Back

ALRM Criminal Solicitors & ALRM Director; Rosanne McInnes invited to attend.

List of items for discussion prepared (in a wordprocessor) by Rosanne McInnes and Raymond Zada, Information & Information Services Manager, ALRM S.A.

The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in South Australia was the first indigenous legal aid organisation in the world to put pages at a site on the World Wide Web.

The Director, Syd Sparrow, had worked as a field officer with Rosanne McInnes when she was ALRM's Senior Trial Counsel in the mid 1980.s.
He asked her to assist ALRM's IT manager (Raymond Zada) to develop some pages to be put up on a web site where she and others were already putting lists of internet resources with a legal flavour.

The brief was simple:
1. ALRM wanted people in remote area to be able to access legal and other relevant information.
If they were aboriginal, and clients of ALRM, they were currently able to access information through the solicitors and field officers. ALRM was carrying the expense of faxing copies of statutes and cases out to field officers and solicitors working in these areas.
2. There was no funding to build a web site, no prospect of getting any funding , and no guarantee that ALRM itself would still exist in 12 months time.
3. Whether or not ALRM itself survived, all people in the areas which ALRM serviced needed to be able to access legal information, whether they were aboriginal or not.

The site was developed between February and April 1997.

Page development and maintenance stopped the day that ATSIC discovered the site and telephoned Raymond Zada asking him for a "wish list". Ultimately he got most of the thing he asked for.

By the time ATSIC rang, the Director had realised that some ALRM solicitors were frightened by the new technology, and he had already arranged a special meeting, to encourage the criminal solicitors to want to use I.T. Getting the I.T. they wanted was added to the agenda. It was not known what could be promised to them , other than that ALRM would develop an intranet and a web site.

The meeting was held to ensure that the criminal solicitors understood
a) why information was being made available to them,
b) to discuss accessing information using electronic methods,
c) clarify the common objectives which had been used as the basis of site development, and
d) invite them to contribute to "flying solo", the development of a new and permanent ALRM web site.

Eddresses

Site
URL- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7001/

Page URL.s- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7001/alrm.htm and/or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7001/solon_di.htm

[part of wider legal/criminology site; contributors working in criminal justice agencies other than ALRM]

Access

The pages can be accessed via computer and modem from anywhere in the State as they are in public site on the WWW. At this stage, access is via the computers and Internet connections set up by other organisations.

Access to justice:

The police do not have Internet access. They do have access to an excellent intranet criminal law library if they choose to use it.

By 1998, all magistrates will have Internet access if they wish to use it.

Access to the Internet

Most public libraries have Internet access which is freely available for anyone to use.
All country schools and many teachers allow people to use school computers to access the Internet when students are are not using the Internet.
Health providers are building networks to assist in overcoming rural health issues.

If you make inquiries while you are on circuit, you will quickly learn where access to the Internet is located, and you can then set up arrangements to be able to "borrow" access if and when it is needed.

A list needs to be prepared detailing how access can be obtained in every place serviced by ALRM.

Other:

The cost of telephone access by trunk call to a "server" computer is prohibitive.

Raymond Zada will be working through the arrangements re Internet remote access after the enormous task of introducing intranet networking has been completed.

Content

1. Information For Clients
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7001/alrm.htm
purpose:
overcoming distance when communicating basic organisational information
other:
This page is an electronic page prepared by scanning an ALRM information brochure and adding links to ATSIC etc.

2. Internet Resources for solicitors and field officers:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7001/solon_di.htm
purpose:
Equity in access to justice, by reason of access to information about
a) law resources for South Australians and
b) indigenous resources

B. New Directions

As an organisation, ALRM has to promote the interests of aboriginal people.

ALRM has to make the best use of its resources when it does so.

ALRM has to
a) maximise its income; and
b) minimise its expenditure.

At this stage, ALRM has done what no other similar organisation has done.

It is the first indigenous legal service anywhere in the world to get on the Internet, taking steps to beat new inequities- in access to information and hence access to justice- before they arise.

The only similar site is the Fitzroy Legal Service site which has grown, over two years, from a tiny collection of a few links to a large law directory.

ALRM has only just begun.

Raymond Zada is taking you on a ride which is a world first, but first he has to get the intranet under control.

Setting up the web presence is the first tiny step.

The next step is ensure everyone in the organisation learns to take advantage of the Internet.

So far, legal research and general communication of information to clients have been treated as the big priorities.

Within weeks, Internet access and much, much more will be available at ALRM headquarters.

ALRM's IT people are few but they are moving mountains.

The big question is where next?

For Rosanne McInnes, it is easy.

She has helped Raymond to give you a basis to use while you are learning, and she will keep working on ensuring that access to justice is not imperilled by inequity in access to legal resources.

She and ALRM are on common ground in this respect.

For ALRM, the questions are much bigger and much harder, and as you learn to use the intranet and the internet, you need to keep this in mind, and to develop ideas.

ALRM's site could move towards being an indigenous resource with excellent anthropology and legal resource directories, an electronic publishing centre, a commission agency promoting sales of work done by aboriginal people including prisoners. It could move in any one of a thousand other directions.

You need to think about directions, just as you have always had to think about directions. Those of you who were here in 1985, when Rosanne McInnes was here, will remember that the civil section came into existence because it could generate its own income, by doing personal injury claims for aboriginal people, and because aboriginal women and children needed legal assistance but ALRM was not funded to give it to them. With ACCA we sorted out most of the problems about removal of children ten years before the problems became a national issue.

Use of IT can save money for ALRM, but it can also generate income to do the things which have to be put to one side.

Raymond will need know where to go, what you need. You will have to tell him what you want, what you need.

Now you are on the road, it is time for you to steer.