Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Punitive

  • AUSTRALIA

    Medevac is about health not migration outcomes

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 23 October 2019
    10 Comments

    The Medevac law was needed because there was no sensible process to arrange for urgent medical treatment for the people we are punishing as a deterrent. The system is working according to the medical practitioners involved in it. It would be a tragedy if the Medevac laws were repealed, just to prove how tough and immovable we are.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Pope answers policies that suffocate hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 September 2019
    10 Comments

    The Pope's speech was newsworthy because in Australia sentences to a lifetime in prison without parole are becoming less contentious and more used. His approach to prisoners and their criminal behaviour is in such strong contrast to strands of Australian culture in which exclusion and the denial of hope are an instinctive response.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    A different approach needed for youth justice

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 September 2019
    4 Comments

    The Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass has published a damning report of the use of isolation for children in Victorian justice centres. Those acquainted with the administration of juvenile justice in Australia will find nothing new in the report. Therein lies its scandal.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The secretive business of detention dirty work

    • Meg Mundell
    • 21 August 2019
    8 Comments

    If you're not burdened by a conscience, it's a perfect get-rich-quick scheme: offer 'garrison' services to governments reluctant to get their hands dirty. Ensure the vulnerable people you 'manage' are hidden, demonised by politicians and right-wing commentators. Hire cheap labour, minimise your tax, and make millions.

    READ MORE
  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Combating crime by restoring relationships

    • Andrew Hamilton and Madison Rosaia
    • 26 July 2019
    6 Comments

    When devising policies for people on the margins, Australian governments seem always to settle on punitive measures. Although imprisonment has a place in penal policy, the focus should be on the persons who perpetrate crime and on those who are damaged by it. Penal policy is ultimately about ensuring just relationships.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Why it's futile to beg for refugees' human rights

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 26 June 2019
    13 Comments

    In Boochani's experience, Australians were homogenous and unreflective parts of a machine designed to dehumanise, cow and corrupt the people who sought protection. This report and the departmental response suggest that in on-shore detention the human destruction is not directly intended. It is seen simply as irrelevant.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal Ministers maintain the status quo

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 19 June 2019
    8 Comments

    It's long fascinated me that it tends to be the conservative side of politics that has delivered many of our Indigenous political firsts. Perhaps it's simply because Indigenous conservatives are, by virtue of their politics, no real threat to the status quo. Our Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt is a case in point.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Local solutions to global refugee malaise

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 June 2019
    5 Comments

    This year many people will celebrate Refugee Week as a wake. During the recent election the hopes of many people seeking protection and supporting them in different ways were raised by the prospect of a change of government. For those of us who share their pain it is time to reflect more broadly on the situation we now face.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Youth justice blueprint is in front of our noses

    • Julie Edwards
    • 28 May 2019
    6 Comments

    Almost two years have passed since the youth justice royal commission prompted by the abuses at Darwin's Don Dale youth detention facility. Yet many of its recommendations remain unrealised, largely due to a lack of federal funding support. In the meantime, youth justice has remained at the crossroads in many parts of Australia.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal issues are still not a vote-winner

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 10 May 2019
    7 Comments

    We can tell the Morrison government has no interest in Indigenous affairs because, apart from some money for suicide prevention programs (albeit less than half that requested), its budget showed a series of cuts. There is a lot of unfinished business to be addressed before it makes sense to adopt a voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Redress scheme's new class of have-nots

    • Cathy Kezelman
    • 08 April 2019
    8 Comments

    Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, Australia must respond promptly and fairly to the needs of all survivors, not only of institutional child sexual abuse, but of all forms of childhood trauma. Every time we create a new class of survivor and more 'have nots' we replicate the inequities of abusive systems.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Do drug users deserve to die?

    • Tim Hutton
    • 18 March 2019
    8 Comments

    Maybe I'm just a bleeding-heart lefty, but I hope that most people would answer this question with a 'no'. Unfortunately, if you read the comment section of any news story on the recent spate of drug-related deaths at music festivals you will find a mixed response.

    READ MORE