Senator David Shoebridge (Greens, NSW) is like a dog with a bone. Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw.
The Federal Court’s bean counters are in his unforgiving sights as he presses for answers on items of expenditure, specifically the money spent on internal legal services.
What emerges is puzzling, and suggests that the court’s management has run out of fingers, toes and other digits which could assist its counting.
The court established the Office of General Counsel in 2021 under Scott Tredwell in Brisbane – assisting the CJ and CEO (Sia Lagos) with administrative affairs; coordinating rule changes and legislative amendments; assisting with judicial complaints; secretarial services for judicial committees; FOI; and “information governance”, i.e preparing answers to Shoebridge’s questions on notice.
The Wayback Machine shows that for 2022-23 the court disclosed that it had spent $0 on internal legal services. The same figure was given for 2021-22.
In answer to a question on notice from the good senator, the court revised the 2022-23 figure and said it was now $674,206 for internal legal services.
It’s possible that a difference of that dimension is an easy mistake to make.
Then in the following year, 2023-24, the court initially claimed, after prodding by Shoebridge, that the internal legal services expenditure was $706,897 only to be followed by an adjusted figure of $933,409, which emerged after another question on notice.
This is only $200,000 over the “true amount” and includes costs associated with both the Office of General Counsel and the Director of Legal and Integrity for the FCFC.
Shoebridge has asked the Australian National Audit Office to look into this, because:
“I have received advice informally from some in the agency that the $933,000 figure falls well below the actual amount spent.”
He adds:
“This may seem a relatively marginal matter but it follows a pattern across agencies who consistently claim they are unable to account for their internal and external legal costs thereby significantly reducing public scrutiny of these costs. Clearly any reasonable accounting system in a Government agency should be able to provide an accurate snapshot of these costs.”
Further, in answer to questions on notice about the Native Title Tribunal’s expenditure on internal legal services, Shoebridge is fobbed off with the puzzling response that the tribunal’s “Director of Legal and Compliance is not a dedicated internal legal services unit, not does it provide internal legal services”.
A figure of $136,292 has been given to the senator for salaries associated with the NNTT’s Director of Legal Compliance: $136,292, between February-June 2024.
On the one hand the advice is there are no “dedicated” internal legal services for the NNTT and on the other there is money for salaries associated with legal compliance issues.
Whether the NNTT has a dedicated legal services unit is irrelevant to the reporting obligations under the Legal Service Direction.
There’s more meat on the bone for Sen Shoebridge to gnaw on.
See also: The law and its miracles – More muddled headed number crunching at the FCA