For the first time, we have a Bill that offers a real opportunity for support across the parliament and an opportunity to realise the hopes and dreams of the many lesbian and gay Australians and their families, friends and colleagues who just want to be treated equally under Australian law and marry the person they love.
Read MoreThis week marks four years since then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that no person seeking asylum by boat would ever be allowed to stay in Australia. Instead, people fleeing persecution would be warehoused indefinitely on the remote Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru.
Read MoreIf you are reading this on your computer, phone or tablet, chances are it was made in China by a worker like 18-year-old Xiao Ya.
Xiao left her home town in rural China to find work to help support her ageing parents. She got a job cleaning tablet screens in Guangzhou, in one of the big factories which produce 90 per cent of the world's electronics.
Read MoreAustralia now looks certain to take a seat at the UN’s Human Rights Council, but will Australia play a spoiling or constructive role? The Human Rights Law Centre’s Tom Clarke takes a look at Australia’s track record in Geneva.
Read More“Tough on crime” was a stance that coloured many policies of the former Country Liberal Government in the Northern Territory. It was sold as the silver bullet to drive down youth crime rates and make communities safer. It was built up to be the solution to community fears of a so-called epidemic in youth crime that was fuelled by a willing media.
Read MoreYouth justice in Victoria is at the crossroads. The Supreme Court has ruled, yet again, that it was unlawful for the Victorian government to lock up children at the state’s most notorious maximum security adult jail.
Read MoreMandatory sentences are not the right tool for reducing crime, writes our Executive Director, Hugh de Kretser, following the misguided policy announcement from Victoria's Opposition Leader.
Read MoreIf we’ve learnt anything from the #LetThemStay campaign. If we’ve learnt anything from Baby Asha and the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital. If we’ve learnt anything from the church sanctuary movement, it’s this: on this issue, we can’t sit back and hope for leadership from our politicians. It’s you who must lead them.
Read MoreOn the eve of a fresh Supreme Court challenge to stop the Andrews Government keeping young people in Barwon prison, a 17-year-old offender has revealed the toll of being in the State’s most secure adult jail.
Read MoreQueensland MPs stand at a crossroads when it comes to the state's abortion laws, but one thing is abundantly clear: the status quo is unacceptable. New polling released this week shows overwhelming public support for women's right to choose abortion in Queensland and that voters are turned off by MPs who support criminalising abortion.
Read MoreTo achieve the Close the Gap measures, the federal and territory governments need to engage in genuine dialogue with Aboriginal people. The chronic crisis of overcrowding can only be addressed through a collaborative approach, with a view to ultimately giving control back to Aboriginal communities.
Read MoreWomen in the Northern Territory are being told that they still can’t be trusted to make decisions about their bodies. That’s the message that comes through in a discussion paper released by the Northern Territory Government proposing changes to the Territory’s abortion laws.
Read MoreTrump is set to sign executive orders imposing a freeze on all refugee resettlement – those detained offshore should be brought to safety in Australia.
Read MoreOver the weekend, millions of demonstrators across the world took to the streets with a clear message for the new U.S. President: if you tread on women's rights, you've got a fight on your hands. It was a stunning display of the dynamic relationship between the state and its people and how democracy continues to operate in between elections.
Read MoreWhile the exhibition, Another Day in Paradise which opens at the Campbelltown Arts Centre on Friday, is a chance to reflect on his life and the brutality of the death penalty, we mustn't shy away from a difficult home truth: the Australian Federal Police's role in his death.
Read MoreJust a day after Victoria’s highest court confirmed the government acted unlawfully in detaining children at the Barwon adult prison, the Minister has tried yet again to keep them there. The government is spending extraordinary resources defending the indefensible – jailing children in the state’s most notorious adult prison.
Read MoreThere is indeed a crisis in Victoria's youth justice system. It is not one, as the Government suggests, of available beds or suitable facilities – these things are imminently fixable with a dose of political will. Rather, the crisis is one of a myopic outlook and a merciless attitude: a willingness to countenance cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Read MoreBrutal images of Aboriginal women and children being mistreated in custody are a defining feature of 2016. From Dylan Voller and the young detainees of Don Dale to Ms Dhu, Australians have been forced to reckon with the cruel reality of Australia's over-imprisonment crisis.
Read MoreI've just returned from Barwon maximum security adult prison. I found myself squatting on the floor to talk to one of our clients – a 16-year-old child – through the trapdoor to his cell. The tight steel opening so small I could only see his anxious eyes. He is being held in solitary confinement; pacing his cell, uncertain when he will be let out. He hasn't seen the sky since Thursday.
Read MoreWe need to get to the bottom of what went wrong with the riot at the Parkville Youth Justice Centre. We don’t need lazy, kneejerk populist responses, like transferring kids to adults jails, which are designed to sound tough on crime and which in fact will only make things worse.
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