Labor pledges legal centre funding

The federal opposition has pledged $43 million to community legal centres, with a particular focus on helping survivors of domestic violence.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says the money will help people who are often at their lowest and most desperate.

"Labor knows how important community legal centres are to Australians," Mr Dreyfus said in Adelaide on Monday.

He said the coalition government had cut more than $50 million from the legal assistance sector and recent decisions to delay some of those cuts until July, 2017 did not address the problem.

Thousand of potential clients were turned away because the money simply wasn't there, Mr Dreyfus said.

But he conceded the opposition's promises wouldn't fix the total funding shortfall.

"We are making a start, particularly by the focus on family violence," he said.

"We understand that community legal centres are absolutely at the front line, in touch with communities in every part of Australia."