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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1466 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I would also maintain that other organisations on that list that Ms Tucker read out have a continuing role to play with respect to consumer credit advice. One of those organisations is the ACT Legal Aid Commission. It has both expertise in the area and the capacity and the charter to advise in that area, and it does, in fact, do so, Mr Speaker. Other organisations include the Salvation Army, which provides advice from time to time in this area.

I know that there is a certain sense of discomfort when one of a small number of players in a particular field has that activity wound back. That is unfortunate for the other players in that area. But the capacity is there, the training is there and those other organisations provide those sorts of services. I have no doubt that if Care ceases to provide a consumer credit legal service in the ACT, other organisations which have a demonstrated charter to do those things will pick up that slack.

MS TUCKER: I have a supplementary question. I have correspondence here from the Welfare Right and Legal Centre. Basically, they are saying that recent inquiries and judicial pronouncements make the point much more effectively than they can about the parlous state of legal aid in community legal service funding and the price communities pay when community services are allowed to run down. No organisation can stretch its limited resources to cover the work of the Care service.

Mr Humphries, the two organisations you have quoted have written to say that they are extremely concerned about the loss of this legal service. I just have to repeat my first question or ask you: how can you justify the claim that you have a caring government when this service is dealing with the most disadvantaged in our community in crisis and the people you say will pick up this work have said that they cannot?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I can only repeat my answer if Ms Tucker wishes to repeat her question. You get into a situation where every organisation which receives funding from government must continue to receive that money and nothing can be reduced, which leads ultimately to a situation where no new services can be provided because the public teat is fully occupied by existing players.

I am sorry, Mr Speaker, but it is not true to say that there are no alternative providers. My department has written to welfare rights and asked them to explain how, on the one hand, they say that they cannot cover the area that Care covers, but on the other their application for funding from my department or perhaps Mr Stefaniak's department actually specifies that they have expertise in this area and they conduct work in this area. The two statements are inconsistent.

Mr Hargreaves: You did not give them the money.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, that is not the case. It is before that point, Mr Hargreaves. Before that point it was clear that they had that inconsistency in their statements and I have asked them to explain the basis of that.

Mr Speaker, the basic fact remains that the consumer credit advisory service provided by Care was funded from payments made into court as penalties under the old credit legislation. It was fed from that consumer credit trust fund. The fund is now drying up.

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