Ms SPENCE (Yuroke) — (12 478) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Attorney-General, and the action I seek is that the Attorney-General provide an update on how the cuts by the federal Liberal Turnbull government will affect community legal services in my electorate and what the Andrews Labor government is doing to ensure that residents have access to good-quality legal advice regardless of their income.

I have spoken about the importance of community legal centres and their services in this place on several occasions. As a volunteer solicitor with the former Broadmeadows Community Legal Service, I know how important they are. Without the vital work that these services provide in Yuroke many people simply would not get the advice and support they need when facing legal issues, the implications of which can be dire.

It is alarming to me and the Yuroke community that the federal government has abandoned the community legal service sector, with savage cuts of nearly 30 per cent of commonwealth funding. On behalf of all those that rely on community legal services, I thank the minister for his work in this area and I look forward to his response.

Response – extract from Hansard:

There were two other matters raised for me: one by the member for Yuroke and one by the member for Eildon in regard to community legal centres (CLCs). Rather than respond twice on the same matter, let me say, first of all in regard to the member for Yuroke’s contribution, the government is keenly aware of the potential impact of the pending cuts by the federal government that are due to come into effect on 1 July this year. The government, as the member I hope knows, has taken a range of actions to try to buttress the finances of our CLC sector over the past two years, which I will go into more detail about in my response to the member for Eildon.

The member for Eildon raised a similar matter in her adjournment debate, and I would describe the contribution and the request as somewhat extraordinary and a bit disappointing. The fact is that the commonwealth is from 1 July this year going to cut some $3 million from Victorian community legal centres. That is not the total of the commonwealth cuts; they are making these cuts to community legal centres right across Australia. Other states and territories, in particular New South Wales, which has a Liberal government and which agrees with the position of the Victorian government, are going to feel those cuts very keenly as well.

The Victorian government in anticipation of reduced funding from the commonwealth has done a number of things already. The Victorian government in our first budget funded $2 million for the Community Legal Centre Assistance Fund – $1 million a year over two years – which enabled us to make substantial grants to community legal centres for a range of projects over the last two years. In addition to that we have made another $3.7 million worth of funding allocations through the Family Violence Duty Lawyer Fund and the family violence fund.

That has created, as I say, a range of grants up to $50 000 a year and up to $100 000 a year depending on the grant round that the CLCs have applied for, and those grants are in place as we speak. So in total over the past two years, above and beyond the normal state contribution to community legal centres, the state has made funding allocations of some $5.7 million.

In her contribution the member for Eildon somewhat extraordinarily suggested that the way that the state government could ameliorate the effect of the commonwealth cuts on the Yarra Ranges community legal centre would be to somehow through the reallocation of funds top up the Yarra Ranges CLC.

I say to the member for Eildon that I am simply responding to the suggestion you made. The suggestion you made was that we are responsible for how the funds are allocated, so we can move the money around. I just remind the member for Eildon that there are a range of other community legal centres, somewhere between 10 and 20 – I think it is around 17 – that are all going to suffer from the commonwealth cuts. In the last couple of weeks alone, apart from meeting with Michael Smith from the Eastern Community Legal Centre, which runs Yarra Ranges, I have met with the Northern CLC, I have been in Thornbury to meet with a CLC and I have met with the Springvale Monash Legal Service, and all of those centres.

I say to the member for Eildon that all of those centres are going to suffer from these federal government cuts. So if the suggestion of the member is that those other centres, which are already going to suffer significant cuts, sometimes in the vicinity of $120 000 a year, should suffer further by me reallocating funds away from them and giving them to one community legal centre, I have to say that she should make those representations to those other CLCs.

The state government has done an enormous amount already – as I say, $5.7 million worth of funding above and beyond the normal funding to our CLCs over the last two years. We continue to advocate to the commonwealth to not proceed with these cuts on 1 July, and rather than ask the state government to reallocate funding away from other CLCs, which are going to suffer, it would be much more useful, not just to this government but to state and territory governments around the country of both political persuasions, if the member for Eildon and her colleagues joined with me in asking the commonwealth, beseeching the commonwealth, not to proceed with the $3 million worth of cuts on 1 July .

I have great sympathy for the Eastern Community Legal Centre and indeed its outreach service in Healesville, which I have visited, but I say to the member for Eildon that if she were to have a conversation with Mr Smith, as I suspect she must have, then she would know that he agrees with the position of the state government, which is that the commonwealth should not proceed with these cruel cuts.