- VIC Legal Services, 9 Feb 2015 - The Civil and Fam ily Law Needs - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

- VIC Legal Services, 9 Feb 2015 - The Civil and Fam ily Law Needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Australia: The Indigenous Legal Needs Project

The ILNP Background The Fam ily and Civil Law Needs of Aboriginal People In New South Wales (20 0 8 ) (NSW Legal Aid) • Analysis of the civil and family law needs of Aboriginal people in New South Wales. • Based on legal needs analysis, exploration of how Legal Aid NSW could improve service delivery for Aboriginal clients in the areas of civil and family law. The Assessm ent of the Civil and Fam ily law Needs of Indigenous People in Australia (20 11– 20 15) (Indigenous Legal Needs Project (ILNP)) • ARC Linkage project, working with joint Indigenous and non-Indigenous industry partners, including legal services • Focus on four jurisdictions: VIC, WA, NT and Qld. With NSW, project includes jurisdictions where 85% of Indigenous people reside

ILNP: Reporting Findings Reports and anim ated film s for each jurisdiction: (1) Indigenous legal needs assessment: priority civil and family law issues (2) Barriers to accessing civil and family law legal assistance and justice and ways to address them Reports based on information gathered during fieldwork ( 32 communities , 8 in each jurisdiction).

Focus groups/ Stakeholder interviews  Key Aboriginal organisations • 10 men, 10 women (160 in each  jurisdiction) legal services, non legal services (NGOs, • organised by a local Indigenous person or statutory authorities and government organisation agencies) • complete a questionnaire identifying  Priority civil and family law needs in their problems and help accessed respective communities • group discussion of legal needs and of  What works and what doesn’t work in access to help and advice addressing these needs

Why the ILNP? Significant civil/ fam ily law need and Crim inal law focus poor levels of access to justice (For) legal aid services, the em phasis is It w ould be really good to be able to alw ays on the crim inal w ork because undertake regular, strictly civil outreach that’s the m ost tim e pressure, people w ork…There is a good service being tend to go to jail or the penalties are that provided but it’s the tip of the iceberg.. It’s they can be incarcerated. So still a big unknow n exactly how m uch understandably, a lot of priority and w ork is out there .. (Indigenous Legal resources are put into crim inal law … Service) and not a lot into civil law … (Registrar) Not every Aboriginal person is brought They think the only thing those (legal) before the crim inal justice services are there for are the courts, for system , but every Aboriginal person has to fighting, or w hen you are in trouble w ith live som ew here, they have to get an the police.. They don’t know there’s other incom e… they buy goods and services, live stuff out there you can see (them ) about. w ith their neighbours, m ay face (Tennant Creek MFGP) discrim ination, have accidents… (Indigenous Legal Service)

Because they’re having tenancy problem s and they lose their house, they’re hom eless. Leads to drinking, police Why the ILNP? surveillance. Then people get them selves into trouble, because they’re angry. You know , it’s that balance at hom e and then w hat’s happened there, I think, w hat affects us…. I think there is [a connection betw een all these things] • Right to adequate access to (Indigenous community org) justice to resolve legal problems It’s a very com plex system . It’s intim idating in m any respects…(M)ost Aboriginal people, they w ouldn’t attem pt it w ithout the assistance of a law yer. The instances of self- • represented Aboriginal people getting involved in the civil Not doing so only feeds into law jurisdiction is just nothing… (Without a law yer)… the criminalisation/ offending w alls are just too thick and too high (Registrar) and leads to continuing social exclusion of Indigenous So access to justice for Aboriginal people is dram atically underfunded and m y concerns are that there are a lot of people vulnerable people out there w ho don’t have their legal needs addressed. Those legal needs not being addressed spiral into serious costs for the governm ent (Indigenous Legal Service) • Properly funding civil/ family law services ultimately saves government money

VIC Priority Areas: most common issues Issue Overall % of participants identifying issue HOUSING 41.8 % CREDIT/ DEBT 32.4% (Consum er) (13.4%) DISCRIMINATION 29% NEIGHBOURS 26.7%

VIC Priority areas: other issues Issue Overall % of participants Issue - - - identifying issue VICTIMS Victim Knew Applied SOCIAL COMP of crime 0f for 29% SECURITY scheme assistance *of those receiving benefits (=75.5% of all 20 .5% 31.3% 22.6% participants) CHILD REMOVAL 14.5% WILLS/ ES Completed Want to complete TATES Will will 5.7% 56.6%

VIC: Priority areas (accessing help) 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

VIC: Priority issues by gender Wom en Men Issue Wom en Men HOUSING 44.6% 37.9% Issue Wom en Men CONSUMER 9.1% 17.1% CHILD 20 .2% 6.3% (superannuation/ PROTECTION banks) OTHER CHILD 23.1% 11.9% STOLEN GENS 7.9% 17.6% ISSUES NEIGHBOURS 30 .4% 21.7% CREDIT/ DEBT 38 .5% 24.2%

VIC: Tenancy issue by type Other If you’ve split from your w ife and the w ife’s got the kids, it’s very hard for Neighbours single m en to get houses.. They w ant to Eviction have access to the children, but you can’t have access unless you have a house, and Relocation… you can’t get the house unless you have Access the children. It’s really going back and Overcrow ding forth. And that causes all that fam ily violence… It m ight be that one housing Rent issue that feeds into so m any… It affects Repairs… so m any people….And it’s actually killing people. I can see a lot of our elders, like it’s killing them , this sort of stuff (Com m unity Org) 0 20 40 60

VIC: Tenancy – Repairs and Maintenance / Rent A young girl w as involved in [one housing issue]. She got her house broken into by sm all kids and they com pletely w recked everything, turned the w ater on and flooded everything. [Housing said] they w ere going to com e and clean up and do stuff, [but] they’ve done nothing. They w ere s’posed to rip the carpet up. That’s about 12 m onths ago, the carpet’s still there (Bendigo MFGP) There w as a burnt out car in a lanew ay beside m y house. [Housing] charged m e for that. The young ones had dum ped it dow n a lanew ay…. We had to get out of there in a hurry (due to dom estic violence) and I have a fair bit of m aintenance [to pay] for stuff that w asn’t m y fault. This w asn’t on m y property, that’s w hy I tried to fight it. It w as in a lanew ay betw een tw o houses. That’s w rong (Heidelberg WFGP) …… You pay your rent and they can’t even repair your hom e. Where’s the m oney going m ate? (Shepparton MFGP) Our rents are sky high…. And you can’t have m em bers of fam ily stay w ith you ‘til they get a house ’cause your rent goes straight up… Since this Aboriginal Housing started they’ve put a lot of tenants in, but they’ve also evicted a lot of tenants. And w here do those tenants go? Back to fam ily, then the rent goes up again! (Bairnsdale WFGP)

VIC: Tenancy – Access to Housing and Overcrowding Housing is an issue because hom elessness is an issue…Tenancy issues, w e deal w ith som e, but no, I don’t see [this as] as big an issue [as hom elessness]. Certainly not com ing from our clients. Getting them into housing is a big issue (Indigenous Legal Service) [We need] m ore housing. We say that all the tim e but it doesn’t get anyw here (Shepparton MFGP) [T]he private housing m arket [is] closed to Aboriginal people in our com m unity…. [A]ccess to public housing is som etim es the only access to housing that they have (Community Organisation) I’ve got a one bedroom flat and I’ve got people all the tim e, bodies on the floor all the tim e…. They sleep in the laundry and all [in m y place]. Som etim es you get three, som etim es you get fifteen, som etim es you get one. I’m never alone, a lot from out of tow n (Fitzroy WFGP)

VIC: Tenancy – Overcrowding and Connection with Other Issues I found that the definition of hom elessness in the Koori com m unity is slightly different. You don’t find that m any on the street, not that m any. But they are on som eone else’s couch or som ew here. And it’s still hom elessness, but because of this com m unity type of relationship, that’s w hy they end up w ith som e cousin or uncle (Community Org) The elders get abused because they w on’t turn aw ay fam ily. They’ll com e in… They’ll use all the pow er and eat all the food…. I see that a lot - really, really, really high utility bills - because they haven’t been able to afford to pay them . No one’s contributing to the household. …. And they …w on’t turn them aw ay because they are fam ily. They w ould rather put their housing at risk and their pow er at risk than say no (Community Org)