Page 4623 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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government is committed to access to justice and is exploring short-term and long-term options to address this situation.
We have a short-term option for the Women’s Legal Centre, which is a very undesirable option. We do know that the Women’s Legal Centre was in a situation where they had to hot desk—rostering people off to make sure that they were not there at the same times as their colleagues because there was not enough space for them. It is an entirely unsuitable arrangement. It was difficult for all staff of the community legal centre to be in the same building at the same time, even to meet. There was no collegiality.
The short-term solution which they were forced to accept—extra accommodation in Lyneham—does not actually address those issues. They are not hot-desking people anymore, but because they are divided between two sites they do not get to meet. They do not get to have the ebb and flow of ideas around the coffee table or any of those sorts of things. It is hard to consult with your colleague about what might be the best approach in a particular case because your colleague is in another building quite some distance away.
These are the problems. There have been some works done at Havelock House. But as any of us who have visited Havelock House and seen the conditions under which the community legal services operate—the Tenants Union, the Women’s Legal Service and others—will know, they are unacceptable. They are deplorable.
Members of the Tenants Union had to vacate some of their offices because the showers on the next floor up were leaking into their offices. This is deplorable. This says a whole lot about the government’s management of its built asset. They do not do it very well. Just like the situation we had in relation to Housing ACT and the property on the Barton Highway, we have the same thing with Havelock House where there are not enough resources to make sure that it is managed appropriately.
That said, we are in support of moving forward. We believe that there needs to be a feasibility study done. We believe that as a community we need to have a conversation about how best to house these people. Mr Corbell says that money spent on rent or money spent on a new building is money that is not spent on legal services.
At the moment the resources of the legal services are being frittered away because they are no co-located. Every way you look at it, resources are not being spent on legal services because of the accommodation. At the moment we have inappropriate accommodation which makes it hard for people to do their job. We can have better accommodation and we may pay more for it. The attorney seems from time to time to be having a problem with the difference between capital expenditure and recurrent expenditure. If we put money into a building, that would be capital expenditure and that is the sort of thing that he would criticise us for.
I think that this is an important motion. I think that the community legal services deserve the attention of the Legislative Assembly. They deserve the recognition of the Legislative Assembly for the work that they do. But let us get serious about this. Let us not have another platitudinous paper and another platitudinous motion. Let us get
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