For those sensitive colleagues of mine it reads:

When considering the implications of Australia's international obligations, the Committee considers that the approach of the Commonwealth to quarantine its responsibilities to Commonwealth matters only is unrealistic, impractical and inappropriate.

I think that my colleagues are pretty thin skinned if they say that that is partisan. But my colleagues did go on to agree to the majority of the recommendations that were contained in the report.

I started this contribution by saying some rather unkind things about the first law officer, the Attorney-General, the Hon. Daryl Williams MP. Despite his long involvement in the legal system of this country and his intimate involvement, in his previous life before he became a member of parliament, in the legal aid system—and there were many in that system who were dependent upon his knowledge and expertise in the system to try to bring some fairness into it—he has no appreciation even now. That is illustrated in this response to this report but it was also made very public when the Attorney appeared at a symposium organised by the Law Society of Western Australia on 4 April last year. The Attorney, in defending the actions of his government after he had given some 12 months notice of what was going to happen—that $100 million was going to be taken out of the system—stood up publicly and made this statement:

We have got 8 per cent unemployment and we have got 20 to 30 per cent youth unemployment.

That is what Mr Williams said. He went on to say, and this statement drew laughs from the assembled audience, which included the chief justices of a number of the courts in Western Australia:

Let's just put it fairly and squarely on the table. Is it legal aid or is it jobs for kids?

It is neither: $100 million has gone from the legal aid system, the unemployment rate is still at eight per cent and youth unemployment is actually rising. Despite the cuts that have been made to the legal aid system youth unemployment is actually rising. Mr Williams ought to do the decent, respectable thing: he should not sack just the individual who prepared this government response, he himself should accept responsibility and present his resignation to the Prime Minister. Clearly, he is just not quite up to the job of first law officer of the Commonwealth. He, by his actions, and the actions of the cabinet and in the budgetary consideration are putting the legal aid system into crisis. (Time expired)

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Watson) —The time for debate has now expired.