OUR HISTORY
Celebrating 25 years of empowering women and helping them to rebuild their lives
Where it all began
In 1994, a group of women decided there was a need for a dedicated Women’s Legal Service for North Queensland and so formed a working group to achieve this goal. They created a roster of volunteer lawyers and community workers and started a free legal advice service by telephone on Wednesday evenings, operating from the Women’s Centre in Townsville. The new volunteer phone advice service was in high demand from the start. So, in early 1996, the Townsville women saw an opportunity to obtain funding from the Keating government’s $160 million Justice Statement initiative to ‘evolve’ the volunteer only service, into a funded service.
At the same time, a group of women in Cairns were also keen to have specialist legal services for women in the Far North. They too were working hard and, together with the women from Townsville, agreed upon and settled a joint proposal seeking funding from the Commonwealth government. It was good news! The Commonwealth approved funding for a specialist women’s legal service for North and Far North Queensland. The Townsville volunteer service evolved into NQWLS and the women came together to incorporate and deliver services across the top half of Queensland.
The women argued that more resources were needed to deliver services. They were concerned that the geographic realities weren’t fully understood by the funders. At one point, information was forwarded by the women to the funding body which included a map of North and Far North Queensland – with a map of Victoria super-imposed over it - to press home the geographic challenges that the women were facing.
At the inaugural General Meeting of NQWLS on 12 December 1996, a total of 75 women from Mackay, Townsville and Cairns gathered together. Using a phone link up, they elected the first management committee to guide the significant work that lay ahead. This was an impressive turn out for the meeting – and a clear demonstration of the commitment to build a successful and effective legal service for women. A further 45 women tendered their apology for the inaugural General Meeting.
Through frequent meetings, long discussions and great effort, the committee worked through the challenges. Staff were employed, offices were set up in Townsville and Cairns and a service delivery model was developed to ensure that women across the vast service region had the greatest access possible to free legal help within the scope of available resources. The test of time has shown that the women have succeeded in achieving the NQWLS vision: access to justice for all women living in North and Far North Queensland.
In 1997, NQWLS received additional funding to provide specialist legal services for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander women across the region. A lengthy consultation with the community was initiated and a Reference Group was established to guide the formation and work of the Indigenous Women’s Unit (IWU).
Later, in 2005, the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department accepted the proposal made by the NQWLS Management Committee and the IWU Reference Group to establish and incorporate a fully independent community legal centre for indigenous women – which we now know as the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Women’s Legal Service (NQ).
NQWLS is stronger (and larger) than ever and celebrated 25 years of empowering women and helping them to rebuild their lives in 2021.
We are grateful for our funding, received from both the federal and state government, as well as from private donors that allows us to provide access to justice for the women living in communities throughout North, Far North and North West Queensland.
