Aboriginal legal services frozen or at risk of shutting in 17 communities across NSW and Queensland

Advocates call for federal government to provide urgent funding for culturally safe legal services to prevent worsening Indigenous incarceration crisis

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Four communities in Queensland have had their Aboriginal legal services frozen and more than a dozen communities in New South Wales are at risk of losing theirs, prompting calls for urgent funding from the commonwealth government to help First Nations clients.

Karly Warner, the chair of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services national peak body NATSILS, said communities were now at risk of not being able to access culturally safe legal services and lead to a worsening crisis of Indigenous incarceration.

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