Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) director Siyavash Doostkhah slammed the Queensland Government for walking all over children's rights. The announcement today that the Queensland Government will continue to lock up children in adult prisons is simply unacceptable. Queensland children are the only children in Australia to be locked up in adult prisons.

By Daniel Allert

The Youth Affairs Network Queensland believes it is necessary to reframe debates about young people's services (such as education, housing, employment support etc) by asserting young people's rights, as opposed to their ‘needs’. It is important to differentiate between these two terms.  This is because of the negative impact which the current term ‘needs’ is having on young people in our society by reinforcing negative connotations. Instead, Australia must adopt a “rights culture^"1.

Submissions to the Government's Draft Baseline Study for a National Human Rights Action Plan are now available online.  The Human Rights Legal Centre (HRLC) submission “A Sound Baseline for Human Rights in Australia”  and other submissions are available on the human rights action plan website. Please email Anna Brown if you have a submission to add to the website.

By Elizabeth Broderick, Human Rights Commission

In November 2007, Elizabeth Broderick began a nation-wide ‘Listening Tour’ to ask the Australian public two questions: How far have we come in our journey towards gender equality? And where should we focus our efforts into the future.

Found at what the answers were at  http://tinyurl.com/67cudf.

By Ben Saul, Sydney Centre for International Law

The new government has displayed some original thinking but not yet quite up there in the exceptional category of the very best governments around the world, according to this paper, which spells out areas requiring further attention – including Australia's attitude to capital punishment and torture in other countries.

Read the full article at http://tinyurl.com/5tosp4.

Source: Australian Policy Online

A number of legal organisations across the country have been independently reviewing the extent to which Australia has complied with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  They have jointly prepared an NGO report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council.

By Sharon Bessell and Tali Gal / Crawford School of Economics and Government 

The care and protection of children experiencing or considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect within their families is a major policy dilemma. Children in the care and protection system do not fare well on a range of indicators, when compared to the overall population.

By Sharon Bessell and Tali Gal (Crawford School of Economics and Government)
First Posted 21-11-2007 at Australian Policy Online

This paper synthesises concepts of human rights, children's needs and citizenship as a basis for redefining policy and services for children in out of home care. The authors suggest that improved support for children in out of home care requires the recognition of children as partners.

By Julian Burnside. First Published at Online Opinion , Wednesday, 1 August 2007

Most people of goodwill understand, even if only vaguely, that living in a complex society requires all members of society to adhere to a commonly agreed set of norms and ideals. These are usually so basic to our thinking that we rarely give them any attention.

Australians have a strong instinct for human rights. Public and political rhetoric tends to favour human rights. Although Australia does not have a written Bill of Rights, we have a shared sense that some ideals are basic to our society. Most of the basic elements of a constitutional democracy are found in our Constitution, but others are taken for granted: we tacitly accept them as basic and inalienable.