Tricky bits in the budget

Polly Peck sniffs out some of the weirder corners of the federal budget … Drug money propping up the surplus … And access to justice takes a biff 

Among the measures announced in this week's budget there was one particularly crass and small-minded item. 

Reliance on the tainted vote of Craig Thomson is bad enough, but hooking into the tainted loot of drug barons takes us to a different level of irksomeness.

All the money in the confiscated assets account is to be sent to consolidated revenue, by way of a teeny contribution towards the budget surplus. 

It means goodbye to funds earmarked for drug, alcohol and diversionary services, which came out of the confiscated assets account. 

Anyway, there's probably no votes there, just as there are no votes anywhere.

It was wrapped in alluring budgetese - a "deferral of expenditure" of $60 million over four years from the confiscated assets account to be "redirected to support other government priorities".

Who said crime doesn't pay ?

Then there is the redirection of funding from the indigenous law and justice programs in the Attorney General's Department to "community safety initiatives" under the Northern Territory intervention. 

That's code for taking money away from indigenous legal aid and early intervention programs and putting more police on the ground in Aboriginal communities. 

It also means Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin is still gouging money out of AGD.

And there's a useful $8.8 million for the Commonwealth DPP to beef-up prosecutions of people smuggling crew and organisers. 

More money for "surveillance of Ashmore Reef" presumably will appeal to rusted-on haters of "queue jumpers". 

The Federal Court emerges as one of the few institutional winners in the budget, although it's a bit of a curate's egg. 

Chief executive Warwick Soden continues to build his empire by taking control of the administration of the National Native Title Tribunal and over $19 million a year from its bloated budget. 

Tribunal president Graeme Neate will no doubt be on the phone to ministers' offices, but his execution warrant had already been signed by Stephen Skehill.

Skehill was given the job of providing the cover for the carve up of the tribunal.

At the same time Soden will have to raise an additional $77 million in court fees. 

Access to justice ... yakkity yak. 

Polly