Community Justice Services

The Hon. R.B. MARTIN (14:48): My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the minister please inform the council about his recent meeting with legal practitioners in the South-East and the new community legal centre office in Mount Gambier?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:48): I thank the honourable member for his question. I have spoken a number of times in this place over the last almost two years about community legal centres, particularly Community Justice Services SA.

CJS is a community legal centre currently with services in southern metropolitan Adelaide and the South-East region of South Australia. CJS have outgrown their existing premises in Mount Gambier on Commercial Street, and this month are in the process of moving to a larger premises across the road on Commercial Street, where they will be co-located with Centacare. Their new space will include a boardroom to host meetings and community legal education sessions and a full kitchen and lunch area for staff, which they sadly lack in their current space.

Much larger than the previous premises, the new space will allow CJS to co-locate with other legal service providers, including Women's Legal Service SA, which provides a face-to-face service in the region for women experiencing or at risk of family and domestic violence. The larger space will also allow for visiting practitioners to have appropriate workspaces when in the region servicing local people, particularly at the Mount Gambier Magistrates Court. I certainly wish CJS all the best in their move to their new office and am excited for their expansion and the expansion of other community services that I have spoken about in this place before.

Whilst it was recently a pleasure to meet with representatives from the Limestone Coast Community Justice Centre, Katherine and Jess from the Mount Gambier office, as well as Cathy McMorrine, the CEO of Community Justice Services SA, I was also fortunate recently to hold meetings with other members of the legal fraternity in the South-East to discuss their work as regional lawyers.

In addition to the Community Justice Centre's legal practitioners, I had an opportunity to meet with a number of local private practitioners, so in addition to hearing about the Community Justice Services' imminent move into new premises, I was fortunate to hear from all attendees about the work they do in the regions, which often involves practising across many different areas and jurisdictions.

Of particular interest to local practitioners was the passage through this parliament recently of the Succession Bill, which has been a decade in the making. It will hold particular interest for estate planning, which of course is of critical interest to many regional practitioners. It was very important to hear about the local work that lawyers in the South-East are doing serving their community.