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    6Jul, 2023
    Hopes legal aid funding review will deliver equal justice
    Mark Dreyfus

    Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has announced a review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership. Photo: Anna Carlisle.

    Overburdened legal aid centres across the country will be hoping the latest review of government funding arrangements delivers on their promises to ensure all Australians have equal access to the law.

    Don’t hold your breath. Funding is never enough, as any legal aid lawyer will tell you.

    Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus last week announced an independent review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership, a funding agreement between all Australian governments to provide the most vulnerable access to legal assistance for civil matters, such as family law disputes and child protection.

    State and territory governments fund most criminal law matters.

    A decade or more of chronic underfunding by all governments for legal aid services has recently forced Aboriginal legal aid services in NSW and Queensland to suspend services.

    The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (NATILS) says demand for legal services has risen 100 per cent since 2018, but federal government core funding has declined in real terms.

    An emergency injection of $21 million in federal government funding in May would “do little more than help keep the lights on”, NATILS said.

    “We fully expect service freezes to continue and that means bad outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, including unjust incarceration and separated families,” NATILS chair Karly Warner said.

    The ACT Government has just delivered a $2 million boost for community legal services in the budget, including for the NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Service, which Ms Warner leads. In the ACT, its services continue.

    A longer-term boost to national funding for legal aid services is at least another year away.

    The current national funding agreement is due to expire in 2025. Since 2020, it will have delivered $2.4 billion in federal

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    5May, 2023
    Legal Aid lawyers kept in the dark over damning report on terror risk assessment tool | Australia news

    Legal Aid lawyers were left oblivious to a damning government-held report which cast doubt on a tool used to try to lock up or control 25 of their clients on the basis they might commit a terrorist offence in the future.

    Guardian Australia has revealed serious problems with the way the federal and New South Wales governments have wielded extraordinary powers to detain or control individuals for crimes they have not yet committed.

    The powers are reliant on a tool used to assess an individual’s likelihood of future terror offending, known as VERA-2R, which is used by lawyers for the commonwealth and NSW to convince courts to use continuing detention orders (CDOs) or extended supervision orders (ESOs) to prevent a future crime from occurring.

    In May 2020, the then Morrison government received a report on the tool which it had commissioned from the academic Dr Emily Corner at significant taxpayer expense. The report was damning about the use of the tool, saying the “lack of evidence” underpinning it had “serious implications for [its] validity and reliability”.

    The commonwealth sat on the report and continued to use the risk assessment tool as the basis for continuing to detain or monitor offenders after their sentence had finished.

    The report was not disclosed to defendants, despite its damning findings. It was also not disclosed to the NSW government, which continued to rely on the tool.

    The report only came to light more than two-and-a-half years later during a November 2022 inquiry by the national security law watchdog, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor [INSLM].

    Now, the Guardian can reveal that the report was not disclosed to Legal Aid NSW at any point during 25 separate cases involving its clients.

    “Legal Aid NSW first became aware of the existence of the report when it

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    24Nov, 2022
    National Legal Services Day on November 9: Know History, Significance of the day

    National Legal Services Day is observed annually on November 9 to commemorate the start of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987, which entered into force in 1995. On National Legal Services Day, state legal services offices across the country host legal education activities to let people know that they can get free legal assistance. Furthermore, every year advertisements are run nationwide to let the public know about the different services that Legal Services Authorities offer.

    The development of the legal services authorities and institutions is supported by the government through Grant-in-Aid and other forms of logistical assistance. All of the State Legal Services Authority (SLAs) submit monthly activity reports to NALSA summarising all the tasks completed to monitor the functioning of the legal services authorities.

    The 9th of November, a Friday, will be designated as Legal Services Day in 2022.

    The government has been sending out the legal message that everyone who falls under the category of poor citizens (and is unable to pay for legal services) is entitled to free legal services as a matter of law. Moreover, it should be highlighted that this service is free legal help, which is not connected to a charitable organisation. All legal professionals should be aware of their constitutional obligation to uphold this legal right for all parties who may benefit from it.

    The importance of setting up free services in Nagaland, where the disabled members of society would benefit and receive assistance in a number of ways, has been emphasised by Deputy Commissioner Hushili Sema of Dimapur. By participating in the programme, numerous NGOs also played a significant part in the development of the services.

    A number of states carried on the Sikkim state’s 1995 implementation of the legislation, laws, and rules by establishing the services (training programmes and awareness) connected

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