Narrowing the divide: one law for all
18 April 2012
A ‘bush lawyer’ in common parlance refers to an unqualified legal adviser, as so graphically depicted in Banjo Paterson’s poem of that name. It is also a type of blackberry growing in New Zealand.
But there is another kind of bush lawyer — qualified in every sense, dispensing much sought after legal services in regional Australia.
These dedicated hard-working professionals have chosen country life, regardless of the advantages offered by metropolitan practice.
They make a personal sacrifice not least in terms of remuneration, lifestyle, family and social considerations, and more highly developed legal infrastructure.
Yet they remain steadfast while many other young qualified lawyers depart the bush for coastal cities whose streets are paved with gold.
Some of those who quit the countryside, and who believe the myth that practising in the bush is, somehow, of lower professional value, leave behind problems of recruitment and retention of solicitors and other legal professionals in many regional and remote parts of Australia.
Indeed, in these locations it is hard to find a lawyer, and in finding one in distant towns or cities, the rural citizen inevitably runs into problems of access.
The Australian Government is taking steps to deal with the increasing problem of the legal tyranny of remoteness, recruitment and retention of legal practitioners in rural, regional and remote areas.
Working with legal assistance services and the private legal sector, the Government is funding initiatives administered by the Attorney-General’s Department, aimed at raising awareness of problems facing lawyers and communities in these areas and contributing to initiatives that aim to alleviate these problems and encourage long-term solutions.
Initiatives include:
- a project managed by the National Association of Community Legal Centres and the Law Council of Australia to pursue initiatives to attract and retain lawyers in selected locations;
- a Law and Justice Foundation of NSW research project on recruitment and retention of public legal service lawyers in regional and remote regions of NSW;
- a program to improve the recruitment and retention of lawyers in country WA; and
- a program managed by the National Association of Community Legal Centres to encourage law graduates to work in rural, regional and remote legal centres for their professional legal training.
An important new initiative was launched on March 6, 2012: The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, and Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy jointly opened round one of the $4 million NBN Regional Legal Assistance Program, to help regional community legal services take advantage of the National Broadband Network (NBN).
This program envisages that all Australians, no matter where they live, should have access to the same quality community legal services.
Calling the program “a digital bridge over the legal divide between regional and metropolitan Australia”, Ms Roxon said grants under the program would “challenge applicants to identify innovative and collaborative ways of providing legal assistance and sharing knowledge more effectively with regional community legal services.”
Senator Conroy said the program would provide funding to support NBN-based trials to increase access to legal assistance in regional areas where it can often be limited.
“The NBN presents enormous opportunities for a dramatic improvement in access to professional training and expert legal services in regional Australia,” Senator Conroy said.
The first round of funding will be allocated to legal assistance providers currently receiving Australian Government funding, including legal aid commissions, family violence prevention legal services, Indigenous legal services and community legal services.
Director of the University of Ballarat Centre for eCommerce and Communications (CeCC) and Broadband Champion, Dr Helen Thompson, said the NBN meshed well with non-government activities designed to narrow the divide between the city and the bush.
“They will also support the community legal service sector in taking more rapid advantage of the NBN.”
For example, she said, since 2004 the CeCC had been working with the community legal service sector to foster innovation through adoption of new approaches to delivering information and services online.
These websites were designed to make it possible for Australians, no matter where they live in Australia, to access quality community legal services.
They include Rural Law Online, at www.rurallaw.org.au/; Disaster Legal Help, at www.disasterlegalhelp.org.au; and Smart Justice Australia, at www.smartjustice.org.au.
Another example is Fitzroy Legal Service’s highly acclaimed Law Handbook Online, which recently celebrated its millionth visitor to www.lawhandbook.org.au/handbook.php.
In congratulating the service, Dr Thompson said the Law Handbook was designed to inform people about both Victorian State and Commonwealth law.
By following extensive research and consultation with key stakeholders, the interactive and accessibility capabilities of the web made an online presence a natural progression, she said.
“By using sophisticated cloud-based publishing systems, Fitzroy Legal Service had also improved processes associated with the production of its hard-copy Law Handbook.”
Another online legal service, Law 4 Community, at www.law4community.org.au is a decision support system that community workers can use to connect clients to getting help with legal challenges.
The National Association of Community Legal Centres, at www.naclc.org.au is another great example. It uses blogs, twitter and other social media — often humorous — to promote sector collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Hume Riverina Community Legal Service, at www.communitylaw.org.au/humeriverina, is also working with CeCC to develop interactive online services to educate the community on the importance of life planning documents, and to assist them in developing their own.
Dr Thompson said round one of the NBN Regional Legal Assistance Program would “provide new opportunities to identify innovative and collaborative ways of providing legal assistance and sharing knowledge more effectively with regional community legal services.”
She said the NBN, currently being rolled out across Australia, would dramatically improve the capacities of online legal services.
“It will provide access to high-speed broadband to 100 per cent of Australian premises over fibre, fixed wireless or satellite technologies.
“The network will deliver much faster speeds, the broadband capacity to share documentation and high-definition video conferencing, capable of supporting large file transfers.
“In more remote areas where it is difficult or impossible to connect communities to the NBN’s fibre network, the NBN Interim Satellite Service has already begun to make a significant improvement to communications.
“The two new next generation satellites to be launched in 2015 will be purpose built to provide high-speed broadband for Australians to make leading edge satellite services available to those areas not served by fibre or fixed wireless technologies.
“Satellite usage in the countryside will then be still more effective, capable of many of the advantages that fibre-to-the-premises will deliver.
“It is anticipated that their benefits will go a long way towards narrowing the gap between metropolitan areas and the bush in delivery of legal services,” Dr Thompson said.
Acknowledgement
CeCC acknowledge the support that has been received from the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy in the preparation of this article.