News

On 11th May Federal Attorney-General 
Robert McClelland and Minister for Home Affairs
 Bob Debus announced a one-off payment of $4 million for Community Legal Centres nationally.

“Legal assistance services are critical to effective early intervention by helping people resolve problems before they escalate and lead to entrenched disadvantage,” Mr McClelland said. “Community Legal Centre funding will help disadvantaged Australians who require legal assistance in areas such as consumer protection, mortgage and tenancy issues, welfare rights, family and homelessness issues”

Whilst CCLCG applauds the Attorney-General for recognising community legal centres by providing additional funding, we note with much concern the minimal short-term effects of the one-off funding.Helen Campbell, Chairperson of the Combined Community Legal Centres' Group (NSW) stated: "CCLCG was pleased to see some funding provided to a number of centres around NSW, particularly to those who need urgent funding simply to remain open to deliver core services.  However, we are concerned about the negligible effects this one-off funding will have.  The allocations are for 12 months only, with no known prospects as to long-term funding.  For CLCs to be truly effective in service delivery there needs to be a more structured approach to allocation of funding, whether short-term or long-term.  Recurrent and long-term funding enable CLCs to establish effective services, particularly by building long-term positive relationships with the communities they serve.

"CCLCG has, over many years, provided the Commonwealth with a vast amount of evidence of areas of greatest legal need.  This evidence-based information appears to have been ignored with the one-off funding allocation.  We call upon the Attorney-General to consider a more strategic approach to funding allocation and to provide CLCs with long-term funding that addresses the areas of greatest need".

For further information, contact the State Office on 9212 7333.