The purpose of the grant opportunity is to support the meaningful and effective participation of witnesses who are required to engage with the Royal Commission.

The objective of the grant opportunity is to assist eligible individuals and entities with their reasonable legal representation and disbursement costs if required to provide testimony to assist the Royal Commission.

The Australian Government has announced a total of $2.187 million over 2 years for this scheme.

Eligible grant activities include:

• the reasonable professional costs of a legal practitioner to represent you or provide legal advice relating to your requested participation in the Royal Commission
• the reasonable disbursements incurred by a legal practitioner in the course of acting for you or providing legal advice for your requested participation in the Royal Commission

To be eligible to apply you must have received correspondence from the Royal Commission:

• calling you, or granting you leave to appear, as a witness at a public or private hearing, or
• granting you leave to attend a private session (if legal representatives are authorised to be present by the Royal Commission), or
• requesting you to attend an interview, or
• requesting you to provide a written statement that will be used as evidence, or
• that you must comply with a notice to produce.

The department may seek the advice of the Office of the Royal Commission to determine whether an entity is eligible.

If your organisation has been called by the Royal Commission, the organisation will be assessed to determine whether it can meet the cost of its legal representation without incurring serious financial difficulty.

If you have been called in your personal capacity, you will be exempt from an assessment of financial circumstances.

• Email: finass@ag.gov.au