The Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service has raised concerns about Tasmanian Legal Aid's reduction of services as of next year, a decision it says will increase demand for community legal services "already at breaking point" in the state.

One of nine community legal services in the state, Tasmanian Legal Aid announced cuts to family law services on Thursday, effective 1 January 2025.

Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service (TALS) chief executive officer, Jake Smith, said funding cuts to community legal services such as Tasmanian Legal Aid will put more pressure on an already strained sector.

"The funding cuts will result in a reduction of private lawyers able to undertake legal aid family law work and increase demand on TALS and other community legal centres who provide their services for free," Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith said current funding levels across the sector are insufficient to meet the demand for services.

"The demand for Family Law and Child Safety legal assistance across the sector can't be met with current levels of funding," the Palawa man said.

"Our service and other community legal centres are already unable to meet demand. These funding cuts will mean that, particularly women, will miss out on the legal support they need."

Last week, Tasmania Legal Aid (TLA) tabled its 2023-24 annual report, which it said highlighted the "extraordinary reach of the organisation" across thousands of services delivered to Tasmanians.

Annual report statistics indicate TLA received more than 18,000 calls to their legal help phone line, offered 4,254 criminal duty lawyer services, with 3,118 people attending a TLA legal clinic.

The organisation also received more than 6,000 grant applications, allocating $7.96m in legal aid grants to private lawyers, with 23 per cent of grants offered to people identified as having a disability.

Tasmania Legal Aid director, Kristen Wylie, acknowledged the hard work of many TLA staff who contributed to the TLA submission to the Review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership.

"This culminated in a comprehensive and compelling submission that advocated for additional funding for essential programs, for service delivery that meets the needs for all Tasmanians, and for appropriate rates of pay and employment conditions for staff and private lawyers who do legal aid work," she said.

Tyne McConnon from 'Support. Information. Strength.' (SIS) Tasmania, a TALS program which delivers culturally appropriate, trauma-informed services and assistance to Indigenous peoples, said community legal services throughout the state will come under additional pressure should Tasmanian Legal Aid not receive adequate funding.

"While we have not cut service delivery like Tasmanian Legal Aid, there is now a waitlist for our services," Ms McConnon said

"When other services cut service delivery, this places further strain on services who are already also struggling to meet the demands of the community.

Ms McConnon said SiS Tasmania is already seeing a significant increase in complex cases with vulnerable parties who need urgent and ongoing advice and representation.

"While vulnerable clients, families and communities will feel the immediate pressure of waitlists and service cuts, there will also be an impact on the family law system as the courts will have unrepresented people fighting to protect the rights and best interests of children."

Community Legal Centres Tasmania Inc president, Ryan Gilmour, said five Community Legal Centres Tasmania member organisations who provide advice and representation services to clients in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia will be directly affected by TLA's reduced capacity.

"It has been widely publicised how chronically underfunded Community Legal Centres are and as the grass roots legal assistance providers to vulnerable Tasmanians, reduced legal aid assistance in this space means increased numbers of Tasmanians seeking assistance from Community Legal Centres across the State which are already stretched beyond capacity," Mr Gilmour said.

"Fewer options for legal assistance in the critical family law space means reduced access to justice for those that need it most and critically, the children we need to protect."

On Wednesday, Tasmania Attorney-General Guy Barnett said Tasmanians will be "unfairly impacted" by the cuts, saying the federal government is "letting down the vulnerable Tasmanians who are engaging with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia".

"They don't deserve this – this shortfall will have an acute impact for these Tasmanians," Mr Barnett said.

Mr Barnett said the current federal budget includes more than $10 million in funding for TLA, while calling on the federal government to "step up".

"Six months without access to adequate counsel in the Federal justice system will adversely impact Tasmanians," the Attorney-General said.

"The Tasmanian government has made this clear to Canberra for some time now and will continue to do so.

Mr Smith called for the Tasmanian government to invest more in legal assistance within the state.

"For us, the Tasmanian government need to provide funding to aid in meeting the demands on services providing Family Law and Child Safety legal assistance to community," he said.

"Services such as TALS and SiS Tasmania do not receive baseline legal assistance funding from the Tasmanian government for services like Family and Child Safety legal assistance.

"It is simple, our families and children are at risk and more needs to be done."

A spokesperson for federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told National Indigenous Times the Commonwealth has not made any cuts to Tasmania Legal Aid funding "and in fact has just announced the largest ever increase in legal assistance funding under the National Access to Justice Partnership".

"The NAJP was finally completed last week when the Tasmanian Attorney-General, the last one to do so, finally signed, allowing the Commonwealth to provide more than $127 million to Tasmanian legal assistance services," he said.

"Funding under the NAJP will benefit all legal assistance sectors, including Legal Aid Commissions who will receive a 24 per cent increase in funding under the new agreement. The previous Commonwealth Liberal Government provided a terminating funding measure to Legal Aid to assist them with the upheaval caused by the Family Court merger project."

The spokesperson said the federal government extended that measure in 2022 and again in 2023.

"Tasmania Legal Aid will receive more than $11 million of Commonwealth funding in the first year of the new NAJP, an increase of $673,735 from 2024-25 funding under the NLAP," he said.