RLC in the media

RLC CEO Jo Shulman speaks with National Indigenous Radio Service about what RLC's funding crisis will mean for Indigenous communities in Redfern and surrounding service areas.

May 2015 - Australasian Lawyer Samantha Woodhill The 2014 Productivity Commission inquiry into access to justice recommended an additional $200m in funding for community legal centres, but the latest federal budget will force centres to endure further funding cuts.

'One of the nation's busiest community legal centres is on the verge of cutting half its staff.'

Community legal centres around Australia will no longer have their budgets slashed by $25.5 million over the next two years, federal Attorney General George Brandis announced last week in a reversal of cuts handed down in the 2014 budget.

Watch the story of Melissa Dunn and her treatment by the NSW Police Force on the ABC website. March 2015 - ABC 7:30 Report

The new consorting provisions, introduced into the Crimes Act in 2012, allow police to label otherwise lawful associations a crime and to prosecute on that simple basis. The consorting provisions lack appropriate definitions, restrictions, and standards.

In inner-city Sydney, a man in his 50s answers an unexpected knock at the front door. It’s the police, carrying a DNA sample kit and some paperwork. A document explains to the man that he has been classified as an untested former offender, empowering the police to collect his DNA.

Plans to expand NSW police powers would encourage officers to arrest people for spurious reasons and to hold them in custody even if they face only financial penalties, legal experts have warned.

THE charging of domestic violence victims who retract allegations should be approved only at the highest levels of state police forces or by directors of public prosecution, says the Australian Law Reform Commission.

Discussion about the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination legislation has been dominated by a debate on religious organisation exemptions and freedom of speech. There has been public outcry over religious organisations being exempt from the legislation and the ramifications for service provision to some of the most vulnerable people in Australia.