National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (Natsils) has won a last-minute pre-budget reprieve, after the government announced it would extend its funding for another five years.
The peak body for Indigenous legal services had been slated to shut its doors at the end of this financial year, when its funding runs out. It has been in operation for 42 years.
A spokesman for the attorney general, George Brandis, said: “[Natsils] provides government with a unique opportunity to engage and collaborate through constructive policy input, to ensure the effective delivery of the program and services.”
“Natsils’ current funding agreement expires on 30 June 2015, and this decision ensures their continued role in this area.”
The organisation runs on $295,000 a year, meaning the five-year funding backflip will cost the government $1.47m. A detailed account of funding will be released in next week’s federal budget.
“We’re not talking about millions or billions,” the chairman of Natsils, Shane Duffy, told Guardian Australia in April. “I’d suggest it was one of the leanest national bodies you’ve ever seen, providing very timely, evidence-based responses.”
On Wednesday Duffy said he was very pleased the government had recognised the value of his organisation.
“Given the rates at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are imprisoned and experience violence, it is crucial that Natsils is able to provide strategic advice to all levels of government,” Duffy said.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up more than a quarter of the prisoner population in Australia, despite being less than 3% of the overall population.
Duffy has expressed deep frustration over the changing nature of the government’s Indigenous policy, telling ABC Radio the organisation “shouldn’t have to go through” such funding uncertainty.
The opposition spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Shayne Neumann, also accused the government of flip-flopping on Indigenous policy, saying it must “make sure this never happens again”.
Wednesday’s funding announcement comes less than two months after Brandis reinstated $25m worth of cuts to community-based legal aid services, citing the impact the cuts would have on Indigenous Australians and survivors of domestic violence in particular.
The government has backed down on a number of funding cuts listed in the 2014 federal budget. Among them, cuts to mental health service providers, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs and Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations.
