Friday, 18 August 2016
Descendants of the Gurindji stockmen and their families who walked off Wave Hill Station in 1966 have used the 50th anniversary to highlight continuing injustices against Aboriginal Australians.
The group is angry at NT and Federal government responses to the recent ABC TV Four Corners program on Don Dale Detention Centre that showed the use of tear gas, beatings and chair restraints on youth detainees.
“We are people with Gurindji cultural affiliations who wish to express our total lack of faith in the justice system in relation to the ever-increasing incarceration of our people in detention centres, gaols and similar institutions around the country,” a statement released today said.
“We cannot sit by and be silent while our children – our future generations - are being irreparably damaged.”
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Radio National Breakfast, Friday 10 June 2016 8:06AM
Presenter: Fran Kelly
Guest: Hon. Alastair Nicholson
To mark 25 years since Australia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Australian Child Rights Taskforce has released a report tracking what progress has been made for Australia's children in that time.
The report has found that despite two decades of economic growth, one in six children still lives below the poverty line. And while considerable progress has been made in protecting child rights in Australia, there are a number of entrenched challenges that still need to be addressed.
Click here for Fran Kelly's interview with Hon. Alastair Nicholson
In his welcome to readers of CRI's website its Chairman, Alastair Nicholson, acknowledged the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as being the most widely ratified treaty in human history, while also noting that the basic rights of children and youth are still not universally recognised and that they suffer violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination in increasing numbers every day.
As CRI's mission is to promote, protect and advance the human rights of children, primarily in developing countries, and to promote understanding of, adherence to and effective implementation of the CRC it is important that the organization takes a stand on the increasing evidence showing Australia's failure to protect the rights, physical and mental welfare and safety of young asylum seekers, particularly those who have been transferred to offshore detention centres.
Unfortunately, despite Australia being one of the earliest countries to ratify the CRC, its treatment of children and young people has too often failed to comply with the Convention's principles and requirements. Most recently this has been highlighted by the manner in which young asylum seekers, (whether accompanied by family members or unaccompanied), are treated, both in Australia and in the offshore detention centres to which such children have been sent.
See:
Presentation - Professor Louise Newman AM, Monash University, Centre for Developmental Psychiatry and Psycology
On Palm Sunday (April 13th 2014), CRI joined approximately 10,000 other people at the March for Refugees in Melbourne. Board Members Chas Alexander, Frank Meredith and Garry Warne were joined by a number of CRI members. As powerfully articulated by key speakers, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young of the Australian Greens and the Reverend Alistair McRae of the Uniting Church, the policy that CRI strongly supports is that all Australian refugee detention camps should be closed immediately and the detainees released, with support, into the Australian community while their applications for asylum are being processed.
The passing of the Border Protection Act by the Australian Parliament was vigorously opposed by all of Australia’s key medical groups. Doctors and other health workers have taken to the streets to protest about being threatened with 2 years imprisonment if they report abuse affecting patients in their care in any of Australia’s offshore asylum seeker detention facilities.
CRI draws the attention of readers to a significant and clinically startling document, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Refugee and Asylum Seeker Health Position Statement, May 2015. The RACP represents all consultant physicians and paediatricians in Australia and New Zealand.
See Full PDF version of the Statement Document: Refugee and Asylum Seeker Health Position Statement, May 2015
Monday night’s horrific exposure of state sanctioned abuse and torture of vulnerable Aboriginal children at Don Dale detention centre Northern Territory (NT) shocked and outraged the nation. Social media, Australian and International print media, many organisations, the Federal Government and then the NT Government strongly called for urgent action.
Within twelve hours, PM Turnbull called for a Royal Commission. The terms of reference were announced last night - they have been determined without any input from Aboriginal people! NT Aboriginal people had been demanding more.
Aboriginal Peak Organisations (APO) of the NT had called for the NT Government to be dissolved. Over one hundred organisations, Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal, called for the Royal Commission to be “independent...from the Northern Territory Government ...and...chaired by an appropriate expert ... [and that it]... must have Aboriginal representation from the NT.” There are calls for a second Royal Commissioner to be appointed, one from the NT and Aboriginal, and to be appointed by NT Aboriginal groups. There is a great lack of trust.
Read more: STATE SANCTIONED ABUSE AND TORTURE OF ABORIGINAL CHILDREN:
There are many laws across the state (New South Wales) and the country that are subject to the scrutiny of the legal profession. Key legal professionals give their views on the laws that need to change - and why
edited By Klara Major and Jane Southward, Law Society Journal, February 2015 pp.24-35.
The following extract is reproduced with the permission of the Law Society Journal.
The many changes made to this legislation over the years since the 1990s, culminating in the recent Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment Act 2014, have produced a situation where the Migration Act 1958 and the policies behind it are among the most regressive and unfair in Australian history.
They rank in infamy with the Stolen Generation and the historical ill-treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the White Australia Policy. Indeed they reflect aspects of the White Australia policy.
by Hon. Alastair Nicholson
Asian Jurist, October 2018
(reproduced with permission)
Out of a history of occupation, conflict and genocide has emerged a renewed and concerted effort to create a more just future for Cambodia’s children.
"The treatment of children in prison has long been unsatisfactory. In many prisons, children are still mixed with adult offenders and receive little or no health care and education ... Many children see their lawyer for the first time on the day of trial."
"The new Juvenile Justice Law is enlightened and innovative ... It also represents an enormous challenge to the Cambodian justice system, which has hitherto been punishment-oriented."
See: The Fight for Children's Rights in Cambodia (PDF - Full Text of this Article)
24 September 2015
I have great pleasure in participating in the Melbourne launch of this excellent anthology collected from a wide and expert selection of authors, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Many are household names but others are simple participants or victims of the Intervention. I was touched by the comment of the soldier that in Afghanistan they built schools but in Australia they built police stations, which seemed to me to say it all about the priorities of the Intervention, the spectre of which still hangs over our Aboriginal people like a dark cloud.1 I regard the appointment of one of the creators of the Intervention to the Turnbull Cabinet as a particular irony for a Government that otherwise promises new approaches.
Malcolm Fraser AC, former Prime Minister of Australia, was a staunch defender of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. This speech was given at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne on June 18th 2014 in a special symposium to mark Refugee Week. Other speakers in the symposium were The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, The Hon Frank Vincent AO QC and Dr Georgia Paxton, Head of the Refugee Health Clinic at RCH Melbourne.
In December 2014, Children's Rights International (CRI) board member Professor Garry Warne AM travelled to Hanoi with Dr Anne Smith, Director of the Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service (VFPMS) and her VFPMS colleague, Dr Andrea Smith. They were welcomed by the Director of the National Hospital of Pediatrics, Professor Le Thanh Hai and the 15-member child protection committee, which is chaired by Vice-Director, Dr Le Minh Huong and coordinated by Dr Do Minh Loan.
In a highly significant move, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health recently issued a circular instructing all hospitals to prepare protocols and procedures to deal more effectively with domestic violence, including violence against children. In addition, the government has passed a law that will see the creation of a new Family and Children’s Court. CRI Chairman, The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, has played a major role in supporting this development.
Dr Anne Smith and Dr Andrea Smith reviewed problems that have been encountered by the staff of NHP and provided some training on the types of injuries seen as a result of abuse. This project is on-going.
Read more: Training on child protection for Vietnamese hospital staff