Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Law Council of Australia for hosting yet another wonderful dinner, a dinner I'm delighted to be attending for my third consecutive year since returning as Attorney-General in 2022.
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. I extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.
I thank the President of the Law Council, Greg McIntyre SC, for inviting me to speak tonight. I congratulate and welcome the incoming President, Ms Juliana Warner.
I also acknowledge
- Her Excellency the Honourable Sam Mostyn AC, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, and His Excellency Simeon Beckett SC;
- My parliamentary colleagues;
- Current and former members of the judiciary; and
- Members of the legal profession.
Legal assistance services
On 6 September this year First Ministers reached a landmark agreement for a new five year National Access to Justice Partnership.
And I am very pleased to say that yesterday, 28 November, the final signature from an Attorney-General was obtained, and it has been published today.
This agreement provides $3.9 billion in support for legal assistance services over five years - the largest Commonwealth funding contribution to the legal assistance sector ever.
It is a vast improvement on the previous agreement, which expires on 30 June next year.
Every single part of the legal assistance sector will get more funding.
The agreement contains nearly $800 million in additional funding, including $500 million to support frontline legal assistance services delivered by Community Legal Centres, Women's Legal Services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Legal Aid Commissions and Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services.
Critically, funding will be ongoing. This means an end to a rolling five-year funding cliff. Instead of fighting for its very existence, the sector will be able to plan for the future. It will be able to more easily attract and retain employees because there is job security. This change may be an underreported element of the new agreement but its significance cannot be underestimated.
The new agreement also addresses long-standing pay parity issues in the sector. For the first time, the Commonwealth is acting to lift rates of pay for the community legal assistance sector, bringing them closer to Legal Aid Commissions - again increasing the ability of services to attract and retain good lawyers.
Unlike the previous agreement, with its inadequate fixed rate of indexation, funding will be increased in line with the Wage Cost Index - meaning Commonwealth funding will not go backwards in real terms over the life of the agreement.
The previous agreement did not provide funding security for individual parts of the sector. States and territories could, if they wished, move money from one part to another, reducing the effective value of the Commonwealth contribution. The new agreement requires jurisdictions to maintain their investment for each part of the sector over the life of the agreement.
This both maintains the value of the Commonwealth contribution and provides funding certainty to each part of the legal assistance sector.
As some in this room may remember, the new agreement was announced at a meeting of First Ministers focused on gender-based violence, and appropriately so.
Access to justice is vital for women and children trying to escape gender-based violence. It can be the difference between leaving and staying in a violent situation. It can be the difference between life and death.
I'm proud that the largest relative funding increase for legal assistance in the new agreement was for Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services - a 112 per cent increase in Commonwealth funding compared to the preceding five years.
We know that First Nations women experience disproportionate rates of family violence.
Nationally, First Nations women are seven times more likely to be homicide victims than non-Indigenous women, and of those women, 75 per cent are killed by a current or former partner.
First Nations women are 33 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family and domestic violence than non-Indigenous women.
As my colleague Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, has said, this is a national shame.
Doubling the funding for legal assistance services which help First Nations women escape domestic violence will not solve this problem on its own, but it is an important step forward.
Let me be clear - I know there will always be unmet need in the sector.
But I believe the new National Access to Justice Partnership is a momentous step forward.
That's why I have been disappointed to see some misrepresentation of what the new Agreement delivers.
I expect demands from the legal profession for government to do more for the legal assistance sector.
But misrepresenting facts helps no one, least of all those in the sector.
Further, it makes little sense to make demands of the Commonwealth only.
Legal assistance is a shared responsibility, and demands on government should not focus on the national government alone.
For those in the audience who work in the community legal sector, I would like to say thank you.
You are among the most talented, committed and hardworking lawyers in the country. The Australian Government values your work. I value your work.
Privacy
You may have noticed we passed a few bills last night and early this morning.
I will go to just two of those tonight.
The first enacts tranche one of our privacy reform agenda.
The legislation does a great deal. It:
- Creates a new statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy;
- Creates a new criminal offence for the malicious release of personal data online, known as doxxing; and
- Establishes provisions to enable the development of a new Children's Online Privacy Code.
A privacy tort is not a new idea. In fact, that is something of an understatement.
In his 1969 Boyer Lectures Sir Zelman Cowen endorsed legislation to create an actionable right to seek redress for breaches of privacy.
The bill provides for a new statutory cause of action for individuals who have suffered a serious invasion of their privacy, and applies it to both physical privacy and information privacy.
A plaintiff will need to demonstrate the protection of their privacy outweighs any competing public interest. A range of defences will apply, and there will be exemptions for journalists, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The journalism exemption, I believe, is vital to protecting freedom of the press.
Empowering Australians with a new tort for serious invasions of privacy ensures our laws keep pace with community expectations and technological advances.
The anti-doxxing measure in the bill is also significant.
It is an important protection for vulnerable women and children, whose abusers can use doxxing as a further form of violence.
It protects other individuals and groups too.
That's why I was shocked to see the Opposition vote against this bill last night and this morning.
Criminalising this practice sends a clear message that the practice of doxxing is malicious and unacceptable. Vulnerable people must not have their own details weaponised against them. Perpetrators are now on notice.
While this bill advances the government's privacy reform agenda, this is the beginning and not the end.
In coming months the Government will engage in targeted stakeholder consultation on draft provisions to inform a further tranche of privacy reform.
This methodical approach will ensure we get the details right as we deliver greater protection for the personal information of Australians.
Bills like this are significant, serious and lasting law reform, aimed at helping us grapple with the ways in which our lives are being changed by technology. I thank the Law Council for its engagement.
Anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing
The second piece of legislation I want to highlight makes long overdue reforms to Australia's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime.
Because of the former government's inaction, Australia has been regarded as an attractive destination to store, launder, and legitimise funds generated from criminal activities such as drug trafficking and child sexual abuse.
Australia is one of only five jurisdictions out of more than 200 that do not regulate tranche two entities or 'gatekeeper' professions - real estate agents, accountants, and as I'm sure everyone here is well aware, lawyers.
To say this legislation was overdue is an understatement.
It has been almost a decade since the Financial Action Task Force, the global financial watchdog, found that Australia had failed to comply with a number of critical standards for tackling money laundering.
In particular, Australia had failed to extend our anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime to tranche two entities.
This put Australia at serious risk of being 'grey-listed' by the FATF, resulting in significant economic harm to businesses - and that includes law firms.
Failure to act was not just a threat to our international reputation. It was a threat to Australia's ability to operate in global finance.
Inaction was simply not an option.
I am very pleased the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024 was passed by the Parliament this morning.
Eighteen years after tranche one, it has been a very long time coming.
The expanded regime only applies to certain legal services - all of which have been globally recognised as high risk for money laundering and terrorism financing.
Lawyers know how to mount an argument - and trust me, I heard the argument from lawyers on the extension of the AML/CTF regime to some members of the profession.
I know there have been concerns about how this reform will change the way lawyers providing designated services do their jobs.
So, I want to make it clear.
The Government is committed to preserving the proper operation of legal professional privilege - and protecting the administration of justice.
To our barrister friends in the audience, if you are instructed by a solicitor, you have nothing to worry about - other than winning your case.
We listened to the concerns of the legal profession, and of the Law Council as its representative body.
We listened, and we acted to amend the legislation where necessary, while maintaining the robust protections that ensure the legislation is effective.
The United Kingdom and New Zealand have done it - and in the same way we have.
Their legal systems have not fallen apart.
The AML/CTF Rules are being worked through right now, and AUSTRAC and the Attorney-General's Department are committed to working with you all to ensure the rules are appropriate and make sense, and to make sure that the cost of compliance is as low as possible.
The legal profession should embrace this important development in Australia's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.
They protect our financial system.
They protect Australians.
And they protect the integrity of the legal profession itself.
I urge you all to engage with the implementation processes that are underway, and I look forward to your support in ensuring the profession is prepared for commencement in July 2026.
Conclusion
For the Australian Government, it has been a big week.
For all of us, I'm sure, it has been a big year.
And like my speech, it is almost at an end.
In 2022 I returned to government and to the office of Attorney-General with an ambitious reform agenda.
In two and a half years, much has been achieved - but there is much more to do.
I would like to thank the Law Council of Australia for its advice and engagement with me and my office, with the Attorney-General's Department, and with the Australian Parliament.
Thank you to the legal community more broadly for your contribution to reform, and for the important work you do every day.
And thank you for the privilege of speaking at this event tonight.
I look forward to making it four in a row next year.
