Ms SPENCE – My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Attorney‑General. The action I seek is for him to provide an update to Yuroke residents on what actions the government is taking to improve access to justice for disadvantaged residents. It is very likely that most people at some point in their lives will require legal assistance with a dispute they are having. Whether it is a dispute with a neighbour or a family law matter, it is vital that people are able to access sound legal advice no matter their background or income. We know how expensive legal assistance can be, even in seemingly minor cases. Bills can run into thousands of dollars, which is a major deterrence to people enforcing their legal rights. That is why access to justice is so vital. I thank the Attorney‑General for his hard work in this area, and I look forward to his response.

Response:

The member for Yuroke raised a matter for me seeking information about access to justice in Yuroke. Of course, as the member well knows, Victorians who live in Yuroke and in the City of Hume are served by the Victoria Legal Aid office of Broadmeadows but also by the Northern Community Legal Centre, which provides outreach services in Craigieburn and elsewhere around the northern corridor. In response to the member’s adjournment matter, I can advise her of a couple of things. First of all, we recently responded to the Access to Justice review with our acceptance of almost all the recommendations plus almost $35 million worth of funding. That funding will go to legal aid to provide additional grants for expanded‑duty lawyer services, an expansion of the legal help telephone service, a digital translator and interpreting services. Some of that money will also go to VCAT and the courts to expand alternative dispute resolution, to provide self‑represented litigant support services and to improve online material for people engaging with our courts and VCAT, and we have provided funding for online dispute resolution pilots that are going to be run by VCAT.

In addition to that, I can say to the member for Yuroke that we have also provided almost $25 million of funding for our community legal sector. We obviously planned for what we thought were going to be those federal government cuts, which were thankfully reversed at the very last minute, but the money that we were going to put in to fill that hole we are putting in anyway. We are putting in that money anyway, and that will mean over $6 million over two years to ensure community legal centres can continue to provide services to disadvantaged Victorians. We are going to continue the Community Legal Centre Assistance Fund – that is $1 million every year for the next four years.

We are also funding integrated service partnerships. The member may well know about some of those services. I know the member for Ivanhoe knows that in Banyule there is that community health partnership. We are going to be providing $2.4 million over four years for more of those integrated service partnerships. We are going to be continuing to support JobWatch, and we will support the Federation of Community Legal Centres with funding as well. We will continue with $10.3 million over four years – the continuation of the family violence duty lawyer fund and the Community Legal Centre Family Violence Fund, both of which would have otherwise lapsed on 30 June this year.