Riverland Community Legal Service

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (14:49): Supplementary to the Attorney-General: now that the majority of the federal funding has been reinstated, how will you put in place the new service to cover the 40-plus face-to-face inquiries per week at the Riverland legal service?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:49): Again a terrific question, thank you. What has happened is that, in the process of studying the way the CLCs were delivering the services, we discovered amongst other things that a great many of the people who were going to the CLCs were visiting those CLCs for a service that they could have received over the telephone and not had to bother turning up for. Many of those people were given a quicker and more efficient service by actually using the telephone. For those people, wherever they live, the new service is better.

For the people who live in the Mount, or the South-East generally and the people in the Riverland, we have made it clear that the actual face-to-face service will be demand driven. The amount of face-to-face service that your constituents and the member for Mount Gambier's constituents require will determine the amount of time that we have actual legal officers there providing that advice.

As to the other question about the additional money being provided by the commonwealth, yes, it is true that in the last federal budget the commonwealth said, 'We will give back some money that we took away—give back some of the money', and I think from memory it is $1.2 million, $1.3 million of the money they took away, which was considerably more, so it is not all of it; it is some of it. We will give the money back, but we, the state government, are not allowed to apply that to the legal services of the people of this state as are needed. We are obliged to apply that only to services which tick the box of being related to domestic violence, essentially.

That means all those other services that are provided by CLCs, we cannot give them money for that. I have made it clear to anybody who approaches us, and I ask all members on the other side of the chamber here to speak to their federal representatives: for goodness sake, allow us to give that—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, and I have said this to others: for goodness sake, please allow us to use that money where the need is the greatest. I am not for a minute saying there is not a need for DV services, but a lot of those services are being met elsewhere. To address the particular problem that is being raised by the member for Chaffey, those funds should not be locked up in the way they are.

What will happen with those funds, however, is that they will be distributed, unless the commonwealth changes its views, amongst the existing providers, and those funds will be quarantined to DV-related services delivered by those existing providers. To the extent that providers, who are existing providers, are delivering DV services and to the extent those services are in the Riverland or in the South-East, a proportion of those funds will flow through to those service providers.

However, it is very important that people understand those funds are quarantined funds. They are not funds that are available to those services to be spent on whatever demand comes through the front door. They are funds which are quarantined to particular expenditure. Obviously, I am pleased the commonwealth gave the money back; that's terrific. After stealing a large amount of money, they gave a little bit back—terrific; we appreciate that, and I say that sincerely—but they did not put it all back and they have tied the money they have given back. They waited until we had been through the whole restructuring process before they decided to give any money back at all.

I am very happy, and I say this particularly to members whose constituents are in the Riverland or in the South-East, and I am keen to work with you, your local government authorities and anybody else to make sure the service you get there is the best possible service that your community can have within the constraints that have been imposed on us.