From left: Julian Gardner, Michael Smith, Bevan Warner, Carolyn Bond and Nicole Bieske on the symposium panel, CLCs: Where have we come from and what lies ahead?
Yesterday’s Victorian CLCs Symposium 2014 and Federation Annual General Meeting reflected a strong year for community legal centres. Held at the Melbourne Town Hall, the events attracted around 160 people from the State’s 50 community legal centres and from stakeholder organisations. Continue reading
This is part eight of a series by Dr Chris Atmore on the Luke Batty inquest.
Child Protection worker Tracie Portelli was cross-examined today. The Court heard last week on Day Three that following contact with Child Protection, Rosie signed an undertaking to protect Luke from Anderson, because Child Protection deemed her a protective parent. This afternoon Rosie’s Senior Counsel suggested to Ms Portelli that the undertaking and the FVIO, with its limited and public contact between Anderson and Luke, were inconsistent: how could Rosie protect Luke if, for example, Anderson suddenly took him away, without putting herself at risk, which the intervention order was designed to prevent? Continue reading
As the inquest reaches Day Seven, it is worth returning again to the system approach. Of course we know that people sometimes commit wilful acts or behave in grossly negligent ways. However, James Reason stresses the importance of focusing less on the individual origins of error and much more on the system context of those acts or omissions. One of the advantages of this stance is that it helps us identify the recurrent patterns in avoidable deaths. Reason points out that if the approach used doesn’t seek out and remove the properties within the system at large that lead to or increase the possibility of a death, we won’t enhance safety. Continue reading
The strength of our modern coronial system lies is the way it is underpinned by a system approach to death prevention. Many of the concepts and theories of this approach are informed by lessons in the medical realm. The practice of different personnel checking the same details with the patient multiple times before surgery, in order to try to avoid the ‘removal of the wrong leg’ scenario, is one illustration. Continue reading
A symposium this Thursday at Melbourne Town Hall will explore community legal centres through the theme of courage, change and commitment to community.
The Victorian CLCs Symposium 2014 will feature three plenary sessions complemented by panel discussions, workshops and project presentations, to be followed by the Federation’s 2014 Annual General Meeting.
As first plenary, Julian Gardner, Australia’s first full-time community lawyer and current Chair of Mind Australia, will speak on where community legal centres have come from and what lies ahead.
ACOSS Chief Executive Officer, Dr Cassandra Goldie will feature in a second plenary on the power to achieve change.
Victorian Attorney-General, the Hon. Robert Clark MP and Shadow Attorney-General, the Hon. Martin Pakula MP will then speak on the real work and worth of community legal centres today.
Today we heard how in January 2013, Anderson was arrested and bailed for the child pornography offences he was alleged to have committed in November 2012.
Detective Andrew Cocking had a warrant for Anderson’s arrest on these charges and engaged in a series of communications with Rosie about Anderson’s possible whereabouts, Continue reading
Rosie seeks me out to give the Federation some reflection on her experience in the witness box. ‘I’ve just realised,’ she says, ‘what it would have been like if I hadn’t had a legal team. Originally I didn’t even think I needed to go to Luke’s inquest – I couldn’t see the point and didn’t know what it was for. Now I realise that I would have spent the last three days going through what I’ve gone through and there would have been no-one there to represent me. I can’t imagine what that would have been like!’ Continue reading
