Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have previously advised the Senate of the fact that my Senate office will shortly be opening on the Gold Coast, which will be the first time in about 20 years that the Gold Coast, which is Queensland's second biggest city, will have a senator based there. That will be a good development for the Gold Coast, to have more diverse representation than it has been used to in recent years. It was in that context that last week I was pleased to visit the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre in Southport with my good friend the shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus. We went along to the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre, both to see what kind of work they are doing with Gold Coast residents and also to highlight some terrible cuts which that CLC and many others right across Australia face in the coming weeks.

The Gold Coast Community Legal Centre, like many others around the country, does really important work for very vulnerable people. It covers areas such as tenancy law, employment law and consumer disputes along with minor criminal matters. Community legal centres such as the one at Southport perform an absolutely vital role in providing access to justice for people who could otherwise not afford to take legal action themselves and hire lawyers at their own expense. Some of the most important work that the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre does is in the area of domestic and family violence. Unfortunately, this is a scourge that we are seeing around Australia, and it is pleasing that so many people have spoken up against domestic and family violence in recent times. This community legal centre does really vital work in that space.

Unfortunately, for reasons we do not quite understand, domestic and family violence is a very big problem on the Gold Coast. In fact, it has been the scene of some well-publicised tragic murders of women by their former partners over the last year or two. Probably many members of this chamber, no matter where they live, have been disturbed by those reports that we have seen in recent times. In that context, it is not surprising that the number of domestic and family violence cases that are handled by the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre has risen fourteenfold in just the last four years. There has been a fourteenfold increase in the number of domestic and family violence cases handled by the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre in just four years. In raw numbers, that means that four years ago the community legal centre was handling about 60 domestic and family violence cases, and that number has spiralled to the 890 that it currently has on its books. Put another way: about three years ago, one-in-12 calls that the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre received for its services related to domestic and family violence; that has now increased to one-in-three calls being about this terrible crime that is committed against so many women and children across our country.

It is no exaggeration to say that the work of the Gold Coast Community Legal Centre, in providing legal advice to victims of domestic and family violence, is literally saving lives. The work that they perform includes providing duty lawyer services, and it is particularly important in the Gold Coast because it is the site of the only Domestic and Family Violence Specialist Court in Queensland. The service also provides nine outreach clinics across the Gold Coast.

Unfortunately, that incredibly important work is now at risk from funding cuts that this Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, is introducing from 1 July this year. Funding to community legal centres right across the country, including on the Gold Coast, will be cut by 30 per cent from 1 July this year, which is only a couple of months away. That is going to have dramatic consequences for community legal centres across Australia. On the Gold Coast, that is going to have particularly dire consequences. As a result of the funding increases that federal Labor provided last time we were in office, the Gold Coast was able to increase domestic violence services. This community legal centre now risks losing both of its specialist domestic violence lawyers. This means that the cuts that Senator Brandis is overseeing will literally put the lives of women and children in danger because they will no longer be able to get the legal assistance that they need to protect themselves from current or former partners.

In short, the government must stop these cuts. It is deeply unfortunate that not one of the Gold Coast LNP federal members—all four federal members from the Gold Coast are LNP—has spoken up against these cuts being imposed, despite the horrific number of incidents of domestic and family violence that we are seeing on the Gold Coast. I have today written to Senator Brandis asking him to reverse these cuts—

An opposition senator: Strongly worded?

a very strongly worded letter—and I am pleased to say that Labor will ensure that community legal centres are adequately funded in future. It is critical that Senator Brandis stops these cuts, to keep women and children on the Gold Coast safe.