The Justice and Equity Centre (JEC) is a specialist community legal centre based in Sydney, Australia. The JEC was founded in 1982 as the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC). It works with people and communities experiencing disadvantage, to challenge injustice and fight systemic inequity.
The JEC uses test cases and strategic litigation to challenge unfair laws and practices. These cases set precedents and produce legal principles that address disadvantage and inequity.
The JEC also undertakes research and policy development, and advocates for social justice outcomes through media, policy submissions, and engagement with decision-makers. The centre collaborates with partner organisations and civil society more broadly to promote social justice and systemic change.
Areas of work
The JEC has five areas where it focuses its legal and policy advocacy:
First Nations justice (including truth-telling) Disability rights Civil rights Homelessness (including the Homeless Persons’ Legal Service) Energy and water justice
History
In 1981, the Law Foundation of NSW (now the Law and Justice Foundation) proposed the establishment of a new centre dedicated to public interest advocacy to the NSW Legal Aid Commission. Members of the steering committee created to oversee this centre's launch included Virginia Bell AC, then a solicitor at the Redfern Legal Centre and a Law Foundation board member, and John Maddison, a former NSW Attorney General. The steering committee's discussion paper floating the idea of a public interest centre received more than one hundred replies supporting the idea.
The centre was launched as the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) in July 1982 by the then NSW Attorney General, Frank Walker QC, with Peter Cashman serving as PIAC's first Director. In an opening address, the Honourable Michael Kirby, as a Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Committee, forecast that the centre may ‘prove a valuable instrument for law reform especially within the courts’.
The centre initially focused on ‘public interest’ issues, including consumer rights and sex discrimination. Its work evolved to broader issues related to disadvantage, including First Nations justice, other areas of discrimination and government accountability.
The centre's name changed to the Justice and Equity Centre in 2024 to reflect its focus on social justice: making practical change to the lives of people experiencing disadvantage.
Notable work
Public interest
Legal claims for victims of the Dalkon Shield
The JEC played a key role in advocating for Australian women harmed by the faulty Dalkon Shield contraceptive, an intra-uterine device that caused severe injuries, infections, and sometimes death. More than 100,000 Australian women were fitted with the device, which was removed from the U.S. market in 1973 but sold in Australia until 1980. The JEC began providing legal advice to victims in 1983, raising public awareness of the device's dangers and helping women file claims against the device's American marketers, A. H. Robins. Ultimately, the JEC filed more than 1,700 of the 6,000 claims filed by Australian women – the highest number of any country outside the U.S.Cashman p. 93
First Nations justice
Aboriginal Trust Repayment Scheme
The JEC worked with Aboriginal people and organisations to recover wages, allowances, and pensions withheld by the NSW Government for decades. Until 1969, employers deducted a significant portion of Aboriginal workers' wages, paying them to the Aboriginal Protection Board, and the funds were often never returned. By 2001, an estimated $69 million was owed to more than 10,000 Aboriginal people.
The JEC became involved in 2003, advocating for a repayment scheme and helping raise public awareness. In 2004, the NSW Government established the Aboriginal Trust Fund Repayment Scheme, leading to the reimbursement of 12.9 million from Aboriginal Trust Funds. The JEC provided legal support, worked to ensure fairer repayment processes, and successfully extended the scheme to allow more claims. However, many claimants passed away before receiving any compensation, and others were shortchanged due to inadequate payments and restrictive evidence requirements.
Truth-telling
In 2023, the JEC and the Indigenous Law Centre launched Towards Truth, a truth-telling website documenting how laws and government policies have impacted the lives of First Nations people. The project responds to the Uluru Statement's from the Heart call for truth-telling about Australian history.
The project's research is split into four broad themes: Kinship, Country, Law and Culture, and People. Subjects look at issues including child removals and Stolen Generations, wage theft, Aboriginal language suppression and revitalisation, and voting rights.
Towards Truth was conceived and founded by Professor Megan Davis, Professor Gabrielle Appleby, JEC CEO Jonathon Hunyor and Daniela Gavshon. The project is ongoing and continues to publish new research.
Disability Rights
Disability discrimination in schools
The JEC represented the parents of Scarlett Finney, a six-year-old girl with spina bifida, in a disability discrimination complaint against Hills Grammar School at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission(now the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)). The school had rejected Scarlett, saying they could not accommodate her needs. In July 1999, Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes decided Hills Grammar had unlawfully discriminated against Scarlett, saying the school's approach was ‘based on assumptions’ of Scarlett's disability ‘which were either false or very general.’
The school appealed to the Federal Court, but the decision was upheld. Scarlett was awarded $42,628 in damages, including $37,628 for loss of educational opportunity (valued at the fees she would have paid) and $5000 for hurt and humiliation. This was the first test of the federal Disability Discrimination Act in relation to a private school. Counsel representing Scarlett were Stephen Gageler (later Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia) and Nicholas Poynder.
Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games
The JEC represented blind man Bruce Macguire in two complaints (see Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, 1999 and Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, 2000) against the Organising Committee for the at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission or HREOC (now the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)).
In the first complaint, the Commission found the Committee had discriminated against Mr Macguire by refusing to make its ticket booking process accessible.
The second complaint related to the accessibility of the Sydney Olympics website. This was one of the first complaints worldwide to consider website accessibility and set a significant precedent. Soon after the Commission's decisions, the Australian Government required all agency websites to pass accessibility tests.
Accessible public transport
The JEC has led important legal actions to improve accessibility in public transport for people with disabilities. It represented Graeme Innes AM in a case against RailCorp, securing a 2013 judgment that led to more audible 'next stop' announcements on trains. In 2011, the JEC represented Greg Killeen, resulting in improved wheelchair-accessible taxis in NSW, and Julia Haraksin, who won a case against Murrays Australia Ltd, ensuring 55% of its bus fleet became wheelchair accessible. These cases have set important precedents for disability rights in transport.
Corcoran v Virgin Blue Airlines
In 2006, Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia) changed their ‘Independent Travel Criteria’ policy so people who could not fasten their seatbelt, or put on an oxygen mask or lifejacket without assistance had to travel with a paying companion. This effectively doubled the price of travelling with Virgin for many people with disability. The JEC represented Maurice Corcoran, president of the Federation of Disability Organisations, and fellow passenger Tom Ferguson in cases at the Federal Court, after earlier disability discrimination complaints to the AHRC could not be resolved.
The JEC successfully secured a ‘cost cap’, allowing the case to proceed without significant financial risk for the applicants. In her judgement, Justice Annabelle Bennett said: ‘The ability of disabled persons to fly with Virgin, a major commercial airline in Australia, without the extra cost of a carer raises questions of public interest beyond the private interests of the applicant.’
In 2009, the complaints were resolved prior to hearing. Later that year, Virgin revised their policy, allowing people with disability to travel without having to pay for a companion.
Civil rights
Sex discrimination at Port Kembla Steelworks
A sex discrimination case for workers at Port Kembla Steelworks was a landmark legal battle and one of the largest and longest sex discrimination cases in Australian history. The JEC represented a group of women who filed an employment discrimination case against Australian Iron and Steel (AIS), the owner of Port Kembla Steelworks and a subsidiary of BHP, Australia's largest company at the time.
The women challenged AIS's discriminatory hiring practices, which had resulted in a disproportionately low number of female employees at the steelworks and meant many women were laid off when the steel industry experienced a downturn. This case was heard over 42 days throughout 1984 to 1986. The JEC legal team was led by Counsel John Basten (later a Justice of the New South Wales Court of Appeal). The outcome was pivotal in advancing equal employment opportunities for women in traditionally male-dominated industries.
Wilkie v Commonwealth
The JEC challenged the Commonwealth's 2017 postal survey on Australian marriage laws in the High Court of Australia. The JEC brought a case (Wilkie v Commonwealth) on behalf of Independent MP Andrew Wilkie; Melbourne mother and Rainbow Families advocate Felicity Marlowe; and PFLAG Brisbane spokesperson Shelley Argent. The High Court ultimately found that the Government's decision to hold and fund the postal vote on same-sex marriage without parliamentary approval was lawful.
Energy justice
Arthur Austin and Sydney County Council
The JEC's first major case was representing Arthur Austin, a retired electrician, to challenge unfair retrospective electricity price increases by Sydney County Council. Before the case went to trial, Premier Neville Wran announced the price hikes would be deferred, with the NSW Government soon after passing laws prohibiting retrospective charges. The Sydney Morning Herald credited the court challenge for ensuring the unfair charges were defeated.
Demand response
The JEC played a leading role in securing a demand response mechanism in Australia's energy network, calling for the reform in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Retail Electricity Price Inquiry, the Chief Scientist's Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market (the Finkel Review), and the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) Reliability Frameworks Review.
With the Australia Institute and Total Environment Centre, the JEC submitted a rule change proposal to the AEMC in 2018, proposing a demand response mechanism. In 2020, despite resistance from large energy businesses, the AEMC determined to introduce a wholesale demand response mechanism from 21 October 2021. This was a landmark development in Australian energy policy, marking a departure from market dominance by suppliers. For the first time that customers could be rewarded for reducing demand, in turn reducing the need for fossil fuel power generators.
Policing and detention
Deaths in Custody