Veteran lawyer Bill Potts: the Gold Coast needs a Legal Hub to plan for city future

Gold Coast citizens are being deprived of easy access to justice, according to a veteran Coast lawyer.

The Gold Coast needs a Legal Hub — now!

Powerful political leadership is planning for the future, not pandering to the pundits, or papering over the cracks.

Our Southport Court building is crumbling under the legal (and not so legal) load of Australia’s 6th largest city.

It is not just about criminal trials, or complex commercial matters.

Gold Coast citizens are being deprived of easy and affordable access to justice through a permanent Supreme Court, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT), Family Court and Federal Court.

Issues are often dealt with in Brisbane. Photos Scott Fletcher

A dedicated home for probation and parole officers, prosecutors and alternative dispute resolution facilities is increasingly an urgent necessity.

Why is it that a simple probate matter has to be dealt with in Brisbane?

Why are mediation matters having to be dealt with in Brisbane?

Why do parenting issues involving our children have to be dealt with in Brisbane?

Why do our businesses have to take their building disputes to Brisbane?

Why, Why, Why?

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Our Gold Coast community extends from Beenleigh in the north to Coolangatta in the south to Beaudesert in the west. All of our people: families, clients, victims, witness, supporters and businesses are treated like poor cousins housed in the ‘Harry Potter cupboard’ of too hard, by those in the ‘Tower of Power’.

For too long our political leaders have either remained quiet or complacent or both in the face of an increasingly gaping hole in our Gold Coast critical social infrastructure.

Bill Potts (left) believes the Gold Coast needs its own way to handle legal issues. Picture AAPImage/ David Clark

Instead our Gold Coast citizens needing to access these courts, are forced into the M1 quagmire of 152,000 cars travelling to and from Brisbane daily, penalised on arrival with extortionate parking and childcare costs.

The land is already available around the current court on the space of an under-utilised carpark.

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A Southport Legal Hub is an essential part of the plan for our growing city.

Gold Coasters do not want warm seats and platitudes from their political representatives, but real, and substantive action, to a longstanding and conveniently ignored problem.

Our duty is not to our own present needs and wants, it is to our future generations. We have a duty act for them.