Actions for the 48th Parliament of Australia
Invest in better health and social outcomes through legal help
Community legal centres understand that legal, social, health and economic determinants of wellbeing are connected, and so we try to help people holistically. Our services are trauma-informed and integrate lots of different professional supports, like social work, counselling, disability and tenancy advocacy, and community development. Community legal centres help people in a range of settings, like health centres, hospitals, domestic violence and homelessness shelters, and prisons, and prioritise prevention and early support. The integrated supports we provide benefit a range of government departments and priorities.
Community legal centres respond creatively to community needs. For example, health-justice partnerships had their origins in community legal centre innovation. Decades ago, when community legal centres realised that some people were presenting to doctors’ rather than lawyers’ offices with legal problems, they began connecting with health services to place community lawyers there regularly. This allowed centres to reach people early, in settings they already knew and trusted, to help identify and resolve legal problems before they escalated. This improves both health and legal outcomes.
Similarly, community legal centres often work with schools and youth centres to meet at-risk young people where they are and provide them with the information they need to stay safe and well. For example, a centre in Victoria partners with local youth services to provide legal education to young people in areas like housing, employment, and financial management, during programmed activities like art and boxing. This format engages young people and helps set them up with the life skills needed to successfully engage in civil society. Another centre has developed an interactive theatre project to engage with secondary school students on issues surrounding domestic and family violence.
A centre in the Northern Territory saw that some women who had mental health conditions because of their experiences of gender-based violence were becoming criminalised and ending up before the courts. The centre developed a mental health justice partnership to bring together specialist domestic violence lawyers with extensive criminal law experience, financial counsellors, and other allied professionals, to provide these women with wrap-around support.
Through its 2023 Measuring What Matters: Australia’s First Wellbeing Framework the Federal Government committed to building healthy, secure, cohesive and prosperous communities for everyone, including through access to justice. A properly funded legal assistance sector delivers benefits to government across a range of departments including health, social security, immigration, employment and workplace relations, and more.
Problem:
The Federal Government’s approach to legal assistance funding is limited and siloed, with almost all funding coming from the Attorney-General’s Department. A very limited amount of targeted funding flows to some centres from other government departments like Social Services, Health, Home Affairs, and the Office for Women. Many departments make and implement policies that directly increase demand for legal assistance. The legal assistance sector is chronically under-funded. Community legal centres alone are turning away almost 400,000 people a year who need help. When people can’t access legal help, they can experience a whole range of harms and often end up needing much more comprehensive support. ‘Savings’ through underfunding legal assistance are far outweighed by increased costs to other government portfolio areas, like health, social and disability services, and child protection.
Government departments beyond the Attorney-General’s benefit from the work of community legal centres. We know the benefits we deliver are wide-reaching, but we don’t have the resources to evaluate their systemic impact or identify opportunities to expand them.
Solution:
The Federal Government should assess the benefits and cost-savings that legal assistance already delivers across key portfolio areas, as part of its commitment to wellbeing. It should then build on the outcomes of this assessment to develop proposals for targeted investments in community legal centres from portfolios beyond the Attorney-General’s that would deliver significant benefits for people and communities.
Start work towards a whole-of-government approach to resourcing for legal assistance, including assessing the benefits and cost savings that legal assistance delivers across all portfolio areas.
Begin by requiring all relevant Federal Government portfolios to participate in the mid-point review of the National Access to Justice Partnership agreement. Assess department priorities and desired outcomes to identify opportunities where modest targeted investments in community-based legal assistance would deliver significant benefits. Relevant departments include Health, Social Services, Employment and Workplace Relations, Emergency Management, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Home Affairs. Starting with the Department of Health, deliver these investments.
By the last budget of the 48th Parliament:
- Invest additional Department of Health funding in community legal centres and Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services that deliver mental health legal services and Health Justice Partnerships
- Outline proposals for future targeted investment from other portfolios beyond the Attorney-General’s Department.