Canberra's community lawyers have warned they will have to turn away vulnerable people, including public housing tenants and Indigenous Australians, if plans to slash federal government funding to the sector go ahead.
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Lawyers from community legal centres across Australia gathered at Parliament House on Tuesday to protest budget cuts that would mean 30 per cent of their federal government funding, or $35 million, would be stripped over three years from 2017.
ACT Association of Community Legal Centres spokeswoman Elena Rosenman said the capital's handful of centres were already struggling to meet demand for assistance on family law, domestic violence, employment and tenancy matters.
She said the cuts would significantly affect free legal assistance available at the over-burdened ACT Women's Legal Centre, Canberra Community Law, the Tenants' Union ACT and Consumer Law Centre ACT.
"We can't meet the need that's out there in the community," she said.
"We can't meet the need on a daily basis, we can't answer all the calls that come in.
"We just really need to talk to the politicians about the importance of what we do and who is going to be affected by these funding cuts."
She said the cuts would mean Canberrans who were not eligible for legal aid, but could not afford to pay for a lawyer when they needed help, could be turned away.
Ms Rosenman, who is executive director of the Women's Legal Centre, said while the agency had been handed more than $1 million over three years for targeted legal help for women who experienced domestic violence, the looming cuts would reduce core funding for other services.
"We see women with a range of legal matters, not just domestic violence, but also employment matters and it's our general legal practice that would be the area that's affected by these cuts."
She said financial independence was a key aspect of women overcoming domestic violence and employment law matters were often linked to gender equality and preventing abuse of women.
"We also provide legal assistance to Aboriginal women who we know experience high rates of domestic violence, but we see a lot of women for employment matters."
Ms Rosenman said the cuts meant Canberra Community Law would likely need to axe its socio-legal program, which involved a lawyer working closely with a social worker on legal proceedings, while its Street Law program for homeless people would be cut from three solicitors to two.
She said community legal centres played a critical role in preventing legal matters from being escalated to the court system.
The National Association of Community Legal Centres has estimated 160,000 of Australia's most disadvantaged and vulnerable people had to be turned away by community legal centres, largely due to a lack of resources, in 2014-15.
It has called on the federal government to reverse the funding cuts and implement the Productivity Commission's recommendation for $200 million extra annual funding to legal assistance services, including at least $14 million to community legal centres.
