A city-centric mentality has led legal access in regional Australia to crisis point, a peak legal network warns, as it makes its case for a complete reset to address systemic issues which have led to high Indigenous incarceration rates.

The Rural, Regional and Remote Legal Services Network representing community legal centres across Australia wants to see a national plan developed for legal access, and significant new budget funding to address what it says is an "extreme" problem.

It comes amid concerns legal access gaps are perpetuating an ideology of deficiency across communities, and that drivers of this are not being addressed.

Townsville Community Law principal solicitor Bill Mitchell said without living in the regions it could be hard to notice legal access was at crisis point.

"I have watched this get worse over 30 years of community legal practice. Up close, there is crisis," he said.

"People can't get legal help, things spiral and get so much worse.

"Access to justice isn't just a city thing - for RRRR communities, so many inequities are covered up with poor and untenable excuses.

"Really, we must be able to see that it's a metro perspective that RRRR communities are too far away, too small and too expensive to service."

Darwin Community Legal Service principal solicitor Judy Harrison said metro-centric policy development was hampering remote communities.

"It seems to me that there are forms of biases - some of those biases, (being) city people know best, city people should be able to control the resources that RRRR areas have, and what services they provide," she said.

"Can we maybe detect that remoteness has become an excuse.

"Think about medical services, education, forms opportunities, the forms of programs available also play out in relation to legal health - advocacy.

"The idea that there could be forms of bias, is about thinking why these problems continue to play out in the way there are."

Ms Harrison said without a national Plan, the voices in the regions would be silenced.

She said presumptions regarding a lack of capacity within communities perpetuated metro-centric beliefs, pointing to a mentality where outreach models were required to "save them".

This has played out in the high rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration, where lack of access to justice is a significant driver.

"If legal services were accountable to Aboriginal communities... it would change the culture of the legal services," Ms Harrison said.

• Story by Rachel Stringfellow