There’s no doubt about it: globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare stark inequalities in the attainment and experience of good health and wellbeing, in the acute phase of the crisis and as we move into recovery. But the pandemic wasn’t the first crisis to render inequality and injustice visible, and it won’t be the last.  This is inequality and injustice that people working across the Australian health, legal, social and community services landscape know all too well.

Both public health and access to justice literature point to the conditions in which we are born and live as key determinants of our ability to enjoy health equity and justice. In the context of the pandemic, they are conditions that rely on people enjoying access to stable, safe and affordable housing; adequate employment, income and social security; freedom from violence, whether in the home, on the street or ...