Anti-mining groups slam change in legal aid funding
Anti-mining groups have roundly criticised the NSW Government’s decision to crackdown on guidelines for legal aid funding.
Announced last month by the Attorney General Greg Smith, the changes in legal aid guidelines and funding effectively look to prevent “activists” and “lobbyists” from accessing any type of legal aid.
Mr Smith insisted “in tight financial times we have to make sure the money goes where it is most needed to give legal advice, representation to people who cannot otherwise afford it, and for cases which are in the public interest and have a good chance of success”.
But the new guidelines say legal aid funding must not be used for “providing legal advice to activists and lobby groups’’.
Rohan Wenn from GetUp! slammed the new rules.
“If groups care about things that are important to the community… [with these changes] they will be unable to afford to have a voice in the courts and that is bad for democracy,” he said.
The changes are set to strongly impact farmer and community groups opposing coalminers and gas drillers in NSW, with the groups now forced to seek private funding for public interest court cases.
“While it doesn’t directly affect GetUp! we are worried about how it is already difficult for small groups to take on big business and corporations,” Mr Wenn said. “[It seems that] the government is going out of their way to make it easy for the mineral industries.”
Ambiguity surrounds the new regulations and the Attorney General has as yet avoided providing an exact definition on what “lobbyist” and “activist” constitutes, and the merit tests to be applied.
Graeme Henderson from We Are Anti-Mining (WAAM) said it “It is dangerous legislation left vague on purpose”.
“We think that in this case it can be taken to mean any person, animal or object that the Attorney General does not like, or extended to who any particular mining company does not like.”
Mr Henderson further opined “every person who lives on a mining tenement should have all of their legal bills paid, through a fund paid for by the resource industry and administered by the Environmental Defenders Office”.
But Mr Wenn said “the real problem here is that legal aid is poorly funded across the board”.
“These kind of choices have to be made … realistically the government should provide enough funding.”
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has previously endorsed the Attorney General’s position on environmental campaigning.
Lobbyist and activist groups including GetUp! will still be able launch a legal challenge as they rely on public donations and pro bono work from lawyers. However, it is unknown how other lobbyist and activist groups plan to fund any future legal challenges.
By Jonathan Mimo
