Page 706 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 17 March 2015
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role played by the Women’s Legal Centre and by other community legal centres in the territory is critically important.
The community legal centres—which also include Street Law, Canberra Community Law, the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Environmental Defender’s Office—are an incredibly efficient way to use limited funding for legal services, as their front-line delivery and advocacy save costs further down the line. A recent independent economic cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the National Association of Community Legal Centres determined that every dollar the government spends on community legal centres returns $18 of economic benefits accrued to society. These include financial, social and health benefits as well as removing pressure on the court system. Like other community legal centres, the Women’s Legal Centre is a cost-effective provider of legal services. Its own analysis of its finances and services is that it provides almost a sevenfold return on investment.
As the motion outlines, the Women’s Legal Centre and other important community legal services are having their federal funding cut. This will result in a reduction in staff and a reduction in services, possibly even closure of these incredibly valuable services. This is an issue right across the country, and it is being discussed today. I know the local Women’s Legal Centre will do their best to maintain their services, but these sorts of cuts are really putting pressure on them. The consequences will flow directly through to the most vulnerable in the community—women affected by domestic violence, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, homeless people, people who are struggling with their finances. Fewer people in the ACT community will be able to be seen and helped by the women’s legal service.
There will be directly negative outcomes in our community because of these cuts by the federal government. It should be about the last area in which we seek to find savings if we are looking to change the fiscal situation; services that help the most vulnerable and do so very efficiently and cheaply should be the sorts of things we remain committed to investing in and the last thing to be targeted when it comes to finding budget savings.
It is very welcome that all of the states and territories have come together to call on the federal government to revisit this decision and commit to no further funding cuts to these services. I congratulate and thank the attorneys-general for their work in this space in collectively making this statement to the federal government and underlining the importance of the community legal centres. On that basis, I am very happy to support the motion—and the text, which I understand directly reflects the calls that the attorneys have collectively put to the federal government.
The last area I wanted to touch on today concerns corrections. As part of my role as the Minister for Justice, I have sought from Corrective Services information that I wanted to share with the Assembly about some of the ways in which Corrective Services seeks to provide support around issues of domestic and family violence. This is an area that ACT Corrective Services takes very seriously, and it has programs in place to address the rehabilitation of offenders with a history of family violence.
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