MARK COLVIN: The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has given details of its takeover of the service in Tasmania.
The Federal Government’s decision to move control of legal services across Bass Strait came as a shock to the island state’s Aboriginal community.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has been running legal services there for the past 42 years.
Felicity Ogilvie reports from Hobart.
FELICITY OGILVIE: The CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Wayne Muir, is in Tasmania getting ready to take over. His organisation won the $11 million contract to provide legal services in Tasmania for the next five years.
Wayne Muir says he knew the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre was unlikely to keep the contract when the Federal Government put it out to tender.
WAYNE MUIR: Tasmania was the only state that the Commonwealth Government decided to go out to open competitive contract, or I’ll actually use for the purpose of this discussion, the words tender. When that was announced that immediately raised some concerns for us.
FELICITY OGILVIE: He says the Victorians applied for the tender because four Tasmanian Aboriginal organisations and a number of individuals asked them to intervene.
WAYNE MUIR: One reason, similar to ours, they were concerned there would not be an Aboriginal service provider, providing Aboriginal legal services in the state of Tasmania. Others expressed concern about accessibility to the service.
FELICITY OGILVIE: One of the reasons the Attorney-General’s office gave for appointing the Victorians to take over the service was concern about the Tasmanians’ allegedly limited recognition of Aboriginal people.
Trudy Maluga runs the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre which has lost the contract.
TRUDY MALUGA: Look, you know, a democracy is that you cannot please everyone. We do our best, we do provide a high quality service, those that haven’t received that from us are obviously non-Aboriginal and are white.
FELICITY OGILVIE: The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service is preparing to take over in just 10 days.
Wayne Muir says they’ll advertise for staff next week and open offices in Hobart and Launceston.
WAYNE MUIR: Part of us being here intensively over the next three weeks is to make sure we’ve got office facilities secured, IT services working to be implemented and we’ll have people up and running through arrangements directly employed by us and/or, as we do in our state now, through referral services to other agencies.
FELICITY OGILVIE: The new organisation will be called the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community Legal Service. It’ll employ 12 staff, including lawyers in Tasmania, but other services such as payroll and IT will be managed from Victoria.
It’s still unclear what will happen to cases that are already under way.
Wayne Muir says they can be transferred to the new organisation but Trudy Maluga says the current organisation will be taking donations and staying open.
TRUDY MALUGA: We will not give up. We are not closing our doors on the 30th of June and we will continue to fight to save our legal service. Now the Attorney-General’s department has not followed proper protocol and we are aware of this. We have run a fantastic service in this state for 42 years. We have not had any breaches of compliance and we’ll continue to keep our doors open.
FELICITY OGILVIE: A group from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has met representatives from the Attorney-General’s office in Canberra today to urge George Brandis to change his mind about the interstate takeover of legal services.
Mr Brandis’ office says they don’t comment on meetings. They have said previously though the decision will to award the tender to Victoria has already been made.
MARK COLVIN: Felicity Ogilvie.
