Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Community legal services are a cornerstone for accessing justice. They matter because your bank balance should not determine whether you can secure desperately needed support with respect to legal challenges. Every week, I have constituents contacting me, normally highly distressed and overwhelmed by the legal system, struggling to navigate it and seeking assistance—and I'm sure you experience the same thing, Deputy Speaker Archer. Those issues can be related to family matters, domestic and family violence, and consumer protections. As members of parliament, we can't provide any legal advice, but what we can do is direct our constituents to community legal centres and their amazing teams.

Community legal centres are based in local communities, they focus on clients and they work across a spectrum of areas—family law, credit, debt, consumer law, family violence, housing, elder abuse and elder law—which is an area that is desperately needing more support, particularly for older people who perhaps have a bereavement with respect to their partner, at which things can get very messy with other people in the family—employment, and social security support. In Mayo, the Southern Community Justice Centre take on general legal, civil, criminal and family matters. They have a vast reach, from Christies Beach down to Mount Gambier and the Riverland, the south coast and Kangaroo Island—the area is enormous, and it must be overwhelming for them.

The summary of Community Legal Centres Australia's response to the 2023-24 federal budget recognises that the government has committed funding to some important initiatives to support people with financial hardships, but expresses disappointment that few resources were put towards improving access to justice and interventions. This is an area where a dollar spent in the community legal centre space provides tenfold support for the community. The more people we can get out of the courts, whom we can support with remedies without going through what is a very stressful and a very costly experience, the better. The member for Dunkley has moved that the government be acknowledged for commencing an independent review into the National Legal Assistance Partnership—known as 'the agreement'—which is the main funding framework for the sector. We know that this agreement is set to expire in June 2025, so commencing a review now does seem a very timely and sensible thing to do.

But I am concerned, when I look at the figures, that community legal centres turned away an estimated 170,000 people in 2016 due to a lack of capacity. That was seven years ago. We know that these services are oversubscribed and that many people who desperately need support are not able to access support. I urge the government to factor indexation into all funding agreements going forward to manage high inflation. I also suggest peak bodies, such as Community Legal Centres Australia, be funded to provide support for centres. I'd also like to see measures to level the field and remove the postcode lottery for regional and rural Australians to access community legal services. They really are few and far between. When you get out into the regions, it's very difficult for people to access support, particularly when you've got to factor in that we don't have the public transport so that people can necessarily get into Christies Beach or even down to Mount Gambier. It makes it very challenging. I guess it's like health and a range of other policy areas, where, if you live in the regions, you are generally far worse off.

It's important that we recognise the value of our community legal centres. I would like to do a shout-out to all of the people who are working today in community legal centres right across Australia: thank you for the good work you do. I know that many of our constituents have been forwarded on. We advocate for more support, but it's critically important that we recognise the great work that people do. I sometimes think they're a social worker and a lawyer rolled into one. Thank you, community legal services.

See this speech in context