Sarah Sedghi reported this story on Monday, April 18, 2016 12:27:00

KIM LANDERS: There's been a call for more legal aid assistance for victims of domestic violence. New data shows domestic violence is a factor in 79 per cent of family law cases handled by legal aid.



But he body National Legal Aid, is concerned many victims don't qualify for assistance and its calling for more state and federal funding to help meet demand.



Sarah Sedghi reports.



SARAH SEDGHI: Legal aid commissions across Australia provide help to thousands of domestic violence victims each year.



Gabrielle Canny is the director of the Legal Services Commission of South Australia and past chair of National Legal Aid.



GABRIELLE CANNY: When we receive a call in relation to domestic violence. Our highest priority for our lawyers answering those phones is to make sure the person is safe. So safety is the absolute first priority.



But once that's been determined and someone rings us from a safe place we can then talk through the various issues that they need legal advice on in the situation they find themselves in.



But legal aid does more than give advice, and so there are many people then who need to go to the courts or perhaps through a mediation program and they need lawyer appointed for them.



So to be able to do that, to get your lawyer appointed you need to apply for legal aid, you need to qualify for legal aid, you need to qualify for legal aid - so you need to be pretty poor unfortunately.



But if you do qualify for legal aid, then we will get you a lawyer who can take you either through a mediation program or onto the courts to try and get a judge to make a decision about what should happen in your family situation.



SARAH SEDGHI: She says many domestic violence victims often aren't able to get legal aid because even people on low incomes don't always qualify for assistance.



GABRIELLE CANNY: It's unfortunately there's only a sort of couple of options. Many people actually just give up. They don't go through the legal system, they just put up with a very unsatisfactory result.



But others also go to the court on own, and then they try to manage the court system without legal representation and so they're called what's sort of called 'self-representatives'. That's a very difficult thing when there's been domestic violence within a relationship because domestic violence is all about power and control, and so that sort of carries over into those court proceedings because they don't have sort of the protection and the voice of a qualified legal practitioner to assist them.



SARAH SEDGHI: National Legal Aid has surveyed its cases in the 2014/15 financial year and found that in 79 per cent of legal aid family law matters, domestic violence was a factor.



It says a report this month by the Council of Australian Governments Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women and their Children shows there need to be more legal support for domestic violence victims.



Gabrielle Canny also points to the 2014 Productivity Commission report which recommended the Commonwealth and state and territory governments add a combined $200 million of funding to legal assistance services.



GABRIELLE CANNY: Legal aid is funded by both the state and federal governments but there is just not enough money in Commonwealth funding, because that's what funds family law. There's just not enough funding for us to provide legal aid for everybody who applies.



And so there are many people who are on low-middle class, and so they've got small income but they do have an income. They will not qualify for legal aid because unfortunately they are regarded as not poor enough. But if we could have an injection of funding such as the Productivity Commission recommended then we would be able to grant legal aid to many more people.



SARAH SEDGHI: Professor of social work at the University of Melbourne, Cathy Humphries, agrees a better funded legal aid system would help many people in need of assistance.



CATHY HUMPHRIES: That's extraordinarily difficult for women on very low incomes trying to negotiate a very complex legal system. In fact, you see... and why the Productivity commission has come out in favour of the lawyers, lawyers save a lot of funding in the system... if you have unrepresented people in system, they don't know how to deal with legal complexity and it's very, very frustrating for judges and magistrates dealing with unrepresented litigants.



SARAH SEDGHI: She says legal aid is essential in protecting children affected by domestic violence.



CATHY HUMPHRIES: It can't be underestimated how significant the legal aid support is. Our system relies on the legal advocate bringing together all the evidence from the different parts of the system to be able to put that before the court.



Because the family law system doesn't have the ability to investigate child abuse, so this is most of it, not all of it, but most of it is about children and where they should live and how much time they should spend with respective parents.



Well, child abuse and the issues around family violence are entirely significant to children safety into the future, and so in that way we are very dependent on the lawyers and the advocates, the legal advocates, and if they're not there then children are extremely disadvantaged.



KIM LANDERS: Professor Cathy Humphries from the University of Melbourne ending Sarah Sedghi's report.