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Policy Focus | Social security systems play a critical role preventing people who are locked out of paid work from falling into poverty while they try to get their lives back on track. In this article, the National Social Security Rights Network reflects on the 2019-20 Federal Budget, and the impacts on people struggling to make ends meet of another missed opportunity to raise the rate of working-age social security payments in Australia.
Policy Focus | Mark Riboldi, Advocacy and Communications Manager at Community Legal Centres NSW highlights the importance of community-led justice reinvestment.
Initial response from Community Legal Centres NSW, peak organisation for 37 NSW-based community legal centres, to the release of funding agreements from 2019-2022 for NSW Government funding for the Community Legal Service Program:
Policy Focus | People with intellectual disability experience unique barriers to effective early engagement with support services. This article explores some of these barriers and a new initiative to address them.
The final make-up of the NSW upper house was determined on Monday, 15 April when the NSW Electoral Commission ‘pressed the button’ to allocate final preferences. Community Legal Centre NSW's Advocacy & Communications Manager Mark Riboldi examines what the new Upper House means for the community legal sector.
A summary of Community Legal Centres NSW's submission to the Their Futures Matter Consultation (2019).
In this article, Community Legal Centres NSW's Mark Riboldi unpacks the 2019 NSW Election and what it means for the community legal sector.
Mid North Coast Community Legal Centre (MNCCLC) launched its first Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) on 4 April. Since opening its doors in 2011, MNCCLC has worked hard on fostering positive relationships and meaningful engagement with the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
In warmly welcoming the continuation of Mark Speakman as Attorney General of NSW, peak community law organisation Community Legal Centres NSW has outlined three key areas of reform for the new government to ensure that more people in NSW have access to justice.
“The community law sector welcomes the opportunity to continue working with Attorney General Mark Speakman. A new four year term for the Liberal/National Coalition government presents a fresh opportunity for reforms which benefit people and communities, while taking pressure off the justice system and other public services,” Community Legal Centres NSW Chairperson Katrina Ironside said.
Summary of joint submission to the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Policy Focus | Early independent legal advice in child protection matters is crucial to helping parents explore their options to prevent permanent child removal, write Charlotte Buckton and Karin Ness from Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre.
Eleven key legislative and policy reforms to improve access to justice in NSW.
Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre has released a resource guide to help survivors of family violence resolve the negative impact of economic abuse and financial hardship.
Following extensive advocacy by Women’s Legal Service NSW, the Tenants’ Union of NSW, many community legal centres and many other community organisations, changes to NSW renting laws that provide greater protections for domestic violence victims-survivors will commence on 28 February 2019.
Improving access to justice for victim-survivors of sexual assault and eradicating discriminatory structural power imbalances that allow offenders to commit sexual assault with no repercussions are at the heart of twelve important recommendations made by Community Legal Centres NSW to the current NSW Law Reform Commission inquiry into consent in relation to sexual offences.
Policy Focus | In Australia and overseas, alternative legal responses to sexual and domestic violence are increasingly being explored to better meet the needs of victims/survivors. One such alternative is restorative justice, which Thea Deakin-Greenwood and Jane Bolitho argue offers an opportunity to refocus an otherwise adversarial (and sometimes inaccessible) process on the needs and rights of victims.