Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Lambie. I can assure you that I very much understand the important role that community legal services play. In my much younger days, I did quite a bit of volunteer work in community legal services both in Melbourne and, I think, in Brisbane as well, to my recollection. They play a vital role in providing legal advice and legal services to some of the most disadvantaged members of our community. That's exactly why in this year's budget the government announced $44.1 million of urgent funding, for this coming financial year, to help legal assistance providers address current resource and workforce issues until the new National Legal Assistance Partnership agreement commences, on 1 July 2025. The forming of that new agreement, which commences in just over 12 months time, is the key point in time in which we can lock in longer term funding for community legal services, but we recognise that it is important to make sure they have the funding they need to get them through to that point in time so that they can meet the very real resource and workforce issues that many of them have.

The new National Legal Assistance Partnership between the Commonwealth and all states and territories is intended to be a five-year agreement to fund vital legal assistance services for the most vulnerable Australians. As I say, it's through that longer term agreement, which will commence in a bit over 12 months time, that we will be seeking to lock in longer term funding and provide certainty for community legal services. That requires negotiations with the states and territories, and, inevitably, that takes a period of time, but we didn't want to leave those community legal services stranded without the extra resources that they need in the meantime. That's why we provided that urgent funding through this year's budget, and I certainly hope that that goes some way to meeting the needs of those services.