YANQ Media Release

The Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) Director, Siyavash Doostkhah, has labelled the LNP's proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act as socially irresponsible. The proposal to remove the notion of detention as a last resort demonstrates the failing of LNP to understand that the aim of the Juvenile Justice system should be to rehabilitate young offenders, rather than fast-track them to a life of crime as adults. It is high time for the LNP to adopt progressive policies looking at Juvenile crime as not something to be punished but rather something to be solved.

The Inspire Foundation (www.inspire.org.au) has recently released a new research report titled 'Young people's perspectives on taking action.'  The report argues that the phrase "taking action" to marginalised young people means something quite different to traditional definitions of social and political participation.

Recently the media has been full of stories about the Government’s outlandish spending on political advertising – and the campaign proper hasn’t even begun! Certainly, we will be bombarded with political propaganda in the coming months, from all sides of politics.

But what if we could reclaim our airwaves, and broadcast political ads of the people, by the people and for the people? Well, now we will.

The pursuit of political equality is one of the four underpinning values of the Democratic Audit of Australia. In this new paper, Audit leader Marian Sawer reviews the state of Australian democracy in relation to this core principle. Restrictions on voting, a lack of transparency surrounding political finance, and the use of public money for party political ends are some of the areas in which Australia currently fails to measure up.

Read the full text of Political equality in Australia (PDF file).

Source: Australian Policy Online