Advocacy

Our national advocacy, policy and law reform work is critical to our core function as a national representative voice for the community legal sector. Our movement has a vision for justice which will only be realised through progressive law reform, and through adequate resourcing for our sector so that the people and communities we work with can access the legal supports they need.

This work involves:

Giving voice to the people and communities our centres work with so that their experiences of the justice system can drive system reform.
Coordinating sector views so that we can, wherever possible, speak with one voice, particularly when advocating to the federal government and other national-level justice stakeholders.
Amplifying the advocacy, policy and law reform work of both the state and territory peaks and individual centres and, where we can, supporting them with strategic advice and resources.

Building understanding of and support for our sector among federal parliamentarians and other national-level decision-makers.

Read below about some of the important federal law reform issues our sector advocates on.

September 2023: Community Legal Centres Australia supports the Voice to Parliament and the Yes23 referendum campaign

Our support is grounded in the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in the community legal sector who participated in our national consultation process over recent months.

We recognise that the Voice is just one part of our collective journey to a just future and reconciliation within our nation. It is a complement to Treaty and Truth, and to the many other efforts already underway to advance the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

September 2023: Submission to the Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework

Community Legal Centres Australia, in conjunction with the Community Legal Centres National Human Rights Network, recently made a submission to the Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework.

Our submission highlights the need to establish a national human rights framework that has a legislative basis and includes the protection of civil and political rights, economic and social rights, and the right to a healthy environment. It also emphasises the need for a positive enabling framework to guide government decision-making, in line with values of fairness, safety, and dignity.

August 2023: Submission to the Independent Review of Commonwealth Disaster Funding

Community Legal Centres Australia made a submission to the National Emergency Management Agency’s Independent Review of Commonwealth Disaster Funding. The submission particularly highlights that:

Community legal centres need sufficient, sustainable and flexible funding to prepare for and respond to disasters.
Funding community legal centre resilience-building programs is an investment in protecting communities from disasters.

July 2023: Robodebt Royal Commission

by Amy Schneider, Environmental Justice Australia

On Friday 7 July 2023, the Royal Commission handed down its final report into the Robodebt Scheme. The report is extensive, with comprehensive analysis of the scheme spanning over 900 pages and 3 volumes) and makes 57 recommendations. It describes the scheme as a “crude and cruel mechanism,” that from its inception was known to be inconsistent with social security law. In examining the operation of the scheme, the report unravels systemic injustice and identifies areas of social security law, and administration, that require urgent reform.

June 2023: Family law reform

by Lara Freidin, Women’s Legal Services Australia

The Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus has stated the government’s commitment to ensuring the family law system is ‘safer, more accessible, simpler to use, and delivers justice and fairness for all Australian families’ many times since taking office in May 2022. On 29 March, the government introduced the Family Law Amendment Bill 2023 and the Family Law (Information Sharing) Bill 2023. Both bills were referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry on 11 May.

June 2023: Voice to Parliament

Community Legal Centres Australia recognises there is a diversity of views about the Voice to Parliament and the referendum within First Nations communities, and within our sector.

We are still planning a national conversation about the Voice to Parliament for First Nations workers in our sector and we will not formalise a position until this conversation has taken place.

May 2023: Federal Budget response

The 2023-24 budget demonstrates the government’s clear intention to target expenditure towards supporting people experiencing financial hardship to meet cost-of-living pressures. We welcome this focus. However, the budget contains very little new funding to improve access to justice, or to support struggling legal assistance services to meet overwhelming demand for legal help. People experiencing poverty and intersectional disadvantage are more likely to have multiple legal problems, to have fewer resources to resolve them, and to become enmeshed in the criminal legal system. As such, it is particularly disappointing that legal assistance services have been largely overlooked in a budget that focuses its attention squarely on doing more for people doing it tough.

April 2023: Submission on the extent and nature of poverty in Australia

Community Legal Centres Australia welcomed the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs’ inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia. Poverty is widely recognised as a key driver of legal need and of harmful contact with our criminal legal systems. As a result, we were disheartened to find that the inquiry’s terms of reference do not explicitly address the role our legal systems play in perpetuating the prevalence and punishing the experience of poverty in the community.

February 2023: Submission on Australia’s illicit drug problem

Community legal centres across the country work daily with people experiencing disadvantage, discrimination and trauma who are negatively impacted by the criminalisation of the personal use and possession of illicit drugs. We see first-hand the harms associated with treating drug use as a criminal legal issue rather than a health issue.

The submission addresses particularly:

the involvement and effectiveness of law enforcement in harm reduction strategies
the strengths and weaknesses of decriminalisation