At least 150,000 people impacted by domestic violence were turned away from community legal centres in the past year.
Community Legal Centres CEO Tim Leach said lack of funds meant community legal centres turned away more than 390,000 people over the past 12 months.
Mr Leach said this included at least 150,000 people impacted by domestic and family violence.
He said the organisation’s annual State of the Sector report, released today, revealed the legal need in the community far exceeded the capacity of community legal services.
“For the past two years, our sector has been forced to turn away over 1000 people in crisis every day.”
Mr Leach said Australia’s 165 community legal services continued to play a vital role in preventing and resolving a range of legal issues and crises.
He said the centres provided free legal and related help for victim-survivors of family violence, people experiencing homelessness, parents resolving family law matters, people affected by floods and bushfires, people experiencing harassment or exploitation at work, low-income renters, people who need financial counselling, and others on low incomes.
“The impact of chronic underfunding over the last decade has pushed many local services to the brink of closure and led to poor pay and conditions for staff supporting local community members.
“These things will not change significantly without further action. Investing in community legal centres is an investment in people and communities. We have yet to see the required investment from federal, state, and territory governments.”
Mr Leach said the annual report showed community legal centres assisted over 190,000 people in the past workers travelled over 1.2 million kilometres to reach and help people in regional and remote areas.
He said domestic and family violence support was the single largest area of need, making up 40-50 percent of the sector’s work, rising to 70-80 percent for rural, remote and very remote centres.
“Community legal centres’ preventative legal education programs reached over 161,000 people in the past year, empowering people to avoid legal problems or resolve them quickly and independently when they arise.”
