Gary Foley later wrote that the Aboriginal Legal Service had its roots in the Australian Black Power movement.
This movement had emerged in Redfern, Sydney, Fitzroy, Melbourne, and South Brisbane, following the Freedom Ride led by Charles Perkins in 1965, and was amplified after media reporting on the talk on Black Power given by Caribbean activist Roosevelt Brown in Melbourne in 1968 at the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, led by Bruce McGuinness and Bob Maza.
[1][2] In 1970, a public meeting was held at St Luke's Presbyterian Church, Redfern, to propose an organisation which becomes the Aboriginal Legal Service.
As a result of the coronial inquest into her death, in October 2019 the NSW government implemented a change to extend the CNS to cover police custody of intoxicated persons.
37 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Regulation 2016), requiring that NSW Police officers must inform the CNS of the taking in to custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but it is not as of August 2020[update] mandated in the ACT.