Page 2957 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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It must be understood, Madam Speaker, that legal aid is not only about appearing in court; it is about clarifying rights and obligations; it is about answering often simple questions about the law; it is about consoling people who have all forms of legal difficulty; and it is about duty lawyer services which can range from simple advice to making applications before the Magistrates Court. Members may not be aware, Madam Speaker, that the Magistrates Court operates on weekends and public holidays and that legal aid is always there. Members may not be aware that legal aid duty solicitors worked until 11.00 pm one evening during the Aidex display to deal with over 200 people brought to the court as a result of police action outside the National Exhibition Centre. Whatever our views of that demonstration, it may be a legal record that the office successfully defended over 240 people at the one time.
I am very pleased to see, Madam Speaker, the vigour with which the commission has adopted equal employment opportunity principles. Eighty-nine per cent of its staff are women and, what for me is more important, 16 of the 18 legal staff are women. Of the seven most senior positions, Madam Speaker, four are held by women, including one of the two statutory executive officer positions. Madam Speaker, the ACT Legal Aid Commission provides a necessary service to the Canberra community. At times the demands on the staff of the commission are great and at times not everyone can be assisted, but I must stress that the Legal Aid Commission's services continue to improve and the Canberra community continues to be served well by the legal officers and other staff at the commission.
MR STEVENSON (5.47): Can there be anything more important than justice? Mr Humphries mentioned earlier that justice is expensive. I would suggest that justice cannot be expensive. If it is, it cannot be justice. Justice requires that particular action be available to all. If it is too expensive, you lose one of the major factors that would make something just. Secondly, it would need to be fast enough so that someone did not have a particular problem or charge hanging over their head for years. It should not be so fast that the full facts cannot be heard, but the idea that it should run on for years makes things unjust. The third point that is a requirement of justice is that the action, the decision, be just. All too often in Australia, unfortunately, although nowhere near as often as in some countries, actions are not just. It may be that the case of the man who was bashed in Los Angeles would seem to be an unjust situation from the video footage that we have seen.
But what are the other reasons why we have problems with justice? Surely, one of the reasons must be that laws cannot be understood by most people and therefore people specially trained in understanding laws are required to help us with them. During debate on what must be called the unfair trading Bill because it cannot be understood by people that it targets, I received three different statements on what a particular clause to do with credit cards means - two today and one earlier. Three different lawyers gave three different statements as to what the clause means. My own view is different again, so that makes it four. No-one would deny that the legislation that we are churning - I use the word advisedly - out of this Assembly is not able to be understood by most people in Canberra, not even the people who are involved in the particular area that we are legislating against. This is not just. It cannot be just.
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