Page 2621 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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In last year’s budget—of course Mr Hanson does not mention this—we made significant investments in support for community legal centres in the ACT, funding to provide for the establishment of a community legal hub. That funding has been delivered and community legal services now have a comprehensive, well established, integrated workspace for them to collaborate and get the synergies and efficiencies that arise from that. We will continue to work with the community legal centres in that regard.
This government has sustained and maintained funding for important services that it funded to establish, such as Street Law and the legal aid help desk. Mr Hanson commends Legal Aid on the legal aid help desk, but of course that was provided for by funding through the government’s budget. And the legal aid help desk is providing many hundreds of Canberrans with quick and easy access to basic legal advice to help them to resolve basic legal problems or concerns.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR CORBELL: He congratulates the commission for it, but of course it was funded by the government. The government provided the funding for that service to be delivered, and I as the minister sponsored the budget initiative that provided for that service. Madam Assistant Speaker, I am simply highlighting the hypocrisy on the part of those opposite when they are critical of ministers directly when they fail to fund things, but congratulate the organisation only when those services are provided.
The government has also provided significant funding in this year’s budget to the Aboriginal Legal Service, another community legal centre that provides support to Indigenous people needing legal advice and legal representation. That will increase the number of duty solicitors on duty to assist Indigenous people when they come before the court for first-instance hearings in the Magistrates Court. That is another very important protection, an improvement in legal representation for the disadvantaged in our community.
The government maintains a strong program and a strong agenda to support community legal services and legal aid services in the territory. There is always demand. I work very hard to ensure that, wherever possible, we secure those additional resources in conjunction with the Legal Aid Commission, the board of the commission, the chief executive and community legal centres, and I will continue to do so.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.42): I stand to speak again. I should correct the record.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Lawder): You are taking your second 10 minutes, Mr Hanson?
MR HANSON: Yes. It was clearly an error for me to congratulate the Legal Aid Commission when it was all Simon Corbell, based on what we have heard from the minister. Simon Corbell, it is all about you: you did it all, and not the Legal Aid Commission. Well done, Simon; fantastic. That is what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it, Simon? “It’s all about me.”
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