Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Community legal centres play a vital role in Australia, providing access to justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Community legal centres provide crucial legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, individuals who might be struggling with debt, employees who have been bullied in the workplace, people who have been conned into signing dodgy contracts and parents of children who are in need of legal protection. Yet for all the vital work that community lawyers do in our communities, for over two years the Abbott-Turnbull government has shown community legal centres and the hundreds of thousands of Australians who rely on them little but contempt.

Soon after coming to office as Attorney-General, Senator Brandis sought to gag community lawyers, lest they dare speak out against this government's policies. Faced with massive unmet legal need and a Productivity Commission report calling for massively increased funding, this government has repeatedly cut the funding to community legal centres, making a bad problem even worse. Figures released yesterday reveal that community legal centres have been forced to turn away more than 160,000 people in need each year. Yet, next year, the Turnbull government is planning not to increase but to again cut funding to community legal centres, this time by some 30 per cent. This is a disgrace. The government must reverse these cuts immediately, before any more damage is done. (Time expired)