We need an ideological revolution in criminal justice

For nearly 30 years, since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Australia’s rate of jailing Indigenous people has been going totally in the wrong direction, says ACT Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold. The option of ever-increasing sentences hasn’t worked so, he says, it’s time we totally switched our thinking towards solutions that work in other countries rather than continuing failed policies that not only have not worked, but have been demonstrated for decades to not work to solve an ongoing problem.

Listening and learning from the First Peoples

The fate of Australia’s First Nations Peoples is intrinsically important to all Australians. Their debate in mid-year in Canberra should be the starting point for a wider general discussion, over a number of years, to resolve fundamental questions of what elements of history comprise us, who we all are as a nation today, and what we aspire to becoming in the century ahead as a relatively small group of people living independently on an island continent a long way away from most other nations on earth. Christian Bennett comments.

Chief Justice criticises law-and-order election auctions

Real justice – as opposed to expensive, unproductive ‘law and order’ auctions around election times – helps the victims heal as well as punishing the perpetrators, says WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin. He gives examples of progressive justice systems being introduced throughout Australia, many of them learning from the practices that imbued Aboriginal culture over tens of decades of history in Australia. Read his Sir Ninian Stephen 2018 lecture.