Senator Lidia Thorpe has expressed disappointment at the legal assistance package put forward by the National Cabinet, saying without further funding, legal services will continue to struggle to meet growing community needs.
On Friday the federal government announced it would contribute $3.9B toward funding legal assistance services over the next five years. The following day, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus admitted that only $800 million of the package is additional spending.
A recent independent review of the legal assistance sector commissioned by the government, showed the sector is underfunded by an estimated $1 billion per year, and recommended an additional $459 million be provided per year as a floor from 2025 onwards. The report also called for $215 million of urgent funding for the 2024-2025 financial year to keep legal assistance services afloat before the new agreement commences in July 2025.
Earlier this year, the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator led a group of 28 crossbenchers who together wrote to the federal, state and territory Attorneys-General calling them to fill the 2024-25 stop gap funding, but this funding was not provided in Friday's announcement.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) and the Victorian ALS were both highly critical of Friday's funding statement, with VALS describing the announcement as "not representative of a government that says it believes in Aboriginal justice".
Senator Thorpe, who represents Victoria as an independent, said on Monday "this announcement from National Cabinet is smoke and mirrors".
"It isn't a substantial new funding commitment, it's mostly a rebrand of existing funding arrangements," she said.
"The Albanese government is focused on getting a good headline, not on what will work for communities. It's good that the government says they want to take action on domestic and family violence, but this weak commitment falls significantly short of what is needed.
"Labor's ongoing failure to properly fund these services will see First Peoples, women, children and other vulnerable groups without access to life-saving legal services.
"First Peoples across the country are being denied access to legal services every day. This is leaving families vulnerable to violence and child removal, and leading to further criminalisation of our people, risking more deaths in custody."
Senator Thorpe said that while the federal government fails to properly fund legal services, state and territory governments are "pursuing new punitive policies that will criminalise and jail more people, putting further pressure on these services".
"They are happy to waste billions on more police and prisons, but they have consistently underfunded legal assistance services. Everyone has a right to proper legal representation, but many aren't getting that," she said.
"The government still has an opportunity to set this right. The states and territories need to make contributions to this funding agreement, and the federal government should increase their commitment beyond what was announced on Friday.
"And they need to commit to the emergency increase in funding for this financial year, which was recommended in Warren Mundy's review but they have failed to provide.
"I am calling for Mark Dreyfus and the state and territory Attorneys-General to sort this out at their meeting later this month."
A spokesperson for the Attorney General told National Indigenous Times that the National Access to Justice Partnership is "the biggest single Commonwealth investment in legal assistance ever".
"The $3.9 billion agreement includes $800 million additional funding which will benefit every part of the legal assistance sector including Legal Aid Commissions, Women's Legal Services, Community Legal Services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and Family Violence Prevention Legal Services," he said.
"It comes on top of the more than $270 million in legal assistance funding the Albanese government has invested since the October 2022 Budget, including $44.1 million of urgent funding for 2024-25 to support legal assistance providers in the current resource and workforce challenges until the next agreement commences.
"Crucially, the ongoing commitment from the Commonwealth ends the uncertainty created by the former government and ensures frontline legal services can now plan for the future with confidence."
