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Speaker 1: So. Earlier this week, the Attorney General Mary Clare Boothby

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Speaker 1: announced Legal Aid is going to receive a multi year

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Speaker 1: funding agreement, including a significant increase of three point five

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Speaker 1: million dollars in twenty four twenty five and five point

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Speaker 1: five million each year ongoing from twenty five to twenty six,

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Speaker 1: representing around an eighty percent increase to previous baseline funding.

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Speaker 1: The Attorney General said the funding announcement was a major

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Speaker 1: turning point for the organization, giving it the funding certainty

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Speaker 1: that it's called for over many years we know. The

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Speaker 1: announcement follows reports earlier in the year which indicated that

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Speaker 1: Legal Aid was going to have to cut critical services

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Speaker 1: due to a lack of funding. At the time, the

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Speaker 1: criminal Lawyers said the cuts would have meant Territorians who

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Speaker 1: couldn't afford a lawyer would be unlikely to get a

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Speaker 1: fair trial. Now joining us on the line is the

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Speaker 1: chair of NT's Legal Aid Commission, Barrister Duncan McConnell sc

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Speaker 1: Good morning.

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Speaker 2: Duncan, Good morning Katie and thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, good to have you on the show. Duncan, What

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Speaker 1: does this multi funding agreement multi year funding agreement mean

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Speaker 1: to Legal Aid?

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Speaker 2: It certainly is an important development to have certainty around

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Speaker 2: funding going forward. It's less than we would have liked,

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Speaker 2: it's less than we need probably over the medium to

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Speaker 2: longer term, but it's more than we've been getting. So

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Speaker 2: it's an improvement certainly going forward. And to have that

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Speaker 2: amount of funding built in a in a structured and

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Speaker 2: committed way going forward does give us an ability to

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Speaker 2: better control how we allocate the resources within the commission.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, is it going to be enough to meet the

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Speaker 1: demand that the service is facing.

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Speaker 2: Oh, we've certainly seen a significant surge in demand and

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Speaker 2: that's been building for a number of years. There are

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Speaker 2: probably multiple causes for that. We know just from the

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Speaker 2: community and from listening to your program this morning. We

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Speaker 2: know that there is certainly a surge in criminal activity

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Speaker 2: happening in our communities and that's right throughout the territory

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Speaker 2: and that will make its way into the criminal justice system,

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Speaker 2: and so there are higher numbers coming into the criminal

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Speaker 2: justice system. But we've also historically had issues such as

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Speaker 2: the internal issues that NAGER went through a couple of

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Speaker 2: years ago, where they basically they almost entirely withdrew their

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Speaker 2: services in our springs and legal aid had to step

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Speaker 2: in to fill that gap, and that's been a long

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Speaker 2: and difficult process of rebuilding for Narga, and we would

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Speaker 2: expect to see some of that demand on our services

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Speaker 2: shift back to ARJA over time.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it does seem as though they're sort of

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Speaker 1: getting back to where they need to be, or they're

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Speaker 1: going to in the near future hopefully. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now in terms of I know, earlier in the year

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Speaker 1: there was literally a situation where concerns were being raised

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Speaker 1: that some services were going to need to be cut

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Speaker 1: and new clients wouldn't be able to be taken on

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Speaker 1: because of those funding concerns. Does this announcement mean that

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Speaker 1: you you know that you're going to be able to

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Speaker 1: operate at the capacity that you'd like to.

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Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, I think it gives us.

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Speaker 2: It resolves a number of issues that we've had developed

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Speaker 2: over the last few years where they've been ad hoc

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Speaker 2: of buckets of money which previous arrangements around funding were

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Speaker 2: not being followed through or not being continued. So there

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Speaker 2: was a lot of uncertainty around it. So the actual

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Speaker 2: numbers weren't changing a lot, but it was how they

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Speaker 2: were being delivered and the terms on which they are

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Speaker 2: being delivered, things like getting reimbursed at the end of

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Speaker 2: each financial year for the cost of our expensive cases.

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Speaker 2: That's the big trials that go into the Supreme Court

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Speaker 2: that might have multiple defendants and that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: So changes to those arrangements which left us really sort

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Speaker 2: of really not knowing whether we were going to have

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Speaker 2: any security of that funding come the end of the

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Speaker 2: financial year. So that's sort of what led us to

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Speaker 2: that really drastic situation of saying, well, look, unless unless

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Speaker 2: there's a commitment made immediately, we know from a fiscal

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Speaker 2: point of view, and we as a board or as

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Speaker 2: a commission, we have to look at this and say, well,

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Speaker 2: we don't have the money.

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Speaker 1: Well, and I know that sometimes you know, when people

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Speaker 1: hear that, they sort of go, you know, like they

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Speaker 1: might take a real hardline approach and go, well, do

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Speaker 1: you know what, if someone's committed to crime, I don't

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Speaker 1: care whether they've got representation or you know, they might

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Speaker 1: look at it that way. But the fact is, if

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Speaker 1: you want a fair trial, and if you want things

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Speaker 1: to run through the court system the way in which

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Speaker 1: they need to, you know, everybody does have a right

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Speaker 1: to being represented.

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Speaker 2: I look absolutely, and sometimes the police get it wrong.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes the prosecutors get it wrong. Sometimes we encounter our

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Speaker 2: behavior in law enforcement that the community should properly criticize.

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Speaker 2: And the criminal justice process is there to ensure that

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Speaker 2: we do uphold the laws and the values, and that

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Speaker 2: includes the way the laws are enforced. And if you

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Speaker 2: remove that ability for the courts to scrutinize, for lawyers

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Speaker 2: to identify where things have gone wrong, then really your

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Speaker 2: whole justice system is at threat.

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Speaker 1: Don't can tell me. Obviously, there has been a raft

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Speaker 1: of legislative changes come into place recently, has legal aid

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Speaker 1: seen an increase in demand as a result, Look.

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Speaker 2: It's really difficult to immediately track what's happening with that. So,

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Speaker 2: for example, we've just seen new changes to bail laws

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Speaker 2: come in place, but initially, at least, that probably leads

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Speaker 2: to an additional sort of You've got to look at

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Speaker 2: things more carefully. You've got to evaluate more deeply whether

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Speaker 2: or not a person is now either not eligible for aid,

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Speaker 2: or whether the balance is shifted in some way, whether

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Speaker 2: other considerations now have to be met on a bail application,

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Speaker 2: and that sort of thing. So whenever something is new,

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Speaker 2: for the lawyer. They've got to get their head around it,

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Speaker 2: and they've got to put the extra work in. Whereas

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Speaker 2: you know, when you're doing these three or four bail

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Speaker 2: applications a day, you get pretty good at it on

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Speaker 2: the run. So it does lead to an increase by

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Speaker 2: the same taken in the longer term, it may well

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Speaker 2: lead to less work in particular areas because people simply

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Speaker 2: aren't going to have any prospective bail so you're less

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Speaker 2: likely to grant funding to do a bail application.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, circumstance, well, it makes it. I mean, that's common that.

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Speaker 1: It makes common sense, you know when you say it

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Speaker 1: like that. Now, tell me in terms of we know

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Speaker 1: that the court system has been you know, I guess

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Speaker 1: facing that increased demand as well over recent months. How

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Speaker 1: are things tracking at the moment from your perspective sort

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Speaker 1: of as a whole.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think and I think we saw some

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Speaker 2: publication of figures not long ago about work that's been

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Speaker 2: done in reducing the backlog of matters getting getting speeding

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Speaker 2: up the process of what we call making representations, which

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Speaker 2: is basically negotiations around resolving some charges leading to pleas

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Speaker 2: of guilty rather than a trial. Et cetera, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: So there's been quite a bit of work done in

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Speaker 2: that space. I know that funding was made available for

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Speaker 2: the DPP for more prosecutors for that work. Funding was

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Speaker 2: made available for the courts to put on additional judges.

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Speaker 2: We've had to so far until this announcement, we've had

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Speaker 2: to wear the additional workload of that. So that's come

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Speaker 2: at a cost to the Commission, which we've had to absorb.

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Speaker 2: But we've been making some progress in relation to those matters,

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Speaker 2: and that work really needs to continue because that's been

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Speaker 2: a bit of a slow build as far as I

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Speaker 2: can see from the numbers. That's not something that's just

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Speaker 2: emerged as a problem in the last six or twelve months.

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Speaker 2: That've been really building for some time, quite some time.

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Speaker 1: Can I really appreciate your time this morning. I know

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Speaker 1: you're a busy man and appreciate the fact that you

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Speaker 1: fit us in for a quick interview. Mate, Thank you

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Speaker 1: very much for having a chat today.

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Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Katie.

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Speaker 1: Thank you