Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 57:10 to 1:01:48
Review of the $54 million investment in protection visa processing and the effectiveness of providing legal assistance to applicants.
Topics: Legal aid, Protection visas
Speakers: Senator David Shoebridge, Clare Sharp, Speaker 9, Speaker 1, Hon Murray Watt
Back in October, the government invested $54 million to be used to establish real-time priority processing and protection visa applications and a similar amount of money to the then AAT Federal Court, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia to increase the capacity. There was also a $48 million boost to essential legal assistance services to support applicants through the process. Now, that saw a significant reduction in backlog. It saw a rapid processing of matters and the system worked, didn't it? That was a good project and it worked.
>> Um, Senator, absolutely. That investment that to speed up primary processing has had a really significant improvement. Um, uh, it and so and it also gave us within the department an opportunity to look at our systems and to improve our processes. So, >> we are continuing to deliver in that way. Um even though the funding uplift has tapered, we've we've had an opportunity to redo our processes if you like so we're able to sustain the momentum. >> Um you would need to speak to the art about whether they've been able to achieve the same uplift. >> Uh a challenge of course is you know when when we make a change like this we can go faster. The art also then needs to go faster and the court system needs to go faster. So
>> which is why the funding had it touched on all three tiers.
>> It did. Um but I guess um and Mr. Kylie was going to provide some [clears throat] more some more detail. I think where we saw it to greatest effect and the and the processing time speeded up the most was in primary.
>> Yeah. And one of the reasons was that the the provision of legal assistance meant that the applications were timely. They were they were professional. They addressed the criteria needed for the department and it made it a much more rapid and straightforward process. That was one of the key um benefits of providing the legal assistance, wasn't it?
That was that was one of the yeah that was one of the ideas behind the support for legal assistance but it's worth noting that of the protection visa applications that we get um and we can provide a a more sort of correct figure on notice if necessary it's only around 20 between 20 and 30% of all applications that we receive are supported by a legal practitioner.
>> Yep. That's because there's no funding. That this was a $48 million boost, but it's run out. Um and and and what this shows though is that when the government chooses to fund legal assistance, it helps the applicants, it helps the department, it helps the system. That was the finding, wasn't it? That's that's what the experience of this was.
legal assistance can provide some uh benefits as you noted uh for those who look to go through legal practitioners.
>> Has there been a review of this um
>> Not a review per se, but as Miss Sharp noted earlier, we continue to look at our protection visa processing models to ensure that we are uh conducting that in the most efficient and effective way.
Minister, this this program and I congratulate your government for doing it. This program providing the funding for the department, the funding for the AAT and the and and the courts and [clears throat] also critically matching funding for legal assistance services for the applicants. It worked. It reduced backlogs. It dealt with matters rapidly. Why don't you lean into these good solutions to try and fix things up? Why why don't you look at this as a good example and try and scale it up to fix things? Why why is it always punitive? Why why don't you do more of this?
>> The government always considers uh the range of options that are available to us. We consider we would have considered this program. We would have considered a
>> Excellent. That concludes the questions that we have in outcome two uh for today. Thank you very much for the very long session and for the interruption uh while we uh heard from the special envoys. Uh you are now released. We will now move swiftly into outcome three. Thank you very much for your time. I will give the call to Senator Duniam.