Uniting Communities Law Centre

The Hon. T.T. NGO (14:57): My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General inform the council about the activities of Uniting Communities Law Centre and his recent visit to their office?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:57): I certainly will and I thank the honourable member for his question and pay tribute to how in touch he is with the community. He has obviously heard about my visit to their centre recently.

With a growing workforce of over a thousand staff and 400 volunteers, with outlets across metropolitan and regional South Australia and service portfolios that range from mental health and drug and alcohol rehabilitation, aged care, disability, youth and family services and homelessness, financial inclusion and legal services, and children's services, Uniting Communities plays an important and influential role in the South Australian community.

Providing assistance to more than 80,000 South Australians each year and having recently completed one of the state's most significant new developments in the form of U City, Uniting Communities plays a major role in the state's social, economic and environmental wellbeing. As the honourable member has indicated, Uniting Communities runs a community legal centre, the Uniting Communities Law Centre. The Law Centre provides free, independent and confidential legal services to over 2,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged people across regional and metropolitan South Australia in any given year.

The Uniting Communities Law Centre provides information, advice and representation, and education on a range of matters including family law, criminal law, family violence and civil law matters. I had the pleasure of visiting the Uniting Communities Law Centre towards the end of July where I saw firsthand the dedicated passion of its staff. In a roundtable discussion with staff, the law centre told me about the trials and tribulations of some of the specialist services they run, including:

a social security legal service, which assists people navigating Centrelink and government benefits;

a mediation service, which provides community mediation, assisting neighbours with issues around things like trees, fences, noise, behaviours, retaining walls and other disputes;

a consumer credit law centre, which consists of a team of lawyers and financial counsellors who assist people with things such as home repossessions, bankruptcy, payday lenders, banks and lenders, credit card debts, maladministration in lending and other complex matters;

an elder abuse team, which consists of a lawyer and social workers providing assistance to elderly people who are experiencing financial, physical, social or psychological abuse from their child or close family member; and

a disability advocacy service, which provides advocacy and legal representation to people navigating the NDIS system.

The discussions I had highlighted the need for a dynamic, comprehensive and responsive legal assistance sector, and I am pleased that the government can work together with organisations such as Uniting Communities to deliver this.

South Australia's legal assistance strategy, which is being developed for 2022 to 2025 and which was launched by the Attorney-General's Department a couple of months ago, outlines the government's commitment to assist vulnerable people facing disadvantage who are unable to afford private legal services and access and engage effectively with legal solutions and the justice system to address their legal needs.

Community legal centres such as Uniting Communities Law Centre play a vital role in this landscape, and for their dedication to the people within their service to ensure access to justice in this state I thank them and commend their work to this chamber.