Page 2956 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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The commission helps many custodial parents to obtain fair and proper maintenance payments from the liable parent. It does this by inviting those parents to an information session, helping them with their court documents, serving the documents, explaining to the parent all that is going on, and, if the liable parent is not cooperating, taking the matter, on a grant of legal aid, to court to allow the court to set the correct figure for maintenance. Many of the men and women in the position of not receiving proper maintenance are financially deprived and are unable to care for their children properly. A typical applicant has told the commission that she - I note here that it is usually a she, but not necessarily always - could never have got through the ordeal of court proceedings without the encouragement and help that the commission gives. One mother told the chief executive officer that she had been very scared of the whole legal process before Legal Aid assisted her in her case. The help that she received has allowed her to care for her child properly.
Madam Speaker, many people are in a position of crisis when they come to Legal Aid. I know that on many occasions people - a lot of them children - are in total emotional turmoil. I am aware that in the past some have been so distraught that they have been unable to speak to a lawyer. Others have come to the office with fresh blood on their face and others are so traumatised by their experiences that they are unable to tell easily what has happened to them. Who of us could forget the tragic story printed by the Canberra Times over a year ago about the young woman, Louise, who had battled so valiantly to have the system believe her account of family abuse. I know that the author of the article, Marion Frith, won an award for the professional standard of her work, and she thoroughly deserved it. Perhaps when we are discussing legal aid this afternoon we should look at the role that the office played in Louise's eventual vindication, and we should remember the hours of support, well beyond any normal working expectation, which she was given by the officers of the Legal Aid Commission.
Madam Speaker, we would all appreciate that cases such as Louise are all too familiar. In fact, such cases take up an enormous amount of our community's resources, and it is a community such as ours that sees fit to provide such a service. However, a community such as ours simply cannot help everybody who asks. The staff of the Legal Aid Commission are devoted to their work and they provide an excellent service; but, Madam Speaker, the commission has to set priorities and it has to set guidelines. I am pleased to say, Madam Speaker, that the people who most need the assistance of Legal Aid get it. None of us are happy about the fact that some deserving people may miss out.
Having said this, Madam Speaker, I must emphasise that the commission is continually looking at as many ways as possible to help as many people as possible in the ACT to obtain access to justice. As a result, the service provided is improving. Its programs of information and other legal resource help which I have mentioned earlier are a fine example of a healthy social justice program stretching itself in difficult economic times to assist as many people as possible. They are proactively helping disadvantaged ACT people understand that they do have rights and obligations. This assistance is not direct legal representation, but I hope that these programs will eventually help reduce demand on the more usual legal services sought from legal practitioners from both Legal Aid and the private sector.
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