2025 Federal Election – Victorian community legal sector priorities

In the lead up to the 2025 Federal Election, the Federation is calling on all parties and candidates to commit to reforms: Address cost of living and housing pressures; Accountable government and safeguards against systemic harm; Increase access to justice for all; Create fair and safe migration policies; and Truth-telling, treaty and self-determination.

FEDERAL ELECTION PRIORITIES

Goal 1: Address cost of living and housing pressures

Cost of living and housing are key issues for voters this Federal Election.

Most community legal centre clients experience a combination of poverty or severe financial hardship, and housing instability or homelessness. The next Parliament has a responsibility to reform social security laws to increase the rate of social security, increase access to social security and prevent harmful debt collection practices. The cost of living crisis is disproportionately impacting 16 to 20 year old workers who can be legally paid below minimum and Award wages in ways that promotes exploitation of young workers, distorts the labour market, and does not provide a living wage for thousands of young workers living independently.[1] This is also a critical opportunity for federal parliamentarians to ensure everyone has a safe place to call home, including for one in three voters who rent, and many of our clients who are forced out of private rentals and struggling to access social housing due to low supply and long waitlists.

We support the Australian Council of Social Services in its calls to raise the rate of Centrelink payments and make housing affordable for people on low incomes.[2]

We urge candidates to:

1. Remove the Program of Support requirement for Disability Support Pension applications
2. Reinstate a six-year limitation period for recovery of Centrelink debts, and remove barriers to debt waivers for people experiencing family violence
3. Extend the application timeframe for Centrelink Crisis Payments beyond seven days
4. Increase social security payments to above the poverty line, or at least the aged pension rate
5. Abolish junior wages which allow young people under 21 to be paid below minimum wage, and
6. Invest in social housing and rental affordability measures in a housing crisis.

Goal 2: Accountable government and safeguards against systemic harm

This election, we’re calling on political leaders to ensure all members of our community are protected from systemic harm and exploitation. Harm can come from many sources, including corporations, public entities and government itself. We call on all parties to commit to reforms to increase government accountability and provide greater protections to those who are most at risk of experiencing systemic harm, including:

• Implementing all 172 Disability Royal Commission recommendations to create a more inclusive and just society that supports the independence of people with disability and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
• Ban exploitative ‘claim farming’ of child abuse survivors, where intermediaries contact a victim-survivor without their permission to convince them to seek compensation then selling their information to a law firm.
• Ensure the views of children are considered in critical family law decisions that have significant and long-lasting impacts on their lives, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child[3]
• Shaping a just marketplace, where consumers are empowered and businesses play fair, by addressing systemic consumer issues that make life needlessly harder for people facing multiple barriers to market participation.
• Ensuring workers impacted by climate-related disasters can access paid leave and flexible work to mitigate employment and job security consequences for people affected by climate-related disasters, such as unworkable conditions or workplace injuries due to excessive heat or flooding.

In the next Parliament, we will be advocating for the Australian Government to:

1. Update the Disability Discrimination Act in line with Disability Royal Commission recommendations
2. Lead a nationally consistent response to harmful claim farming practices, particularly those targeting victim-survivors of child abuse
3. Require courts to take into account the views of children in family law cases
4. Hold an independent public inquiry into Australia’s pawnbroking industry
5. Ban unsolicited sales of all products and services, including new energy products and services, and
6. Introduce government funded leave and reasonable adjustment rights for workers impacted by climate-related disasters.

Goal 3: Increase access to justice for all

Community legal centres provide critical legal help for people experiencing poverty, injustice and disadvantage, including people facing eviction and homelessness, incarceration, family violence, crippling debts and fines, and discrimination and exploitation. Despite additional funding in the recently signed five-year National Access to Justice Partnership Agreement, community legal centres are not adequately resourced to meet increasingly high levels of legal need. Every dollar spent on funding community legal centres returns a benefit to society 18 times over.[4] In addition to increased funding, expanding HECS-HELP forgiveness schemes already in place in medicine and teaching to law for rural placements will assist with challenges with staff recruitment and retention in country areas, in turn increasing access to justice for our regional Australians.

There are also access to justice challenges requiring reform to:

• Ensure victim-survivors of institutional child sexual abuse who miss the proposed end date for the National Redress Scheme on 1 July 2028 can access redress.
• Reduce barriers and re-traumatisation victim-survivors of sexual violence face navigating criminal justice systems.[5]
• Streamline divorce for separating spouses who currently experience complex, time-consuming, costly and confusing processes.
• Prevent the use of Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) to intimidate, silence, or burden individuals and organisations engaged in lawful advocacy or public interest work.
• Ensure human rights are a guiding compass in Australian Parliament decisions so every human being can live a life with dignity and freedom, protected and enforced by the law.

We call on candidates to prioritise resourcing and reforms to:

1. Increase funding for community legal centres’ sustainability and to meet high levels of demand.
2. Establish a HECS-HELP forgiveness scheme for rural community sector lawyers.
3. Extend the application deadline for the National Redress Scheme for at least 12 months.
4. Implement the Australian Law Reform Commission’s recent recommendations to make independent legal advice freely available for victim-survivors of sexual violence to understand and navigate the criminal justice process.
5. Streamline divorce applications by exempting people experiencing hardship from divorce fees, and removing requirements to settle parenting arrangements before filing for divorce.
6. Enact anti-SLAPP legislation, including early dismissal mechanisms, claimants bearing the burden of proof, costs protections, a public interest defence, and transparency mechanisms.
7. Legislating a national Human Rights Act in line with Parliamentary Joint Committee of Human Rights recommendations.

Goal 4: Create fair and safe migration policies

The unfair conditions and deep uncertainty faced by refugees and asylum seekers is out of step with Australia’s international law obligations.[6]By providing access to basic rights and removing unfair visa conditions, lengthy delays and barriers to family reunification, the next Parliament can help ensure that refugees and people seeking asylum can live with dignity and in safety with their families.

Victorian community legal centres will continue advocating for the Australian Government to:

1. Grant permanent visas to all people in Australia subjected to offshore processing or failed by the “Fast Track” system
2. Ensure people on bridging visas have the right to work, study, and to access Medicare and social security support
3. Resolve the backlog of Partner and Child visa applications pending for over two years, and remove the age criteria for dependent applicants for Partner visas
4. Allow for waivers of visa application fees for Family visas sponsored by people from refugee and humanitarian backgrounds and for financial hardship, and
5. Allow for waivers of visa criteria – such as health checks, biometrics collection or state-issued identity or background documents – if these cannot practically be provided applicant or sponsor from a refugee or humanitarian background.

Goal 5: Truth-telling, treaty and self-determination

The Victorian Government has committed to negotiating a Statewide Treaty for Victoria, and the Yoorrook Justice Commission is undertaking a comprehensive truth-telling process to advance justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities who have been subjected to harmful policies and systemic racism since colonisation.[7] After the Referendum on a Voice to Parliament, voters are looking to federal leaders to put forward policies around how to Close the Gap and ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ voices are heard to shape Australian Government policies and decisions that impact First Peoples.

We stand in solidarity with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Djirra to urge candidates to listen to First Peoples’ voices and:

1. Commit to National Treaty and Truth-telling processes that uphold self-determination and justice.

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References

[1] See Young Workers Centre, Aged-based wages: Ending Junior rates in Australia (July 2024).

[2] ACOSS, Policy Priorities Federal Election 2025, p. 6.

[3] In particular, refer to Article 2 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child which requires parties to take legislative measures to implement the rights recognised in the convention.

[4] Storer, J., Stubbs, J., and Lux, C, Economic Cost Benefit Analysis of Community Legal Centres, National Association of Community Legal Centres Inc, 2012. 

[5] See Australian Law Reform Commission’s report: Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence, Summary Report, p. 6 (ALRC Summary Report).

[6] Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Fairness: Permanent Protection & Fair Process, Policy Paper, September 2024, p. 10.

[7] Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, A Plan for Aboriginal Justice in Victoria, p. 4.