00:00Gosnell's community legal centre is doing the best it can with what it's got.
00:12Demand has increased five-fold in the last two years. The vital service in Perth's south-east
00:17only just holding on.
00:19So we opened a walking clinic every Tuesday morning to help people who couldn't get an
00:23appointment. We had 43 people lined up the other week by nine o'clock in the morning.
00:28It's catastrophic.
00:29The centre urgently needs more staff, but it can't hire them without more funding, despite
00:35people trained and ready.
00:37If we had the funding, we could employ staff right now. So our budget this year is $100,000
00:41in arrears because we can't afford to keep the staff we have, but we can't afford to
00:46let them go. The community needs them here.
00:49More than 350 frontline family and domestic violence staff were supposed to be employed
00:55nationally by June, but only 198 roles have been filled. In WA, only 22 of 38 positions
01:03have been filled.
01:05We're spending a record amount, and we're happy to continue to invest to support families
01:10and particularly children and women in danger in the community.
01:14Leaders from the sector say the funding announced today is welcome, but staff at this centre
01:19in Gosnells are concerned about how they will hold on until it arrives in 10 months' time.
01:25We will, wherever we can, prioritise women whose safety needs are really high, whose
01:31risk is elevated, to ensure their safety. But at the same time, we are also turning
01:37women away because we simply haven't got the capacity.
01:40We either have to reduce the amount of people we can provide a service for, or reduce the
01:44amount of service we can provide.
01:45A stark reality and stark choices.
01:49For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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