Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It absolutely is a shame, Member for Shortland, because it has been a massive hit. It would have provided one solicitor working three days a week, and that funding should and must be restored.

To make matters worse, the recurrent funding to the community legal centres around the nation, as I said, is subject to savage cuts. The value of this service, I would say, cannot be measured in dollars alone because it is helping maintain social cohesion when families are in trouble and they cannot afford to pay for legal advice or representation. If you consider combined state and federal funding for the legal centres, there are a lot of others that get a lot more than this centre, yet this centre is potentially being squeezed out from an area of high need—after 18 years of high-quality service. It is certainly punching above its weight. We need this federal government to support it as a matter of equity, to ensure that people that are on low incomes are not denied access to legal representation.

I want to turn to another matter. Be it TAFE or private providers, we need people supporting vocational education in this country. I am happy either way, whether it is TAFE or private providers that are doing it. I, like many others, am keen to see more young people trained up for the work force. Given this, you can imagine my concern when I witnessed disturbing allegations this week on The 7.30 Report levelled at Evocca College's Mount Druitt campus. A few years ago, I was pleased to be involved in the launch of Evocca, and I do believe in the work that they do. They are providing an important service.

Evocca is one of the nation's biggest trainers and it is alleged to have undertaken some fairly unscrupulous practices when it comes to signing up students who, ultimately, may not graduate. Featured in this story this week was the Mount Druitt campus, which was alleged to have lured students into training courses by standing in shopping centres and handing over laptop computers and iPads. Some people attempted to sell those iPads at local pawn-broking shops. I am very concerned about these allegations. I think they undermine faith and confidence in the private training provider system, which I think is an important platform. I call on Evocca to thoroughly investigate these claims, attend to the concerns raised and make sure that students in our area get the quality education they deserve.

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