Victorian budget ignores First Nations legal services again

The Andrews government will spend $260 million this year to keep 200 young people in prison, but rejected the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service's request for just $7 million annually.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has had its request for just $7 million in funding annually for local offices rejected by the state government for the eighth time, leaving the organisation “dangerously underfunded”.

The Victorian government handed down the state budget on Tuesday afternoon, but included no new funding for the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), despite continued calls for more resources from the organisation and protracted discussions over these issues.

VALS has been lobbying for funding to fully implement 12 local offices across Victoria, including in Mildura, Frankston, Ballarat and Horsham.

The organisation has estimated that this would cost $7 million annually and $6 million to set up, totalling about $30 million over four years.

While this pales in comparison to the Andrews government’s big spending on police and prisons, the proposal has been rejected yet again by the Labor Party.

The budget did include $151.4 million in further funding for the ongoing treaty negotiations and $35.7 million to “promote, protect and celebrate Victoria’s invaluable Aboriginal cultural heritage”.

This should be commended, VALS CEO Nerita Waight says, but the efforts won’t reach their full potential if basic First Nations legal services aren’t adequately funded.

“This is the eighth consecutive Andrews government budget that continues to endanger Aboriginal legal services,” Waight says.

“This failure means more of our children will be removed from their families, more of our people will be incarcerated, and more of our people will die in custody.”

The state budget included $215 million in funding to distribute tasers to police officers - more than seven times the amount required by VALS for its local offices program.

The Andrews government allocated $389 million over four years for the opening of the new Cherry Creek Youth Justice Facility in this week’s budget - nearly 13 times more than the VALS proposal.

In total, the Andrews government will spend just under $260 million on youth justice custodial services in 2022-23, despite estimating there will only be 210 young people incarcerated in these facilities at the most. This equates to more than $1 million per person held in the youth prisons.

The money being spent on youth prisons would cover VALS’ funding request nearly nine times over.

“I am once again incredibly frustrated by the budget choices of the Andrews government,” Waight says.

“Over the last eight years they have managed to find billions of dollars to spend on prisons and police, but they can never find the small amount that VALS needs to properly support our communities’ legal needs.

“Our lives should matter enough to the Treasurer for him to invest in organisations like VALS.”

VALS also had meetings with the state government to discuss additional funding to support First Nations people through the spent convictions scheme and the Stolen Generations reparations package, but this was also not included in the budget.

The VALS office in Melbourne also does not currently have adequate sound-proofing, making online court hearings extremely difficult. The organisation had also asked for more funding for a transition program for Aboriginal people leaving prison, and to provide better support for Aboriginal people wanting to apply for parole.

The state government did not provide funding for any of these proposals from VALS.

The state budget also included an investment of $342 million for an additional 502 police officers and 50 Protective Service Officers over the next two years.

Victoria’s community legal services will receive an extra $6.5 million from the state budget.