Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With state government funding and immense community support and input the Whittlesea Community Legal Service was officially opened to the public on 1 June 2004. It operates as a program of the Whittlesea Community Connections and in its two years of operation has received great status within the community as a provider of valuable legal services. As one of the 38 legal centres throughout Victoria, Whittlesea Community Legal Service is one of only five that do not receive Commonwealth funding. Of the 33 legal centres that receive funding from the Commonwealth government they receive an average of about $150,000. So tonight on behalf of the Whittlesea Community Legal Service and the community that it caters for I urge the Commonwealth government to provide an equal amount of $150,000 at least to this valuable service.

If you look at the range of services that are provided by the Whittlesea Community Legal Service we see that it operates not just at its office based at Epping Plaza Shopping Centre alongside Whittlesea Community Connections; it provides outreach services to Whittlesea township, it provides outreach services at the Kildonan Child and Family Services in McDonald Road, Epping, and it provides outreach services in Mill Park through the Mill Park Neighbourhood House.

The service operates Monday to Friday from nine to five. Most of the casework takes place there, and the legal education and law reform work mostly takes place during those daylight hours. It runs a night service every Monday. It has gone out of its way to provide services that are appropriate to its local community. It provides a duty lawyer service at the Broadmeadows Magistrates Court. The night service is run by volunteer solicitors. The community legal education program involves not only going to schools but running programs like police power, safe partying and youth rights, and using Plenty Valley FM, a local community radio station, and the Macedonian community to provide valuable education work on legal services.

It has made great use of volunteers that do administration, research and casework, present talks and provide legal education for the community. There are something like 45 volunteers. In the month of June this year, the volunteers provided approximately 600 hours. So here is a legal service that is trying to get on with its job. But if we look at the statistics, there were something like 813 clients in the last financial year. Of these, there were approximately 613 family law matters. Information and referral services were provided to another 142 clients in family law matters.

The top 10 types of problems presenting at the community legal service in Whittlesea were: (1) child contact orders, (2) child residence, (3) divorce, (4) family and domestic violence orders, (5) other family law matters such as queries about parenting issues, (6) separation, (7) road traffic offences, (8) property and marriage, (9) other civil matters, and (10) motor vehicle accidents. They quite rightly place on the record that, as family law is directly involved with the Commonwealth government, that is a justification for Whittlesea Community Legal Service being one of only five of the 38 centres in Victoria that do not get funding.

This comes at a time when we have a real problem with the way that this government looks upon community legal services. In the May budget there was no increase in funding, not even a CPI increase in funding. Recently, the Attorney-General indicated that he wants to look at the way legal centres receive their cash. This was not by way of a ministerial statement but by writing in a Liberal Party journal called the Party Room, where he claims that it is time for community legal reforms. He claims that community legal centres are too political. I do not wish to get into that debate today, but why would the Attorney-General want to create a situation where free speech cannot be seen to be in action? I can assure the Attorney-General that the Whittlesea Community Legal Service is providing services for the people in our community that are in need and those who are disadvantaged, and it is certainly making sure that access to justice— (Time expired)