Page 3484 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
What this has amounted to is the government imposing its will on the profession without prior discussion. This has resulted far too often in a public discussion about technical legal details being thrashed out by the profession and the attorney via the media. This hardly makes for good policy development.
The Greens would be taking a different approach. We would recognise that the only way to create cultural change in the profession is to take the time to sit down and have an honest discussion. As the profession are the ones who will ultimately implement any reforms on a day-to-day basis, they must feel ownership of the decision, rather than having it imposed from above.
The ultimate example of this was the Supreme Court blitz. This was the result of the profession and the government sitting down and agreeing a plan. That plan has worked. This shows there is goodwill and energy on both sides to make a difference and cut into the backlog.
The Greens’ message today is that over the next year and over coming years, there need to be more examples of collaboration, like the blitz, and far fewer examples of the government developing policy in isolation and without consultation.
Turning away from the need for cultural change, I would like to focus on one very positive aspect of this year’s budget. It is the continued investment in Street Law, which is a Greens initiative included in the parliamentary agreement. Funding for Street Law is continued for the next three years, and it is certainly welcome. Street Law is a free legal service for homeless people or those at risk of becoming homeless. It is a crucial investment because it helps people resolve legal issues before they snowball into a court appearance.
The continued funding and investment are about access to justice through early investment in legal issues. Spending a relatively small amount of time and money at the start of a legal problem is so much more efficient than waiting until it requires court adjudication. Because people who live in situations of homelessness or on the edge of it are often on a knife edge, living from fortnight to fortnight and dreading an unexpected bill or a fine that will push them over the edge into homelessness, early investment brings immediate benefits.
I turn away from that positive note to an issue of continuing frustration for the Greens: the lack of a community legal centre hub here in the ACT. This is a long-running issue with a very clear and well-articulated solution to fix the problem. As I understand it, and Mrs Dunne has been clear about this tonight, the opposition support the concept of a CLC hub. The Greens certainly support it and the CLCs themselves support it. The benefit of a CLC hub is that it would deliver more legal assistance to people who cannot afford a lawyer. We know that currently community legal centres are turning away pro bono lawyers and that all they need is extra space.
What is included in the budget can best be described as a short-term fix. Money is included to split the women’s legal centre away from its two current co-tenants at Havelock House, the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre and the Tenants Union. This
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video