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Women’s legal services in the NT are being left behind
Women’s legal services around the country have received only a fraction of the funding allocated by the Morrison government, with services in the Northern Territory receiving minuscule amounts despite the region being most severely affected by the domestic and family violence (DFV) crisis.
Jess Feyder
Last year the Morrison government announced $129 million of funding to women’s legal services across Australia. Per an agreed funding position from the national Women’s Legal Services Australia, the three women’s legal services in the Northern Territory (NT): Top End Women’s Legal Service (TEWLS), Katherine Women’s Information and Legal Service (KWILS), and Central Australian Women’s Legal Service (CAWLS), were set to receive about $32 million of the funding.
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It was subsequently announced that any legal service servicing women could bid for the funding, and the funding was distributed under the current national legal assistance partnership model, where it was allocated based on population.
The NT ended up receiving just over $4 million of the funding, with the three women’s legal services receiving less than 1 per cent of national funding each to be rolled out over the next four years.
The three specialist services are part of a national network of accredited, specialist, women-led community legal centres.
They are distinct from other legal services in that they offer free wraparound care, including legal advice and information, casework representation, community legal education, advocacy and policy submissions, referrals, and prevention programs.
They provide additional multidisciplinary support, including social workers, financial counsellors, and trauma counsellors, aiming to deliver long-term safety outcomes.
“When the funding was originally announced last year, the women’s legal services together were buoyed,” Caitlin Weatherby-Fell, TEWLS chief executive, told Lawyers Weekly.
“We thought, this is the opportunity for these specialist women’s legal services, to be able to deliver on our unique model of holistic wraparound care.
“The Northern Territory is the epicentre of the DFV crisis.
“Recent ABS figures show that in the last 12 months, the Northern Territory recorded a 12 per cent increase in DFV assaults.
“It remains as the jurisdiction with the highest percentage of women victims and has the highest victimisation rate.”
The rate of DFV assaults in the Northern Territory is three times the national average, and the domestic homicide rate is six times the national average.
The geographic region is a large difficulty facing how the services can help women — the three service a combined area of more than four and a half times the size of Victoria.
“There are incredible barriers with respect not only to ridiculously high victimisation rates, but also with regional, rural, remote and very remote service delivery,” said Ms Weatherby-Fell.
The cost of delivering a service within a metro area is very different to a remote area, where sometimes over 1,000 kilometres is travelled, she said.
Specialist legal services are calling for funding to be allocated on a need basis, rather than a population basis, said Ms Weatherby-Fell.
When she met with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Ms Weatherby-Fell was reassured to hear that he was determined not to see the mistake repeated.
“Women’s legal services badly need all of this funding,” said the A-G.
“I was pleased to hear he was shocked by the distribution that occurred following May of last year’s announcement,” said Ms Weatherby-Fell, “but there’s been no new funding since the new Commonwealth government has sworn in”.
“The financial cost of violence against women and their children was last estimated at about $26 billion per year. The distribution of the whole $129 million is small, rounding error money,” she said.
“In the Darwin region, our four women’s shelters are consistently at capacity.
“The Commonwealth and NT governments have announced the building of a new shelter in our region this year, but there’s been no announcements of funding for wrap-around legal services to actually service the shelter.
“It’s not only funding one of these areas that won’t help in the long term.
“Funding should consider key data coming from each jurisdiction, looking to appropriately fund women’s shelters, housing and wraparound specialist women’s legal services, so all together we are able to stop these cycles of violence.
“The real cost — the community cost, the emotional and psychological cost is immense.
“There’s clear evidence in respect to need, the missing gap is adequate and appropriate funding for specialist legal services.
“Without the adequate funding, there’s no way for us to service the women coming and knocking on our doors, the turn away numbers continue to grow as the DFV epidemic continues to grow.
“The ongoing impacts of trauma will just keep on being felt.
“The issues we see need addressing now.”
On 18 August, the Federal government announced $10.7 million funding to target DFV in the Northern Territory — no funding was allocated to women’s legal services.
