Page 1413 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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I am sure all members in this place aspire to making a just and fair society. At the same time we await a federal budget and get caught up in its politics.
What basic services do we have a right to as citizens? Who pays for them—the user or society? Ensuring the weakest and most vulnerable in society have the same capacity to assert their rights as the wealthiest and most powerful is something we battle with continually.
We might all agree on the ideal of equal access to justice, but it has many social, economic and legal meanings in practice. Community legal centres are one solution to providing better access to justice for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. I recently visited Canberra’s new community legal centres hub across Barry Drive on the corner of Watson Street in Turner. Whilst the services are federally funded, the ACT government provided just over a million dollars in assistance over four years for the services to move out of their cramped, old accommodation in Havelock House. Minister Corbell opened the new hub in March.
The free legal services, advice and education that the centre provides to women, people with a disability, Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders and people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness are a benefit to all Canberrans as a whole. They help make us a fairer society, providing those most in need with someone to advocate on their behalf.
The new hub brings together three ACT community legal centres—the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre, the Women’s Legal Centre and the Tenants Union ACT. Together they help individuals with their legal problems, sometimes requiring legal representation. They are also involved in outreach work, rights education, taking part in a wide range of local and sometimes national forums and advocacy on behalf of law reform.
The Women’s Legal Centre also houses the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s law and justice support program, which I would like to highlight, as it is funded by the ACT government. Its Aboriginal staff, the program manager and project worker, have strong connections to the Canberra community and ensure clients have ready access to culturally appropriate law and justice services. Staff liaise with a range of services with or on behalf of clients to see that they get the help they need.
Use of the program’s services by Indigenous women grew by over 20 per cent from the previous year. Their main issues include children, family violence, discrimination, property and employment. The program is involved in outreach activities across the community and assisted in organising women’s yarning circles, including with the ACT community’s elected body. The program manager is also part of the Galambany circle sentencing process within the ACT Magistrates Court.
As an aside, I would like to note that the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice agreement between the ACT government and the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body is making steady progress in improving outcomes and an understanding of ways forward.
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