Executive Summary
We should all be able to live free from violence, whether at home, work, in the street or navigating government systems. Unfortunately, rates of gendered violence remain persistently high, and too many laws and systems continue to perpetuate gender inequity and facilitate abuse against women by perpetrators of violence. This results in high demand for the services and expertise of Women’s Legal Services and significant pressures on our dedicated workforce.
Women’s Legal Services Australia (WLSA), the national peak body for specialist Women’s Legal Services, recognises the significant commitments made by the Commonwealth Government aimed at improving women’s safety and economic security. We commend the creation of a specialist Women’s Legal Services stream under the National Access to Justice Partnership (NAJP), the significant parenting and property reforms to the Family Law Act, the national roll-out of Sexual Assault Legal Services, and the ongoing audit of government systems to identify weaponisation by perpetrators of violence. WLSA looks forward to working with the Government on implementation of much-needed reforms.
Women’s Legal Services are an important and distinct part of the legal and social services system in Australia. Despite a long history of underfunding, we have made huge contributions and supported hundreds of thousands of women to escape violence and pursue justice across Australia.
Our singular focus is assisting women and non-binary people[1] with legal issues and working towards achieving a gender equitable society. In 2024-25, our members provided legal, social, First Nations and financial support assistance to over 34,000 women, with many thousands more having to be turned away due to a lack of capacity (over 1,000 per week in 2023).[2]
We have decades of experience providing trauma-informed services. Our specialist integrated service models achieve safe and positive outcomes for clients across intersecting systems, which in turn reduce pressures and costs for health, social and justice systems downstream. Inspired by the women we work with, we strive to constantly improve our service delivery models and push for gender equitable laws and systems.
Investing in service stability, capability-building and reform coordination
WLSA recognises that NAJP provided a boost in funding for women’s legal services nationally. As noted above, a dedicated Women’s Legal Services funding stream is a major step forward.
Unfortunately, significant funding shortfalls remain, which continue to cause workforce and service stability challenges for our members, particularly those based in and servicing vast regional and remote areas across Australia.[3] Ultimately, this means thousands of women and children turned away, which inevitably has disproportionate impacts on women trying to live free from violence, and especially First Nations women, women on temporary visas, women with disability and women on low incomes or without secure housing.
Further investment would facilitate Commonwealth gender equality priorities and allow WLSA and our members to address workforce sustainability risks, support essential sector capability building work to improve early-intervention responses, and to engage with governments and courts on solutions to systemic injustices.
This submission therefore seeks targeted Commonwealth investment to:
- narrow the gender pay gap in the legal sector and value our highly feminised and skilled workforce, through initiatives designed to achieve pay parity with Legal Aid Commissions and attract experienced staff to regional and remote offices;
- sustain existing specialist migration practices and create migration practices in WA and the NT, recognising the success of Women’s Legal Services migration models in ensuring that women on temporary visas are not prevented from escaping violence because of visa insecurity ($4.3 million per year, plus indexation); and
- support WLSA members to identify and respond to women being harmed by systems abuse and to work with government to prevent systems abuse, rather than deal with the consequences ($4.25 million per year, plus indexation).
WLSA also seeks targeted Commonwealth investment of $1.5 million over 18-24 months to enable us to trial a nationally consistent approach to data collection and reporting with members. This would support a better understanding of, and responses to, women’s unmet legal needs, as well as feeding into the development of the National Legal Assistance Data Strategy and Outcomes Framework and future Commonwealth investment in measuring unmet legal need with the broader sector.
Finally, this submission seeks a modest increase in funding for WLSA as the national peak body. With members based across Australia, servicing urban, regional and remote locations, WLSA has an integral role to play in supporting implementation of national reform priorities for women’s safety, justice and economic security. Additional funding of $300,000 per year would support WLSA to expand work with members on capability-building projects that bolster frontline service delivery, while enabling us to redirect contributions from members back into frontline service delivery.
Together, these investments will help strengthen access to justice, gender equity, workforce stability and ensure Commonwealth funding decisions are more equitable, targeted and effective.
Budget 2026-27 Priorities
Priority 1:
Workforce stability and strengthening
Narrow the gender pay gap in the legal sector and value our highly-feminised and skilled workforce, through initiatives designed to achieve pay parity with Legal Aid Commissions and attract experienced senior staff to regional and remote services
Priority 2:
Service stability and safety for women escaping violence on temporary visas
Sustain existing specialist migration practices and create migration practices in WA and the NT, recognising the success of Women’s Legal Services migration models in ensuring that women on temporary visas are not prevented from living free from violence because of visa insecurity.
$4.3 million per year, plus indexation
Priority 3:
Responding to systems abuse and strengthening women’s economic security
Support WLSA members to identify and respond to women being harmed by complex systems abuse by perpetrators of violence and to work with government to prevent systems abuse, rather than deal with the consequences.
$4.25 million per year, plus indexation
Priority 4:
Investing in measuring women’s legal assistance need
Invest in trialing a nationally consistent approach to turnaway and service data collection and reporting with WLSA members, as part of working towards a nationally consistent approach to measuring legal assistance need, and enabling evidence-based funding, planning and accountability.
$1.5 million
Priority 5:
Driving national reform and capability-building across Women’s Legal Services
Support WLSA as national peak body to harness the expertise of members to support reform implementation through national coordination and advice, and work on targeted capability-building initiatives that strengthen sector sustainability and readiness and deliver tangible outcomes for women and children across Australia.
$300,000 per year, plus indexation