The author of an independent review into the National Legal Assistance Partnership has voiced his frustrations that key recommendations were ignored, leaving a sector already under significant strain to face rising and unmet demand alone.
More than a year and a half after the National Legal Assistance Partnership 2020–2025 (NLAP) was published, its independent reviewer, Dr Warren Mundy, said it was “very disappointing and, frankly, disrespectful” to the sector that governments at both the Commonwealth and state and territory levels have largely ignored it.
The review itself was published a decade after the Productivity Commission’s inquiry report that made 18 recommendations to improve the legal assistance sector. Only three were met, and “very little” has changed to address significant funding and capacity issues.
Of the 38 recommendations made in the NLAP – including a new funding model and rates of legal aid grants – just seven were acted on, 10 were shuffled off to be dealt with later, and 21 were ignored.
In a speech delivered at the 2025 National Access to Justice and Pro Bono Conference, Mundy said that while the Commonwealth government may have invested in parts of the legal aid sector, there has been “very little commitment” from states and territories.
While states like Victoria and Queensland have committed to improving access to justice outcomes, other jurisdictions have contributed far less for “varying reasons”. In one jurisdiction, Mundy said its officials “are hostile” to legal assistance providers.
“We really need to get the work done, but we really need to change the narrative. The political economy of legal assistance is bad.
“There is a strong view within government, senior levels in the bureaucracy, that this is all about more money for lawyers, which is a bit rich coming from departmental secretaries who are paid over a million bucks a year,” Mundy said at the Melbourne-based event.
Mundy pressed that the issues within the legal assistance sector were not going to be fixed by “really attractive social media posts and really well-produced consultant reports and annual photos with members and senators in committee rooms at Parliament House”.
While the Commonwealth is aware of the issue at the state and territory level, Mundy said it is also “desperate” to avoid another massive cost-shifting exercise, like it saw with the NDIS.
In one of the NLAP chapters, Mundy provided nine recommendations about a new funding model, as he was required to do under the “very explicit” terms of reference.
“None of those recommendations have been touched, and I don’t have a clue what they think about it,” Mundy added.
Another recommendation touched on the need to increase remuneration for private practitioners in the legal assistance sector, particularly because this was one of the major issues highlighted in the Productivity Commission’s 2024 inquiry report.
“The Productivity Commission warned governments in 2014 that we are facing, if we didn’t improve remuneration for private practitioners providing legal work, that we would run out of workers.
“Essentially a decade later, in the recent census that was undertaken, it [confirmed] the crisis is now with us, and particularly in relation to independent children’s lawyers,” Mundy said.
To conclude his speech, Mundy said he would not rely on the Standing Council of Attorneys-General (SCAG) to complete the work because he suspected the “states might stop it”.
If the Commonwealth increased the rates it was prepared to fund, states would have to follow, Mundy explained. Otherwise, private practitioners would prioritise Commonwealth-funded work, which would have a “significant impact” on the criminal justice system.
“This is a very important piece of work that needs to be done and will ultimately flow into addressing issues that are particularly strong,” he said.
Appearing on the same panel, NSW Greens Senator David Shoebridge said that underneath Mundy’s observations was the “dysfunction” that exists between state and territory governments and the Commonwealth. While states have the obligation to deliver services, the Commonwealth has the money to make it happen.
“The states have all of the core obligations on service delivery, and that includes criminal justice and the legal system largely, and that fiscal imbalance between responsibility and fiscal capacity plays out in all of these negotiations,” Shoebridge said.
The senator added that one thing that needed to be done is for more political and social responsibility for core services to be placed on the Commonwealth as the “level of government that actually has capacity to fund it”.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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