The Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service has criticised the lack of Indigenous justice funding in this week's Federal Budget, echoing the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services by saying it fails to ensure access to justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveiled Labor's fifth consecutive budget on Tuesday, which offered no increase for funding for Indigenous legal services beyond inflation.

It allocated $164 million in 2026-27, alongside a further $110.1 million for community legal centres through the National Access to Justice Partnership.

Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service CEO Jake Smith says the budget fails to ensure access to justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Mr Smith said despite Indigenous legal services across the country, such as TALS, being unable to meet demand for services, no new investment was included in the budget to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services so they can provide culturally safe legal assistance to Indigenous people.

"Aboriginal people across the country, including here in Tasmania do not have equitable access to culturally safe legal assistance services." Mr Smith said.

"Without adequate funding to provide access to legal assistance and representation across a variety of family, civil, child safety and criminal matters, Aboriginal people will continue to be disadvantaged and over-represented in our justice system."

Mr Smith said without new and significant investment in Tasmania, TALS will need to review the legal assistance services available for Aboriginal people in the state.

"For years our service, like others ATSILS across the country, have been chronically underfunded, costs continue to increase and we continue to be unable to ensure pay parity to mainstream services in the sector," he said.

Following the budget's handing down National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) chair Nerita Waight echoed Mr Smith's sentiment, saying the lack of funding for Indigenous justice services amounted to government ignoring First Nations people.

Highlighting Indigenous women were the fastest growing prison cohort, Ms Waight said: "Yet the disparity between funding for mainstream legal services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services in this Budget is breathtaking but unsurprising as this is the case every year."

Ms Waight argued Indigenous people were being "failed at every step" — from governments failing to provide support services that prevent people entering the justice system, to an unwillingness to end "punitive policies" driving incarceration rates higher.

In this budget, she said, the federal government had "failed to effectively fund ATSILS that are critical for culturally safe legal representation".

Ms Waight said the failure to invest in ATSILS undermined Australia's Closing the Gap commitments.

"The government's lack of leadership led to the failure of the Voice to Parliament, and now it seems they have decided that we should have no voice at all," she said.

"Not in police stations and prison cells where we're being harassed, discriminated against, and having our basic human rights denied; not in courtrooms as we combat systemic racism and bias; and certainly not for our children and young people who continue to pay for governments' failure to provide services and supports."

Mr Smith acknowledged new investment into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services under the National Access to Justice Partnership began, which began in mid-2025, but said the initiative was ineffective considering other cuts.

"The reality is that other funding was removed and it did very little given the years of chronic under funding, rising costs and the increase tough on crime policies - which don't make safer communities - that lead to increased demand for the service," Mr Smith said.

"Despite the Federal Budget failing Aboriginal people across the country and in this state, the Tasmanian Government has an opportunity to step up to the plate in the upcoming State Budget and support Aboriginal people of Tasmania."

With Dechlan Brennan