While the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been squarely on the Commonwealth’s agenda in 2018, the Federal Budget has not delivered any funding for solutions.

Last week, the Federal Government released a response to the 226 recommendations contained within the Final Report of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (‘the Royal Commission’).

The tide of condemnation against Australia’s human rights record is rising, with the United Nations expert panel on racial discrimination, criticising Australia’s failure to combat racism in a report released overnight.

The UN expert committee on racial discrimination has demanded to know why Australia is out of step with the rest of the world in criminalising primary school aged children. All Australian states and territories currently have laws that allow children as young as ten years to be charged, brought before the courts, sentenced and imprisoned.

Today the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) will join Australia’s NGO delegation at the United Nations for the review of Australia by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) to ensure that Australian Governments are held accountable for locking up Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at a rate of 13 times … Read More

The Australian Government is bracing for another round of intense scrutiny at the United Nations – this time focusing on its efforts to combat racial discrimination.

Following Universal Children’s Day, doctors, lawyers, health and human rights experts from across Australia are calling for the age when children can be held criminally liable to be raised to at least 14 years so that primary school aged children are not entangled in the criminal justice system.

Today the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (‘the Royal Commission’) handed down its final Report, containing recommendations to reform the youth justice and care and protection systems in the Northern Territory following significant individual and systemic failures. The Report details systemic failings of Northern Territory’s youth justice and care and protection systems … Read More

The findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory will soon be handed down on 17 November and it’s time for Australia to act.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Ms Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, highlights in her Country Report high incarceration rates, child removal, racism and abuse of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in custody as some of the most troubling parts of her trip to Australia earlier this year. The Special Rapporteur will table her report before the … Read More