Community legal centres take court battle to Canberra

Representatives from the country’s 160 community legal centres descended on Canberra last week to kick off a national campaign to pressure the federal government to save their frontline services, as talks on a new funding agreement slowed to a snail’s pace.

The centres need at least $270 million each year as part of a National Legal Assistance Partnership (NLAP) agreement that must be signed by the end of the year.

The existing NLAP was agreed by the Commonwealth and all states and territories in 2020, and the five-year agreement allocated $2.4 billion to fund legal assistance services.

The campaign also calls for:

• the immediate injection of $35 million to counter a workforce crisis
• an extra $135 million annually to address community demand
• an extra $95 million annually to properly address domestic and family violence.

Community Legal Centres Australia chairperson Arlia Fleming said community legal centres urgently need investment to survive, after being let down by the last federal budget.

Centre representatives met with politicians of all persuasions in their three-day Canberra blitz.

“Community legal centres are frontline services in local communities that keep people safe and get them out of crisis. We assist almost 180,000 people annually but are forced to turn away twice that number, with 34% being victim-survivors of domestic and family violence,” Ms Fleming said.

Ms Fleming said the May federal budget failed to ensure those centres had the resources they needed to survive beyond June 2025.

“Community legal centres want to focus on helping people to stay safe, avoid eviction, fix financial problems, resolve family law issues, and in other important areas of people’s lives. Instead, they are making decisions about which programs and outreaches to cut back, which staff to let go, and when to close their waiting lists to new clients.”

Cairns Community Legal Centre CEO Elizabeth Behrend said centres such as hers ensured people had access to legal help, especially those in rural, regional, and remote communities.

"People must have access to free and timely, place-based legal help wherever they live and whatever the size of their bank balance.”

“It is time for the federal government to show real leadership and back the frontline services that keep women and children safe from violence, prevent evictions, resolve financial issues, and make the justice system fairer for all of us.”

The centres’ campaign drew attention to new YouGov polling showing 73% of Australians support fair and equal access to the legal system, with 65% strongly in favour of the government ensuring people can get legal help if they can’t afford a lawyer.

The campaign has won the backing of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Australian Services Union, the consumer advocacy group CHOICE, Financial Counselling Australia, Save the Children, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, Mission Australia, Amnesty International, the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, and many more groups.

Last week, the sector flooded social media with posts tagged #SaveCommunityLegalCentres about the benefits of community legal services, which include women's legal services and family violence prevention and legal services (FVPLSs).

In just one example, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights posted “Community legal centres play a crucial and cost-effective role in our legal system delivering high-quality, human rights-based, and integrated services to many thousands of people in need – people who would otherwise fall through the cracks.”

The Institute of Community Directors Australia (ICDA) also supported the campaign, with the group managing director of ICDA’s parent enterprise, Our Community, Denis Moriarty, declaring “community legal centres are a vital service, and there should be more of them, not less”.

In a response to a series of questions from the Community Advocate, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said, “The Albanese Government recognises the pressures community legal centres are under, and the importance of strengthening the legal assistance sector. Legal assistance is essential to ensuring access to justice and equality before the law.”

He said the government had committed $44.1 million in “urgent funding for 2024–25 to help legal assistance providers address current resource and workforce issues until the new National Legal Assistance Partnership Agreement (NLAP) commences on 1 July 2025”.

The Commonwealth, state and territory governments were “carefully considering the review of the NLAP, which will be used to inform, along with consultation with the sector, the next legal assistance agreement”, the spokesperson said.

Speaking on ABC News Breakfast, Mr Dreyfus said that he was “acutely aware of the assistance that's provided by those legal centres and legal aid … to women and children fleeing family violence”.

“I'm working right now on the new five-year agreement that will start on the 1st of July next year, to try and make sure that we have got, as the Treasurer said earlier this year in Parliament, a new agreement with increased funding for legal assistance services because they are part of this frontline response.”

More information

Community legal centres campaign

Independent review of the NLAP