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Aboriginal Legal Service Nsw / Act - Parramatta Office
Legal Services in Parramatta

www.alsnswact.org.au
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Suite 4, 56 Station St. Parramatta. Parramatta, NSW, 2150.
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What you should know about Aboriginal Legal Service Nsw / Act - Parramatta Office

Legal in Parramatta, Office in Parramatta, Aboriginal Services in Parramatta

Do you want to talk about doing something to change that? Do you want to have a meeting with your family members to labor something out? The ABS Family Law Practice provides specialist family law services in general family law matters involving children. We opened our doors in 1970 in Redfern as the first Aboriginal Legal Service in Australia that makes us over 40 years old! We aid Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men, women and children through representation in court, advice and information, and referral to further urge services. But we also do things making us diverse from other legal service providers, like: We help people apply for Labor and Development Orders. We assist people in accessing Polite law advice. We make films, brochures and educational resources about legal information and rights and help people through our Community Legal Education program. If we can’t assist someone, we can usually find someone who can. Company Members represent their community to the ABS. Any Aboriginal adult of good standing in their community who has not committed a crime in five years can apply to become a member of the ABS Company. Company Members meet at minimum once per year. Only Company Members can be elected to the ABS Board of Directors. There are fifteen members of the ABS Board of Directors: Twelve Directors have voting power and are elected by Company Members (four Directors from each Region). Two Honorary Directors have no voting power and are non elected positions. To be elected as a member of the Board of Directors, the applicant must first be an ABS Company Member. Once elected, a Director serves a term of three years. Elections for the position of Director occur every three years. ABS Honorary Directors are not elected but have been invited by Company Members because of their important contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal justice and advocacy for many years. An Honorary Director has no voting power at Board meetings but attends and participates in discussion. The Chairperson of the Board of Directors is elected by a majority vote of Directors for a three year period. Directors attend Board meetings at minimum four times per year.

The Story Project tells the story of the first Aboriginal Legal Service in Australia, latter its path from its first to where we are today. It is not one story, but many told in the voices of Aboriginal and nonAboriginal people who worked together to attain greater justice for our people. The origins of the Aboriginal Legal Service lay in the response of Aboriginal people to police activities in and around Redfern at the close of the 1960’s. Justice Wooten enlisted the assist of a number of eminent lawyers to attempt to change State Government policy towards Aboriginal people, in particular, the police activities around the internal city area. The aim was to bear representation and lessen incarceration and police harassment of Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal Legal Service adopted a Constitution, elected a Council made up of a cranky section from the Aboriginal community, leading representatives of the legal profession, and experts in areas apropos to the work of the ABS, set up a Management Committee, and were staffed by volunteer lawyers and leaders from Aboriginal community. The social and individual bravery of the Aboriginal men and women that precede to the successful establishment of the Aboriginal Legal Service inspired other people. The involvement of Aboriginal people in both management and service delivery was critical to the acceptability of Aboriginal Legal Service to Aboriginal communities. This was met with fierce opposition from newly formed Aboriginal Legal Services around the country. The Government also put funding restrictions on Aboriginal Legal Service activities, suggesting they were primarily a legal service provider and could not engage in secondary activities arising out of their operations such as general welfare’. Their thriving operation depended largely on Aboriginal groups and individuals being represented in the management of the services. Government funding rose during this time but was comparatively a lot less than that provided to Legal Assist Commissions and Community Legal centers. As Aboriginal Legal Services around the country were funded by attic, maximum were forced into cutting services. In 2003 annual government funding to Aboriginal Legal Service providers was cut to six monthly cycles. The amalgamation defined a new structure for the delivery of legal services to Aboriginal people in MSW and ACT. It strengthened it’s commitment to being an Aboriginal community controlled organization by having a potent Aboriginal Board representing their communities to the ABS. The ABS had a stronger position from which to support to State and National Governments and other service providers for law reform, supple funding arrangements, and best practice service delivery to Aboriginal people. ABS Field Offi
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When the police ring, the CNS lawyer gives the Aboriginal person legal advice. The CNS lawyer could hear the Aboriginal person crying and yelling in the background, and asked the police officer what was incorrect with the person. The police officer said that the person had reach into the police station to report a handbag stolen, and they had arrested person, and the person had become hysterical and they couldn't get any sense out of the person. The CNS lawyer asked the police officer to speak to the person. The CNS lawyer asked the person why they had not attended court that day and the person became very perturb and said it was because their handbag had been stolen. Behind much prompting, the person told the CNS lawyer they had a device in the handbag which had been given to them by the hospital. The person required this device and was in extreme pain as they couldn't go to the toilet without it. For one year ABS staff carried the cost of the phone line as an alternative funding source could not be found. CNS increases the prospect of bail for arrested persons, reducing the cost to Government. If the phone line is not available, the legislative need for notification and right to advice for Aboriginal People in custody will not be met in a possible way that safeguards the arrested person’s legal, health and family welfare. A recommendation from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was that police should notify the ABS whenever they take an Aboriginal person into custody. Since then, we have established precedents in the court so that Police cannot interview an Aboriginal person in custody until the ABS has been notified. When an Aboriginal person is taken into custody, the CNS gives them: Police Bail increases (reducing incarceration costs). If the phone line is not available, the legislative need for notification and correct to advice for Aboriginal People in custody will not be met. An increase in preventable self hurt or deaths in police cell custody. An officer of the Aboriginal Legal Service or such other person as is nominated by the Service, be granted access to a person held in custody without bail and c. There be a statutory requirement that the officer in charge of a station to whom an arrested person is taken present to that person, in writing, a notification of Fisher correct to apply for bail and to pursue a review of the decision if bail is refused and of how to exercise those rights. That in providing funding to Aboriginal Legal Services governments should recognize that Aboriginal Legal Services have a wider role to perform than their immediate task of ensuring the representation and provision of legal advice to Aboriginal persons. That Police Services, Aboriginal Legal Services and suitable Aboriginal organizations at a local level should consider agreeing upon a protocol setting out the procedures and rules which should govern areas of interaction between police and Aboriginal people. Notification of the Aboriginal Legal Service when Aboriginal people are arrested or detained b. The circumstances in which Aboriginal people are taken into protective custody by virtue of intoxication c. Concerns of the local community about local policing and other matters and d. Processes which might be adopted to enable discrete Aboriginal communities to participate in decisions as to the placement and conduct of police officers on their communities. That pending the negotiation of protocols referred to in Recommendation 223, in jurisdictions where legislation, standing orders or instructions do not already so provide, good steps be taken to make it compulsory for Aboriginal Legal Services to be notified upon the seize or detention of any Aboriginal person other than such arrests or detentions for which it is agreed between the Aboriginal Legal Services and the Police Services that notification is not required. (e) The principle that, if it is appropriate in the circumstances, children who are alleged to
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