The other week it was the Hun playing on the whole misunderstanding that a criminal trial is between criminals and victims (rather than the state) and how strange it is that "criminals" have legal rights and can't just be thrown in a dank pit and capriciously dealt with by the most psychotic vengeful member of the public News Ltd can find.
This week it's the fees barristers charge! Hulls has waded in with an attack based on one extreme, and massively unrepresentative, example of a barrister who apparently charges "up to" $14,000 a day. And that this is somehow to blame for the public not having good access to the law.
Everything about this claim is misleading: fully half the bar - particularly those who actually do work for the public, and not (as this uber barrister undoubtedly will) for massive corporations in protracted commercial disputes where the public isn't involved at all - lives on the average wage or less. These are professional people who have spent years at university, and half of each intake will quit within the first two years because it is bloody difficult earning a living. Particularly for those who did not work as solicitors before they came to the Bar and do not have contacts in the area in which they want to practice.
So why's Hulls suddenly come out with this silly smokescreen? To cover up the state's miserable funding of Legal Aid. There are many, many matters in which members of the public are unable to be assisted in their legal matters unless they can find a pro bono scheme that will help - that's another thing, barristers regularly do pro bono work, ie they apply their professional skills to represent clients for no money whatsoever; how many people baying for barristers' blood regularly give up their day's work to help someone for free? - and that's entirely Hulls' department's fault. Legal Aid rates are a fraction of the market rate, so there are many solicitors and barristers who refuse to do legal aid work any more, further limiting access to the law for the poor.
"The real issue is that legal aid funding is hopelessly inadequate in this state, as it is across Australia," Mr Burnside said. "Legal aid is trimmed to fit the budget; the legal aid budgets should be expanded to meet need.
"The fact is that lots of people are throwing away their rights because they cannot afford the law, and legal aid will not help them."
Community legal centres and Victoria Legal Aid are seriously struggling with the lack of funding from Rob Hulls' department - and that's what's really making the law inaccessible for Victorians.
Hulls' grandstanding is quite outrageously cynical. He knows Hun readers will lap it up - the image of greedy lawyers growing fat on victims' misery is one it's been cultivating for years - and he knows it'll distract attention from the real failings in the system, that are pretty much universally his fault. You'll note he offers no solutions; he does not go into any specifics about the people missing out on access to the system, because as soon as he did it would be obvious that it's his department that has shut them out. (And, if anything, it's barristers doing pro-bono work that's helping keep things running anyway.)
It would be nice if Victorians - and sadly duped Herald Sun readers in particular - would see through his ruse and direct their outrage where it's deserved. Back at the cynical State Government that does not care about them.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a barrister, and I see the cracks in Hulls' system every day.
