Tasmania’s opposition is demanding answers over a massive jump in government legal fees, with documents showing spending has ballooned from around $100,000 in 2023 to $1.5 million in the year to March.
Labor’s Ella Haddad said the increase of more than 1,000% was revealed through right to information documents and called on Premier Jeremy Rockliff and Treasurer Eric Abetz to explain where the money went.
“Jeremy Rockliff and Treasurer Abetz need to be really clear about why there has been this massive over 1,000% increase in the use of taxpayers’ money on government legal fees,” Haddad said.
“Where has it been spent and why?”
Minister Jo Palmer said a large portion of the spending related to the Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse.
“A large proportion of those legal fees that have been assigned to the department have come as a result of the Commission of Inquiry,” Palmer said.
She pointed to significant bodies of work by Regina Weiss and Peter Walcott as driving the costs.
Palmer said the government wanted to be open about the spending and was working on updated guidelines.
“We want to be transparent in this space,” she said.
“We’re working with other MPs. We want to see those guidelines updated to ensure that the community does feel comfortable when they see those figures.”
Haddad said the government’s explanation was not enough without proper disclosure, pointing to more than $405,000 spent on former minister Jane Howlett’s legal fees and more than $120,000 on former minister Madeleine Ogilvie’s.
“That wasn’t actively disclosed by government,” Haddad said.
“That was drawn out of them like blood from a stone through parliamentary questioning from the opposition, from the Labor Party.”
Both Howlett and Ogilvie have since left cabinet. Howlett quit in June amid criticism over mounting costs and claims she misled parliament. Ogilvie resigned on May 30 after revealing involvement in a Supreme Court matter she had previously denied.
Haddad said Labor would expect a public disclosure log showing how much went to departmental costs and how much to individual ministers.
“It isn’t too much to ask that the government would be honest about where that money’s gone and why,” she said.
