The federal budget has attracted so much attention that few noticed vulnerable children caught in the middle of family law proceedings are about to lose their most important safety net.
Legal Aid NSW is expected to restrict appearances by court-appointed Independent Children’s Lawyers, who represent the interests of children in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, as part of a suite of cuts to services following ongoing funding shortfalls.
The Herald’s Michaela Whitbourn reports that by year’s end, legal aid grants will no longer be available for ICLs to appear at final hearings, unless at least one parent is self-represented. They will not appear in appeals.
Further, eligibility for assistance for adults in family law parenting and property proceedings after July 1 would also be limited to domestic violence victims and Aboriginal people, which raises the possibility that people with a disability or mental illness might also miss out.
A spokesperson for Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said funding for Legal Aid NSW had not been reduced, and the agency received an uplift of $559 million over five years from July 1, 2025.
In a separate pool of funds, this year’s budget included a “top up” of $11.7 million over six months to support victims of family violence by funding a scheme to stop alleged perpetrators cross-examining their victims personally in court through the Family Violence and Cross-Examination of Parties Scheme.
However, Legal Aid NSW said unprecedented demand for family law advice services had grown by 30 per cent in the last three years.
A different funding arrangement, the National Access to Justice Partnership – which aims to ensure essential frontline services operate more effectively – had not been given the funding needed to maintain service levels.
Some family law fights can be intense, and ICLs play a pivotal role in protecting the children, arranging necessary evidence, facilitating their participation in the proceedings, ensuring their views are fully put before the court, and acting as an honest broker between children and parents during settlement negotiations.
Family law experts and prominent former judges have raised the alarm about restricting legal aid grants for ICLs.
Former Federal Circuit and Family Court judge Garry Watts warned that cutting ICLs was a false economy. “From a trial judge’s point of view, that makes it a lot harder to hear the voice of the child, and to consider an outcome that neither parent is proposing that might be the best outcome for the children,” Watts said.
Another former Family Court judge, Garry Foster, said ICLs were crucial to the proper conduct of a significant number of parenting cases. “Often the parties had their own agenda and had a lot of difficulty focusing on their kids’ best interests,” Foster said.
An independent review of the National Access to Justice Partnership last year recommended that government funding for ICLs should top $88 million. It did not happen.
Now innocent children are caught up in proceedings through no fault of their own and face the possibility of losing their independent voice and representation in the family court. The government should heed the warnings of the legal profession, which has consistently warned of a crisis in funding for Legal Aid.
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