Social and economic justice
All people deserve to have enough income to meet their basic needs, like housing, food, and medical care. All people deserve to be treated fairly and humanely by the legal system and its institutions.
Barriers to justice
Poverty is a policy choice. Low rates of income support and a social security system that is difficult to access push people into poverty.
Rumi is a young woman living in a regional area with multiple disabilities and an ongoing mental health condition. In late 2023, Rumi applied for the Disability Support Pension. Her application was rejected, as was the internal review of the decision. Rumi lodged an application to the Administrative Review Tribunal for another review. She then heard nothing for almost a year so contacted a community legal centre.
Rumi told the centre she was extremely confused about the status of her case. She had lots of paperwork, but she couldn’t send it to the lawyer because she didn’t have a computer and her physical disability meant she couldn’t leave her home. Her lawyer asked Rumi to contact the Tribunal to let them know she was seeking legal advice and authorise the Tribunal to provide documentation to the centre. Rumi did so and gave the lawyer the appeal number. When the lawyer requested documents from the Tribunal, staff refused to provide any information unless Rumi physically signed a form appointing a legal representative – which she was unable to do for the same reasons she couldn’t send her paperwork directly to the centre. The Tribunal did not offer an alternative access arrangement. Rumi’s lawyer spent over a week going back and forth with Tribunal staff. Only after escalating the matter to a Registry manager were Rumi’s documents released to the centre.
The documents revealed that Rumi’s matter had progressed without her knowledge, and that the reason for the initial rejection was that Rumi hadn’t completed a Program of Support (POS) requiring her to undertake activities and look for work for at least 18 months. If this had been explained to Rumi at the time of the rejection, she would have by now either completed the POS or been exited from it if it couldn’t assist her to gain employment – in either case, Rumi would now be receiving a payment. Instead, Rumi must now wait another 18 months before qualifying.
Poverty drives legal need. People in poverty are more likely to face every day civil legal problems related to their housing, employment, social security, credit and debt issues, and personal safety. These everyday problems often have a greater impact on poorer people’s lives and wellbeing. An unfair eviction or the refusal of an application for income support can quickly lead to homelessness and worsening physical and mental health issues.
Lucy’s child was removed from her care by the care and protection of children statutory authority. The matter is currently in court to decide whether Lucy will regain the care of her child. Lucy lives in a very remote community. The nearest town to Lucy – where the court hearing Lucy’s matter sits and where the community legal centre helping Lucy is located – is a long drive away from her home. There were no foster carers available in that town and so Lucy’s child was placed in a town that is even further from Lucy.
Lucy’s primary income is social security, and she is not supported financially to attend the monthly court events. Lucy wants to be at every court event, but she can’t always afford the bus tickets and motel costs. When Lucy tries to join via telephone, she can’t always hear what is happening in the court room. She’s worried that an inference will be made that she isn’t invested in the proceedings – she wants to take all steps to be reunified with her child.
The statutory authority arranged an in-person visit for Lucy with her child. After Lucy travelled the significant distance to the town where her child was living, she couldn’t check in to the hotel that was booked for her because she doesn’t have ID documents. Lucy had no other options and was forced to sleep rough. While sleeping rough, she was very seriously assaulted.
Poorer people are more likely to be treated harshly by the criminal legal system. At the same time, they have less access to legal help than people who can afford a private lawyer.
Police and courts often enforce criminal laws more harshly against certain groups of people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, other people of colour, people with disabilities, people without a safe place to live, LGBTQI+ people, and sex workers.
Governments fund punitive responses even when evidence shows prevention and rehabilitation are more effective and cost less money. For example, governments criminalise, fine and imprison people who use drugs instead of supporting communities to be safer through healthcare and harm-reduction. Governments’ over-reliance on police as first responders has expanded their role into areas better suited to mental health and social support services. The outcomes can be harmful and, at times, fatal.
Daisy is a young woman living with multiple mental illnesses who had on several occasions been hospitalised in the mental health unit and discharged into a refuge or homelessness. Daisy had a baby, who was immediately taken into provisional protection and care by the Department of Communities, while Daisy was discharged from the hospital into homelessness. She was very distressed about her baby being taken, and very worried for her own safety. She would get intoxicated and cause disturbances to get admitted to hospital so that she would have a safe place to sleep.
Daisy was referred to a community legal centre, which helped her to access food, transport, phone credit and clothing while she was experiencing homelessness. The centre represented Daisy in proceedings relating to her child and supported her to access a residential rehab program. Daisy stopped using substances and actively participated in the program. The centre advocated to the Department for Daisy to have greater contact with her child while at rehab, and helped Daisy to pay off fines, get a restraining order against her father, and put in a priority housing application.
After Daisy had completed five months in the rehab program, the centre supported her to advocate for her child to be placed in her care. The Department initially didn’t agree, but after Daisy and her lawyer filed an application with strong evidence in her favour, the Department agreed the child could be transitioned into Daisy’s full-time care. Daisy now has a house and has been reunited with her child.
Many people in prison are poor, traumatised, have an intellectual disability or poor mental health. While in prison, people can’t access help to organise housing, ID, employment, social security and community support networks ahead of their release. This sets them up to fail, caught in a cycle of leaving prison without support, minor offending, and being locked up again.
Women, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, are the fastest-growing prison population. Most are victims-survivors of gender-based violence. Leaving prison without somewhere safe to live leaves many facing an impossible choice between going back to a violent home or sleeping rough.
Most kids in prison have experienced trauma, and many have had contact with child protection systems. Children in prison and in out-of-home care are often denied mental health and other supports.
There is no universal screening in prison for cognitive impairment or brain injury. Many people with intellectual disabilities who need healthcare and would benefit from a diversionary approach are put in prison without support.
Hundreds of thousands of people who need legal help are turned away from legal assistance every year because services don’t have the resources to help. Without support, a person’s once-simple problem can snowball into a complicated web of legal, social and economic problems.
Our vision for justice — social and economic justice
No one lives in poverty. Government investment in social security increases so that people receiving income support payments live above the poverty line. The social security system is fair, accessible and transparent. People who receive unfair decisions about social security can access free legal help to appeal.
All people can access a safe, secure home. There are fair renting systems, and there is enough high-quality public housing to meet community need, including in rural, regional, remote and very remote (regional and remote) areas.
The legal system does not criminalise people, or drive poorer outcomes in civil proceedings, based on poverty, race, gender, sexuality, age, disability or other systemic biases.
Children are not imprisoned. Governments support families and communities to keep their children safe at home.
Governments use data and evidence to guide responses to justice problems. They divert resources from prisons and punitive systems towards prevention and healing. Communities design approaches that address the root causes of offending, so the number of people imprisoned decreases over time. There are no private, for-profit prisons.
People leaving prison are set up to stay safe. While in prison, people have full access to healthcare, including mental healthcare, and to other services supporting access to housing and employment. People can access ongoing casework support through the transition from prison to life in the community.
Women in prison can access specialist, trauma-informed, culturally safe gender-based violence services. The criminal legal system avoids separating women from their children. People who are pregnant or primary caregivers for children are only imprisoned as a last resort. Mothers in prison are supported to maintain contact with their children.
Anyone in prison with a suspected brain injury is screened, and this informs legal and health systems’ responses to their behaviours and needs. All people with an intellectual disability in contact with the criminal legal system can access a free, specialist disability advocate.
Everyone who has a legal problem can access free, high-quality, timely legal support to resolve it.
