A specialist family violence service in Brimbank will be cut from June this year, leaving women escaping violent relationships out in the cold.
Fourteen legal centres across Victoria will be hit by federal budget cuts from June 30, with Brimbank-Melton Community Legal Centre (BMCLC) losing $120,000 a year.
BMCLC senior community lawyer Annika Dimitrijevich said the service had helped 200 clients from Brimbank and Melton with domestic violence issues in the past year and represented 60 in court for intervention orders.
BMCLC received $226,646 in federal government funding in the 2014-15 financial year.
“[We] won’t be able to sustain the service … and the western suburbs will lose one of the few services available to people escaping family violence,” Ms Dimitrijevich said.
The centre also undertook 90 complex public interest cases for victims of family violence, and delivered family violence training to more than 250 community workers.
“Without this federal funding, clients experiencing family violence will receive limited support … and will have to be managed alongside other issues as BMCLC tries to meet demand.”
The BMCLC’s specialist family violence service works on an early intervention model and provides assistance for legal issues arising from family violence, such as debt matters, infringements issues, criminal law and victims- of-crime matters.
The service is operated by a full-time senior family violence lawyer, although all BMCLC staff work with family violence victims because of the high demand.
“Since receiving Commonwealth funding to set up in October 2013, we have seen a three-fold increase in family violence,” Ms Dimitrijevich said.
“Without it [the $120,000 a year], those experiencing domestic violence will not receive legal advice early in the court process, will spend only a very short time with a duty lawyer before going into court and will not properly understand [intervention orders] and court process, possibly compromising their outcomes.”
Police statistics show that in 2013-14 there were more than 20,000 family violence reports in Brimbank and Melton – more than 30 per cent of the state’s reported family violence incidents.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department said the federal government was now considering legal assistance arrangements beyond June 30. “In determining future arrangements, the government is considering both the Productivity Commission’s report into access to justice arrangements and the review of the national partnership agreement on legal- assistance services,” the spokesman said.
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