Legal Aid, the Community Legal Sector and Access to Justice: What has been the Record of the Australian Government?

This paper will consider the record of the Australian Government in supporting and promoting the work of state and territory Legal Aid Commissions and community legal centres. Legal Aid and the community legal sector play an important role in providing predominantly, but not exclusively, poor and otherwise disadvantaged Australians with legal and related services helping to ensure that they are able to achieve some measure of access to justice. Beginning in 1997 with the decisions of the Government to cease funding Legal Aid Commissions for matters falling under state and territory law and to implement purchaser-provider funding arrangements for the two agencies, it will consider how these decisions have affected the agencies’ ability to provide access to justice for their clients.