September 2025
Community Legal Centres Australia’s Vision for Justice sets out the common systemic barriers our sector sees preventing the people and communities we work with from accessing justice. Against these barriers, we set out our vision for how things could look if governments and communities worked together to remove them.
The Vision for Justice was launched at Australian Parliament House on 1 September 2025, alongside a complementary set of priority Actions for the 48th Parliament of Australia.
The Community Legal Centres Australia Vision for Justice sets out the common systemic barriers our sector sees preventing the people and communities we work with from accessing justice. Against these barriers, we set out out vision for how things could look if governments and communities worked together to remove them.
Our vision is structured around eight priority themes, determined through analysis of national sector service and client data, and consultation with national sector networks and legal and policy experts.
We recognise that people’s lives and problems don’t often fit neatly within policy themes. In real life, people’s problems get more complicated and harder to resolve the more justice barriers they face at once. A woman seeking safety from violence will have a harder time if she lives in a remote community rather than a city. A renter with physical disability access needs will have a harder time seeking justice from an exploitative landlord than a renter without home accessibility needs.
This vision for justice reflects community legal centres’ work across all jurisdictions and many areas of law, from child protection and criminal law to employment, social security and immigration. It sits alongside and complements the advocacy of state and territory community legal centre peaks and individual centres.
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.
All people deserve to live free from the threat or experience of domestic, family, and sexual violence, and other forms of abuse.
All people deserve equal opportunities to participate in the community and live freely and safely. Tolerance need not extend to actions or words that harm people and groups that experience discrimination and stigma.
People deserve equitable access to justice and due process wherever they live.
Sovereignty has never been ceded. We acknowledge the hundreds of First Nations Countries and cultures that have lived on this land for millennia.
All people deserve dignity and safety, no matter their country of origin or visa status.
All people, regardless of identity or origin, deserve to live a free and dignified life. Our communities deserve governments that prioritise, protect, and enforce human rights.
Future generations deserve bold leadership from current governments to ensure they can live, safely and healthily, on this planet. Everyone deserves protection from the devastation of climate disasters.
It will take many years of hard work to achieve our Vision for Justice: a society in which everyone is treated fairly, and can access justice regardless of income, race, gender, disability, or any other systemic barrier. As a first step, we have identified some actions the 48th Parliament of Australia can take to bring communities closer to achieving our vision.
These are not the only actions we will need to take to collectively build a fair and just society, but they are examples of the kinds of reforms that will be necessary. They stand alongside and complement the actions recommended by our allies across the legal assistance and social justice sectors.
Some will take significant political will to achieve. Others have strong support already but require leadership to turn support into actual legislative, policy or budgetary change. All can be delivered by the 48th Parliament. Future parliaments will have more work to do.
Click here to read more about our Actions for the 48th Parliament of Australia.
