Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to address something that is deeply personal to my professional career as a practising lawyer.

We seek to live in a just society. But there can be no just society without access to justice for the disadvantaged and vulnerable. I stand here today after having served 30 years as a legal practitioner in private practice, both as a commercial and a commercial litigation lawyer. I know the pressures of private practice, but have a deep and abiding respect for the legal professionals and volunteers who supply legal services in our legal aid and community legal sectors, always struggling to address demand in the face of constraints in funding.

I have represented both individual and corporate clients and, because the nature of Tasmania, many family businesses. I know that many people from ordinary or average backgrounds cannot hope to afford legal advice, and as a consequence either are unable or unwilling to enforce their rights when those rights are at risk.

I have a deep understanding of the great importance that the Launceston Community Legal Centre plays in my community—I dare say more than any other member who may have recently represented this northern Tasmanian community. The Launceston Community Legal Centre, with its dedicated staff and legal practitioner volunteers, has been helping our local community for 31 years. Just in this last year I attended a celebration of its service to the community. However, the centre is currently under significant financial stress. It has already turned away 530 Bass residents, without any assistance, due to constraints on its funding. On 1 July this year it will be facing a massive 30 per cent cut if this government does not act immediately. That is a funding short fall of $413,000 and equates to 1½ solicitors. What this means for the centre is that it will be gravely worse than at present, having to turn away 530 Bass constituents thanks to cuts in funding and neglect by Senator George Brandis and the Turnbull government.

The Launceston Community Legal Centre has helped thousands of people around northern Tasmania who are in need of free legal assistance and who do not qualify for legal aid. They are on the front line in the battle against domestic violence, and assist people with problems as diverse as Centrelink debt, tenancy disputes and employment issues. On a day when we celebrate the role of women for International Women's Day in events in this place, we must acknowledge that many victims of family violence are women and children who must receive legal advice, not as a matter of convenience but as a vital part of access to justice. Now due to this incompetent Attorney-General this centre is set to lose 30 per cent of its funding, which will seriously jeopardise its ability to operate. In the Labor Party we know that for every dollar of government funding the return on investment is more than $17; that is value for money.

It was the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1973 who understood the importance of access to justice, particularly for those who could least afford to pay for it. A formal system of legal aid, the Australian Legal Aid Office was established. Funding of legal aid is a constant issue, in that the legal aid system nationwide has been starved of funding. The Community Legal Centres were designed to supplement access to legal aid, given that many people would not be eligible for scarce legal aid funding; either due to their assets, or to their means or to the nature of the legal problem.

The centres are innovative and flexible, delivering local solutions, with volunteer legal practitioners extending the reach of the service in advice clinics. I am proud that my former legal firm supported the Launceston Community Legal Centre with volunteers, as have other legal firms who recognise the importance of the service to the community.

The centre has been running a pilot program, the Community Legal Literacy Program, which aims to improve document literacy and problem solving in communities by training individuals who are often called upon to help others—whether in the role of a worker, friend or community leader—to work through issues before they require legal advice or intervention.

When in government, Labor delivered Community Legal Centres a funding injection worth more than $70 million over four years. Now, Senator Brandis is taking that funding away and trying to blame Labor. This is an Attorney-General so incompetent and so out of touch that he has barely been able to bring himself to visit more than a handful of Community Legal Centres.

Labor calls on the government to reverse these cruel cuts as a matter of urgency. Vulnerable people in Launceston and in the wider community are at risk. I will continue to advocate on behalf of Launceston Community Legal Centre.