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Image: ALS NSW/ACT
By CHRISTINE CHEN
Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) has suspended work in 13 courts across NSW despite a national $21m injection announced by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in a last-ditch attempt to keep critical legal aid services afloat.
“In recognition of the demands placed on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS) the Government will provide $21 million in one-off additional funding,” announced the Attorney-General on Friday.
“This additional funding will be provided to the sector’s peak body, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), for distribution to ATSILS…to ensure ongoing access to justice for First Nations people.”
Earlier this month, the government denied a request from ATSILS to include $250 million of emergency funding relief in the federal budget.
As a result, service freezes in the local courts of Byron Bay, Eden, Forster, Junee, Lithgow, Moss Vale, Muswellbrook, Scone, Singleton, Temora, Tenterfield, West Wyalong and Wauchope were instituted last Monday by ALS NSW/ACT to cope with bourgeoning caseload demands and costs.
“We fully expect service freezes to continue.”
Karly Warner, chair of NATSILS and ALS chief executive, welcomed the Attorney-General’s one-off injection but confirmed it did not go far enough to address the funding crisis.
“We fully expect service freezes to continue…it’s a welcome breather but ultimately is nowhere near enough to reverse the increasing freezes that are crippling our capacity to achieve justice for our clients,” Ms Warner said.
NSW has not been the only state affected by service freezes, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service Queensland also forced into taking the same measures, scaling back its services in several local courts.
According to ATSILS, the funding crisis has been “building for some time” and is the result of years of frozen budgets, further eroded by inflation. “Our staff are at the brink of collapse,” it said in its joint statement in May.
“Demand for our services has almost doubled since 2018 but our core Federal Government funding has decreased in real terms,” it continued.
ALS described the service freezes as “disastrous”, fearing “dire consequences” for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, including increased family violence and child removal, unjust incarceration and deaths in custody.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults constitute 27% of the national prison population but only 2% of the national population. A report in 2018 by the Australian Law Reform Commission highlighted the growing issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-representation in Australia’s prisons. Between 2006 and 2016, prison rates increased by 41%, widening the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australians.
Ms Warner, speaking at the ALS 50th anniversary dinner in March said that access to justice through ATSILS is key to achieving equality for Indigenous Australians. “We simply cannot close [the] gap without guaranteeing culturally effective legal support…the most culturally effective providers for Aboriginal people are Aboriginal community-controlled legal services,” she said.
The Federal Government’s Promise
Experts also say that the funding crisis faced by ATSILS, left unabated, is at odds with the Government’s Voice agenda. “The Federal Government was elected promising to address Aboriginal justice,” ALS said.
“It doesn’t look good to be talking about an Indigenous Voice on one hand while taking away the possibility of an Indigenous Voice within the Australian legal system on the other,” argued Dr Effie Karageorgos, an academic at the University of Newcastle.
The Government contends that Friday’s announcement “reinforces” its commitment to working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to achieve better justice outcomes, and has pledged to review legal aid funding later in the year.