LAW REFORM COMMITTEE Inquiry Into Legal Services in Rural Victoria
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LAW REFORM COMMITTEE Inquiry into legal services in rural Victoria Warrnambool – 21 June 2000 Members Mr D. McL. Davis Mr A. J. McIntosh Ms D. G. Hadden Mr R. E. Stensholt Mr P. A. Katsambanis Mr M. H. Thompson Mr T. Languiller Chairman: Mr M. H. Thompson Deputy Chairman: Ms D. G. Hadden Staff Executive Officer: Ms P. Raman Research Officers: Ms S. Vohra and Ms M. Mason Witnesses Mr B. du Vergier, Director, Community Connections; and Ms J. Williams, Coordinator, The Legal Centre. The CHAIRMAN — Thank you for taking the time to come along to outline your work and respond to questions. We have an hour to run through your material. I would like you to have the chance to run through what you would like to say. My colleagues are at liberty to interpose questions along the way for the clarification of any issues. I would like to get through your submission and have questions at the end although there will be free rein for my colleagues to put questions if they feel it is important to do so during your commentary. Hansard reporters are recording the comments today and I would like to you bear that in mind in terms of any comments you may make as they will probably end up being put on our web site as part of the transcript of the hearings. You will have the opportunity to proof your material. Should any issues arise during the course of our discussion that you feel are sensitive or best not outlined publicly then we can do that in camera or you can make a submission as to why it might not be appropriate to include those comments in the record and we will be happy to consider those factors. The evidence is taken by the committee under the provisions of the Parliamentary Committees Act, which renders it immune from judicial review while discussion is taking place within the parameters of the hearing. I trust that that will not be a relevant consideration overall as we are supposed to be fact finding in our journey this morning. I invite to you commence speaking to the issues that Padma has drawn to your attention, the matters we have interest in ascertaining. Mr du VERGIER — We were requested to provide you with a profile of the agency. Our community legal centre is about seven years old. It was the first outer rural regional community legal centre in Victoria. We have been funded for almost eight years. We were the first multi-service agency to program a community legal centre. The community legal centre is one program component of Community Connections. Community Connections is a company limited by guarantee which provides a range of multi-services to the community throughout south-western Victoria. That pretty much takes in the shires of Glenelg, Southern Grampians, Corangamite and Moyne and the City of Warrnambool. That is what we, as a multi-service community agency provider, refer to as our territory. We are an independent, not-for-profit, non- denominational organisation. We are one of the few in Victoria, although there are similar organisations. You are probably aware of Upper Murray Family Care and Mallee Family Care, which have come into the community legal centre service provision in recent years. We were the first to set up a community legal centre within a multi-service agency model. We were involved in mentoring the Mallee Family Care and the Upper Murray Family Care programs. The commonwealth government has just funded Anglicare to provide an outer rural regional community legal centre for Gippsland. Our history is a reasonable one. The agency is a broad-based community service provider. The community legal program is one of about 20 programs. The agency is an independent and non-denominational provider of a range of services that take in child welfare, social justice in terms of tenancy and consumer matters for the new Office of Consumer and Business Affairs, and a range of residential, disability and community development services. We are broad based: we have an office in every town — Hamilton, Warrnambool, Camperdown and Portland. We have strong networks with the agencies in Ballarat, Horsham and Mount Gambier in South Australia, which is an issue in itself in how we provide services for outer regional people across the state boundary — we go down to Colac and on to Geelong. We have networks throughout rural Victoria. I have mentioned our strong connections with Upper Murray Family Care and Mallee Family Care. They are also multi-service agencies doing similar things and running community legal centres. The issue for the seven years has been that our organisation was originally funded at about $100 000 to provide a community legal centre practice for 24 000 square kilometres, which is frankly absurd. It makes it incredibly difficult for us to provide direct services for that sort of territory in the way you are familiar with. However, the commonwealth has been funding new community legal centres in outer rural regions such as the two I have mentioned and the latest one in Gippsland — which has been auspiced by Anglicare — at $210 000. We down here in south-western Victoria feel somewhat aggrieved that we are $100 000 behind the mark yet we have been running the program for nearly eight years. There are some equity issues in relation to citizens of south-western Victoria having equal access as the citizens of Gippsland will have in the future and the people of the Upper Murray and Mallee regions have. Our experience is one of struggle in relation to providing the community legal centre practice to 24 000 square kilometres. Our model has been tested. It is based on flying out to Portland, Hamilton and Camperdown from Warrnambool. We rely heavily on a volunteer model — which Juliet will say more about — to make the services of the community legal centre accessible to towns in parts of south-western Victoria other than Warrnambool. That is our history and the model on which our organisation works its community legal centre. Mr McINTOSH — I did not quite catch what you said about your funding. Is it commonwealth or state funding? Mr du VERGIER — It is almost 90 per cent commonwealth and 10 per cent Victorian Legal Aid (VLA). The combination of funding for our program is 90 per cent commonwealth and 10 per cent or maybe a little more state. Ms HADDEN — Did you say VLA? Mr du VERGIER — Via the VLA. Also, that funding has remained exactly the same. Mr McINTOSH — You mentioned that Gippsland was funded at twice the rate. Mr du VERGIER — The model on which the commonwealth government is funding the new community legal centre in rural Victoria and Australia is about $210 000, which is $100 000 more than we were originally funded seven or eight years ago, and we have remained on that level. Mr STENSHOLT — They are the new centres established in the past two or three years. You were established seven years. Are they establishing similar models? Mr du VERGIER — Yes. Mr STENSHOLT — Do you have to reapply for your funding? Mr du VERGIER — We negotiate a service agreement around a work plan every year, but there is no negotiation around the level of funding; it is locked into a model. Mr STENSHOLT — When are they looking to re-tender it? Mr du VERGIER — They do not re-tender; they only tender the new programs. The existing programs are subject to a service agreement negotiation process. Once you are on the ground you just renegotiate the ground rules each year. Ms HADDEN — Whereabouts is the new model in Gippsland? Ms WILLIAMS — It will apparently be based in Morwell. Ms HADDEN — I note you are a legal advice information and referral service only. Ms WILLIAMS — Could you repeat that? Ms HADDEN — I note in my summary that you provide free legal advice, information and referral. I understand that to mean you do no case work. Ms WILLIAMS — We do generally. The majority of our work would be referral and information but we do a limited amount of case work. Ms HADDEN — Is that in family law matters? Ms WILLIAMS — Probably about 60 to 65 per cent is family law matters. Ms HADDEN — Is the new model proposed at Morwell different? I am trying to work out the disparity in funding. Are they requiring case work to be done? Mr du VERGIER — The service agreement is the same. One has just been funded over the border in Mount Gambier, which is only an hour from Portland or 1 hour and 40 minutes from here. The new service in Mount Gambier has been funded by the federal government at $210 000, which is the model funding level for all new community legal centres (CLCs) in Australia. Mr McINTOSH — In relation to that, we have been up to Albury-Wodonga recently and heard from people like Trish Devlin at the Albury-Wodonga legal centre. I do not know whether the issue of funding was discussed up there, but do you know whether that centre is funded at the rate of $210 000? Mr du VERGIER — Yes. We had something to do with the setting up of that centre. As I said earlier, we have been around for a while, and we did some mentoring with the one up in Albury. Ms HADDEN — I think that was the figure they mentioned; it was either $210 000 or $240 000. Mr McINTOSH — That is a very new service; it was set up in the past year or so.