Page 1593 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The reduction in funding for services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is directly contrary to the commonwealth’s assessment of legal need. The commonwealth Productivity Commission is right now circulating its report on access to justice, and that report finds significant unmet legal need, particularly for the vulnerable and the poor in our community. That commission’s draft report found that those most likely to have unmet legal need include women, Indigenous Australians, people with a disability and people who are unemployed. So these cuts to ACT legal aid are a direct attack on front-line services. They are a direct attack on the poor. They are a direct attack on the disadvantaged, and they are to the detriment to some of the most vulnerable in our community—women, Indigenous Australians, people with a disability and people who are unemployed. It means that fewer of these people will get the legal representation they need and deserve.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Gentleman.
MR GENTLEMAN: Attorney, can you please expand on the impact these cuts will have on staffing levels at Legal Aid ACT?
MR CORBELL: I think Mr Gentleman for his supplementary. I am advised by Legal Aid ACT that the impact financially is $400,000 for 2014-15. That is at least 2½ full-time staff and money that is being used to help, as I was saying earlier, the most disadvantaged in our community.
Looking at the potential impact on the Legal Aid Commission, it is clear that this decision does threaten access to justice. What we know is that it will adversely impact on front-line services and it will have an impact on jobs—people employed in the Legal Aid Commission. It is not as though the federal budget is just having an impact on commonwealth agencies; these impacts are now starting to reverberate on agencies in the states and the territories.
Let us look at what this funding would have otherwise provided and the services these staff would otherwise have delivered: 20 dispute resolution conferences, 43 grants in family property law matters to low income earners, employment of a staff member to expand help desk services and community legal education, matching of funding provided by this Labor government in the ACT to jointly fund an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander client service officer position, and the employment of another Indigenous person—a worker to develop the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dispute resolution program and deliver targeted services to Indigenous community members across many areas of the law.
That is the impact of this cut. It is mean, it is harsh, it is disproportionate in its impact and it will directly hinder the ability of the vulnerable and low income earners in our community to get access to the legal services they need.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Attorney, can you further expand on how services will be impacted in the ACT as a result of these cuts?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video