Media release: Federal Government provides some certainty to a community legal sector in crisis ahead of national negotiations on new funding
September 09, 2024
Community legal centres have acknowledged today’s announcement that the Federal Government will provide $3.9 billion to frontline legal assistance services over five years from 1 July 2025 as an encouraging first step towards ending the funding crisis putting vital community-based programs and staff roles at risk.
The announcement comes amid national negotiations between federal, state and territory governments on a new national funding agreement for legal assistance services, including community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, Legal Aid Commissions, and Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services.
With the current 5-year agreement expiring on 30 June 2025, the community legal sector has been calling on the Federal Government to provide funding security by confirming its contribution to the next five-year partnership agreement by December 2024. The $3.9 billion announced today confirms the Commonwealth’s ongoing commitment to legal assistance funding and includes an $800 million uplift to be split across all legal assistance providers over the life of the next agreement.
Community legal centres provide free legal assistance for victim-survivors of family violence, people experiencing homelessness, First Nations people, parents resolving family law matters, victims of floods and bushfires, people experiencing harassment or exploitation at work, low-income renters, people who need financial counselling, and others on low incomes. The largest area of work for the community legal sector is in frontline domestic and family violence prevention and response.
The impact of chronic underfunding over the last decade has pushed many local services to the brink of closure and led to poor pay and conditions for staff supporting local community members. In 2023, community legal centres turned away over 1,000 people a day nationally, including at least 340 victim-survivors of domestic and family violence.
The Save Community Legal Centres Campaign is calling on the Federal Government to save the community legal sector and provide fair pay and conditions, including:
Community Legal Centres Australia Chairperson, Arlia Fleming, said:
“Today’s announcement is an encouraging first step, but there is a long way to go. We welcome the Commonwealth’s commitment to funding legal assistance beyond 1 July 2025. This is an acknowledgement of the insecurity facing the community legal sector, and the profound impact that this has on the people and communities who rely on our services to stay safe.
“Of today’s announcement, just $800 million is additional funding, which will be shared amongst all four types of legal assistance providers, over five years. Only a fraction will come to community legal centres. This is simply not enough. It will not fix the community legal sector’s workforce crisis, and it will not come close to enabling community legal centres to meet the community’s demand for our services.
“We are disappointed that today’s announcements include no immediate lifeline for community legal centres. The Independent Review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership recommended an urgent injection of $35 million in 2024-25 to keep community legal centres afloat but this has not been delivered. Our sector is at breaking point right now. There are many people and communities across Australia who cannot wait 9 long months for their community legal centre to receive any additional funding.
“Negotiations around the next legal assistance funding agreement are continuing between the Federal, State, and Territory governments. This means governments still have an opportunity to rectify the significant shortfall in legal assistance funding ahead of the finalising of the next 5-year agreement. We encourage the Commonwealth Government to step up with a more substantial uplift in funding. We also urge state and territory governments to announce what they intend to contribute. We are asking all governments to invest more in a community where access to legal advice, the justice system, and safety from violence, are based on need and not on the size of your bank balance.
“It is crucial that decisions on the allocation of legal assistance funding beyond June 2025 are made as quickly as possible and that state and territory governments move forward to confirm funding arrangements with individual community legal centres. We appreciate the security provided by guaranteed Commonwealth funding, but this doesn’t translate to funding security for individual centres until they have their funding contracts confirmed.”
Women’s Legal Services Chair, Elena Rosenman, said:
“Women’s Legal Services Australia welcomes the ongoing focus from all levels of government on this important issue. The commitments made today recognise legal assistance as a core element of responding to men’s violence against women. The commitments today from National Cabinet give us hope that when a woman closes the door on violence, our door will be open, and we can support her and her children.”
First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence Board Chair, Wynetta Dewis, said:
“We look forward to gaining clarity around what this significant funding injection means for the Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services (FVPLS) sector, and we remain committed to a conversation that will lead to sustainable and long-term funding that will support our services to continue to provide a holistic, culturally safe model of care that is consistent with the four National Pillars of Prevention, Early Intervention, Response and Recovery.”
A former community legal centre client, Sam, said:
“The first time I was ever validated in my experience as a victim of domestic violence was when Caxton Legal Centre believed me. That was the first time I heard someone say ‘Sam, this is real, and it is wrong. This should not have happened to you. This is serious, and it is important’.”
“When people come to be involved with the legal system, it’s because their needs haven’t been addressed. Community legal centres help with the immediate legal problem, but they look beyond people’s legal matters and into the future, too. I was a shell of a person when I made it to Caxton. They believed and validated me, and they gave me all the support I needed over five years.”
“I never in a million years would have thought this would happen to me. I didn’t think of myself as someone who’d need a community legal centre. But now I don’t think I’m the exception. I know there are thousands and thousands of other people in similar circumstances.”
“If the government is sincerely committed to ending domestic and family violence, then they must honour that commitment through appropriately resourcing community legal centres, all across Australia. Resourcing community legal centres is primary prevention for domestic and family violence.”
CEO of Caxton Legal Centre, Cybele Koning, said:
“We assist over 25,000 people per annum. Close to 50% of our clients are affected by domestic and family violence. Community legal centres like ours across Australia who respond to a broad range of legal issues – family law, child protection, consumer credit and debt, employment, criminal law, sexual harassment, elder abuse – we need funding to respond to this alarming rate of domestic and family violence. These people won’t be safe until the government realises how much work our centres are required to do to prevent and respond to DFV in our communities and prioritises funding to us as a critical part of the DFV service system.”
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