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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2393 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

women-and men. Mr Stanhope is correct in saying that it is more likely for women, particularly in domestic situations, to be victims of violence and more likely still, I understand, for them to be victims of sexual assault. I have not seen recent research on that, but I doubt it would have changed a lot. In that recommendation the Estimates Committee is asking that sexual assault be brought into the whole question of sexual health and that that we should address not only how we support victims of sexual assault, but also how to stop sexual assault by teaching people that they cannot ever think it is okay to have sexual relationships with anybody, male or female, unless there is full consent and the other person is an adult.

The question of responsibility in sexual health education is really important. I think that came up in the community through the media debate on what happened at the Summernats and the comments made by various community leaders and members of the judiciary, from memory, that there is still a rather frightening notion that somehow men, in particular, are uncontrollable and if a woman is in a vulnerable position, for whatever reason, she has to expect that something will happen to her. Clearly, that is not acceptable.

The question of legal aid and community access to legal support is an important part of any debate on justice. It also came up in the estimates process. There is a recommendation that the ACT should talk to New South Wales about regional clients. That is a fairly controversial recommendation in some ways, I would have thought, because the federal government is taking responsibility for funding the regional clients. We know that the providers of legal aid have been put into the situation where they do not have enough support and resources to deal with the work load and it will be the regional people who will miss out.

A report has just been produced in Victoria by the Law Reform Commission on community access to legal support in rural areas of Victoria. I have only seen a summary of the report, but it confirms statements here that women, in particular, in rural areas are missing out on matters to do with family law, property and so on. A significant gender issue is coming out of that particular inadequacy in resourcing and that needs to be acknowledged. I intend to get a full copy of that report and raise it again in this Assembly. because it supports what came up in the estimates process through our own Legal Aid Commission.

Finally, I wish to make a couple of comments on the prison. I am very concerned about a letter I received from the Women and Prison Working Group, which I had contact with fairly early in the piece when we started talking about the possibility of having our own prison. I received a letter from that group informing me that they are very unhappy with how the whole consultation process has worked.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MS TUCKER: I wish to take my second 10 minutes, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: You may proceed.

MS TUCKER: I would like to read the letter from that group into the record. The letter was from Jacqui Pearce on behalf of the Women and Prison Working Group and reads:

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