Best of 2025 - Dreyfus leaves little legacy |
In his term as attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus failed to address many big issues.
A repost from 10 May 2025
Dreyfus’ legacy as attorney-general is, at best, very modest. In fact, come to think of it, he was perfectly suited to the style of the Albanese Government. Incremental change and a refusal, post the Voice referendum loss, to embark on any of what the great former Labor prime minister Paul Keating called “big picture” initiatives.
Other than creating the new Administrative Review Tribunal to replace the deeply politicised AAT — an easy piece of work because many members of the latter transitioned into the ART — Dreyfus tinkered with other matters requiring attention.
It remains a fact that access to justice is as problematic as ever, and legal aid budgets across the nation are stretched thin. On the latter, consider that Dreyfus announced in last year’s budget he was “providing an urgent injection of $44.1 million in 2024-25 to provide an immediate funding boost to the legal assistance sector to ensure that more Australians have access to justice and equality before the law”.
Big deal. Here’s the reality. In Tasmania, where this writer does some work, the legal aid body has had to cut back on representation for some of the most disadvantaged members of the community because the cupboard is nearly bare. Legal Aid Tasmania’s........