Spring Issue
October 1996
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Issue #31 Spring Issue October 1996 |
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Former Treasurer Howard, who left Australia stranded in 1983 with double digit inflation and unemployment, has handed down a budget which viciously attacks those without the means to defend themselves. In tearing into welfare and community programmes, plundering public housing funding and further limiting access to education and legal representation, the net that traditionally caught those who might otherwise turn to crime to survive, is being slashed.
Indeed, the 1996 Budget is a recipe for full jails. It is also a recipe for State oppression of an underclass that has to rely on its own initiatives to survive; initiatives, albiet different ones, that the Government once provided.
Sydney SkillShare, for example, has had its budget cut by 52.7%. It is the only SkillShare programme in NSW dealing directly with ex-prisoners, and one of only a few organisations nationally that provide work skills training and job search assistance specifically to those affected by the criminal justice system.
The SkillShare programme has successfully put 68% of its ex-offenders into full time or casual employment. With little hope of reinstating programmes such as this, how can the community be assured that specialised training and job search services will be available to ex-offenders? With statistics showing that ex-offenders are at least 50% less likely to re-offend when in employment or training, the number of prisoners will rise in the absence of such pro programmes.
These cuts are false economies by a Government that boasts about its economic management credentials. With the average annual cost of imprisonment per prisoner being between $36 000 and $58 000 (and that does not include ancillary costs), how will the Government benefit if it has to shell out more on prisons? But then again, the Feds would argue this is an issue for the states.
The cuts to Legal Aid will also adversely affect prison populations. Of the 15 million dollars per year in cuts that is planned to take effect from 1 July 1997, the criminal law area will be most directly affected. According to the Legal Aid Commission, although the exact break down of the cuts are as yet unknown, the future looks bleak. However, one thing is clear; without proper legal representation, people will be imprisoned because the court is not presented with information it should be presented with to keep a person out of jail. This will have immediate repercussions on the numbers of people in remand (see article, p4).
The cuts will also affect the number of appeals that can be funded. If the cuts pass through the Budget, people who would not otherwise end up in prisons will do so, for no reason except lack of representation or inadequate representation. Once out of jail, the cuts to public housing, the Supported Assistance Accommodation Programme (SAAP) and the Crisis Accommodation Programme (CAP) will leave more ex-prisoners on the streets. These will be people without jobs and without income assistance. In addition, the hostels and nursing homes systems are to be unified with a $479 million 'saving' over 4 years.
According to Eileen Baldry of the University of NSW, housing is a crucial factor for ex-inmates. "In the first months after release, ex-prisoners are in need of a stable environment". But, post-Budget, two factors exist: the NSW Department of Housing will have to increase the rate of sale of public housing to meet budget demands; and increasingly, public housing rents will be at current market rates.
Mary Grennell, the Accommodation Of ficer of CRC Justice Support, helps find places for 18-20 ex-prisoners at any one time. Soon, she will compete in the mar ket to find places for them. Anyone with an IQ above 1, knows ex-prisoners often have no jobs, few skills and little support. Fewer houses will be earmarked for this community, and without references, the chances of an ex-offender finding a place to live are extremely limited.
In addition, there is a proposed $1.7 billion cut over four years to labour market programmes and the closure of the CES. The Federal Government's Industrial Relations Bill will see youth apprenticeships plummet by as much as $70.00 per week. With wage security at the mercy of the Expenditure Review Committee, cuts to education, a $400 million slashing of the ATSIC budget over 4 years and over a billion dollars gutted from the health system, the numbers of those who turn to crime, can not but increase.
However, this Government which went into the election marketing itself as being 'for all of us', happily increases ASlO's budget by 12%, maintains the multi-billion dollar Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme for mining companies and farmers and refuses to cut defence.
But the Government did more than re-arrange the books; it revealed it is clueless about how to tackle the endemic problem of unemployment. Of great concern to the ACTU was the absence of a comprehensive and creative strategy to contend with structural unemployment, particularly when added to hefty cuts to labour market projects and harsher work tests for jobless people seeking income support. The Government blithely ignores that many of those in prison consist of youth and the long term unemployed.
Bear in mind, the Howard Govern ment admits their budget will result in even higher unemployment. The Budget if passed, will push people out of training schemes and into a labour market where jobs do not exist. Those at 'high risk" will have to be attractive to employers. If you're Aboriginal, unskilled and on a methadone programme (if it has not been cut), tough luck.
This Government's abdication of responsibility, together with its ideology that market forces will put things right, refuses to acknowledge that people have a basic need to survive and will be forced to act "anti-socially" to meet their basic needs.
Brett Solomon
In the coming months, the Health Outcomes Council, Self-Harm and Suicide Prevention will review the use of safe cells. Unfortunately this is not as promising as it sounds. Phillip Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the Corrections Health Service (CHS), is chairing the Council with only a handful of independent persons involved. In any case, it is surprising he should chair a review of a program he is accountable for.
Safe cells, which exist in both general units and prison hospitals, are used when it is believed a prisoner is at risk of suicide/self harm. Regrettably, safe cells are used inappropriately Prisoners have been placed in them, without any signs of suicide/self-harm behaviour.
D ward Nursing staff at Long Bay Hospital have expressed specific concerns about the use of safe cells as a means of treat ment for potentially "at risk" psychiatric patients. In other psychiatric hospitals, like Rozelle, patients "at risk" are "specialed" whereby they are placed "with" nursing staff 24 hours a day". Patients in D ward are hardlv ever, 'specialed".
Further, it was common practice for prisoners to be stripped naked and locked in a safe cell. While this practice no longer occurs, prisoners of D ward are often nursed in no more than their underwear. This practice disregards respect for the patient as a human being and could do nothing but heighten the anxiety of a patient at risk of suicide/self-harm.
Nursing staff drew particular attention to safe cells 18 and 19 of of D ward. These cells provide no privacy for the person contained within. The front wall of these cells is clear perspex, permitting every movement the patient makes, including going to the toilet, to be viewed by nursing staff and other prisoners. Roger Orr, State Director of Nursing, has been made aware of this assault on the prisoners' human rights and self-esteem. However, at the time of printing, we are unaware of any response by Orr.
Despite the fact that a prisoner is placed in a safe cell because of the risk of suicide/self-harm, emergency access to the prisoner is not possible. Security reasons delay it. Not being able to have readily available access to prisoners could mean the difference between life and death. This is why prisoners "at risk" should be "specialed" and not just thrown into a safe cell.
Assessment of prisoners in safe cells highlights one of the many hitches in CHS procedure. Full assessment of a prisoner by medical staff cannot always occur immediately. There are no medical officers available on weekends or after 5.00pm on weekdays. For prisoners placed in safe cells at these times, as informed by CHS nursing staff, no assessment is made until a medical officer is present. These prisoners are left counting bricks on the wall because someone without relevant professional skills deemed it appropriate they be placed in a safe cell. Alternatively, people who are at risk of suicide/self-harm may not be identified as such. Clearly, the consequences of this can be disastrous.
Safe cells in the general units are reported to be nothing short of disgraceful. CHS nursing staff comment "you wouldn't put your dog in them". These cells are freezing in winter and prisoners are often left in them for more than for the maximum period of 24 hours. One prisoner reported spending up to one week locked in a safe cell. Often cells used as safe cells are not safe cells at all, coming complete with hanging points and dangerous objects.
Medication, while in a safe cell, is administered by force, if the prisoner refuses to take it. However, the smoker at risk of suicide/self-harm can't have a cigarette. Add the risk of suicide / self-harm, to the nicotine addicted prisoner, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Evidence suggests safe cells are being misused. Unfortunately, Brown has defended safe cells arguing they have prevented many deaths in custody". This may be true, but it raises questions about the openmindedness of Dr Brown chairing the review.
Rachel Curry
The Police Royal Commission has shown the traditional double standard towards lawyers and judges in its paedophilia segment.
Counsel Assisting Ms Paddy Bergin stopped witness W24 in his evidence, when he began to speak of lawyers and judges who frequented Costello's, an alleged paedophile haunt in the 1970s. Paddy Bergin and Justice James Wood at first claimed that the Commission was only concerned with the "policing" of paedophilia. However when journalists pointed out that the Commission was briefed to look at the actions of "any public official", W24 was recalled and wrote the name of one judge on a piece of paper.
This double standard has implications for the way in which the Commission will finally address criminal process corruption. Will the Commission conclude that decades of lying to the courts was it all the fault of a few rotten police; or can it acknowledge that they were supported and encouraged by many magistrates and judges?
Framed has detailed in past issues just how magistrates and prosecutors have collaborated with the NSW police to fix convictions. The judiciary also effectively covered for police. In 1978, in Burke's case, Chief Justice Lawrence Street rejected an appeal argument that a robbery conviction should not be maintained only on the strength of an unsigned police statement. The very argument, Street claimed, was "unpalatable and wholly unacceptable ... [and] an unwarranted attack" on the integrity of the NSW police. Similarly in 1979, in the Ananda Marga case, Justice Jack Lee ridiculed a defence statement that Roger Rogerson and his mates had verballed Alister, Dunn and Anderson. The defence attack on the police, Lee claimed, was a "brazen attempt to turn your [the jury's] attention away" from the prosecution case. Buoyed by such support, in June 1981 Rogerson and his mates John Burke and Dennis Gilligan wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald demanding that the paper not "cast aspersions on the character and integrity of men who are serving this state and country".
Were the judges, magistrates and prosecutors just fools, or were they complicit? In 1991 the High Court in McKinney's case accepted that police verbals were unreliable. Rogerson then publicly admitted that his squad regularly fabricated confessions:
Verbals are part of police culture .. police would think you're weak if you didn't do it. The hardest part for police was thinking up excuses to explain why people didn't sign up .. they're still doing it.
Did this solve the problem? No. Rogerson's mate, Dennis Gilligan, oversaw the new video 'controls' over police questioning, before being promoted to Assistant Commissioner. Then in 1992, in the Savvas case, the Court of Criminal Appeal (Gleeson and Loveday, Kirby dissenting) refused to apply the McKinney warning retrospectively to a verbal by Superintendent Brian Harding. In ICAC, former prosecutor Ian Temby considered but avoided the issue of police verbal, saying that verballing was probably directed at "members of the criminal class as distinct from ordinary citizens who happen to commit crimes". Probably just what the police were thinking. Before the Royal Commission silenced police apologists, Ian Temby, as head of ICAC, was publicly claiming:
It can no longer be said that NSW in general, and Sydney in particular, are the places where misconduct is most likely to be found ... that's not a bad transformation.
When the admissions began to flow at the Police Royal Commission, some journalists began to refer to police perjury as "noble cause" corruption, as though its most important feature was good intentions. To his credit, Commissioner Wood has acknowledged that such perjury is as bad as any other form of corruption. But is he capable of revealing the full story?
A leading Sydney lawyer told Framed "the judges are to blame"
for verballing. One senior magistrate had told him "of course police
verbal people, they have to get the bad guys". Many magistrates and
judges not only turned a blind eye, but privately condoned the practice
of police perjury to get "the bad guys". Police acted with the
tacit approval of the magistrates and judges they regularly appeared before.
Will we ever hear these names in the Royal Commission?
Tim Anderson and George Selvanera
Convicted or unconvicted prisoners often react to frustrations of jail existence in a manner deemed ³inappropriate² by jail staff. A Corrections Health Service (CHS) doctor can then impose drugs to modify behaviour to suit jail staff standards. Prisoners face very great dangers to their legal defence and health from such prescribed drugs. The side effects of such drugs are life shattering, and include liver, kidney and brain damage.
The alleged indiscriminate and abusive use of brain-affecting drugs causes much suffering in the jails. CHS is controlled by the NSW Health Department. Prisoner experiences brought to the attention of the writer suggest however that many of the senior CHS staff behave as though the interests of the Crown Prosecutor wipe-out the right of a prisoner to a fair trial. Further it is reported CHS senior staff have a touching faith in the supposed ability of drugs to improve, or even cure, behaviour problems caused by jailing.
The reality is, the massively expensive drug regime often lessens prisonersı ability to cope with the most un-natural jail existence. Many expensive and terrible problems are caused. For example, the organised rapist gangs find zombiefied young prisoners very easy victims. Given the increased chance of contracting Hepatitis and HIV whilst in prison, this only heightens their concerns. Many victims, some of whom suicide, are unconvicted citizens, awaiting trial, and are presumed "innocent until proven guilty". Their wait for Her Majestyıs justice became an effective death sentence. Their alleged and un-proven crimes include car theft, shoplifting, and other such non-violent offences - crimes of poverty.
Those on remand need an especially clear head to instruct their defence lawyers. Consider yourself in jail on remand like one person known to me facing trial soon. He was framed on a most serious charge, and duly ³medicated².
He suffered side effects including light-headedness, fatigue, dizziness, drowsiness, mental dullness, weakness, blurred vision, sleeplessness, ³restless legs² (an inner compulsion to continually move), depression, headache, confusion, impaired concentration, inability to recall facts, short-term memory loss, disorientation, visual and auditory hallucinations, restlessness, excitement, dry mouth, muscle tremors, stiff posture, lack of facial expression, constipation, stomach pains, impotence and, worst of all, extreme suggestibility. His lawyers considered whether he was fit to plead. The jail psychiatrist suggested he could be made a forensic patient, that is, he would lose any right to refuse ³therapy², up to and including ECT.
All symptoms/side effects disappeared when he withstood extreme pressure and repeated warnings from CHS and ceased ³medication². If he was not on remand, CHS would have made him continue ³medication², by force if deemed necessary (and it always is). As of now, he assists and directs most competently the defence for his rapidly approaching trial. His lawyers and relatives are delighted - the former zombie personality has gone with removal of the cocktail of psychoactive drugs.
Less-senior CHS nursing and other staff in the jails express their despair at what is happening to prisoners. One said, ³Our job is like putting band-aids on HIV patients - itıs useless and soul destroying. We try to patch-up victims of the jail system. A lot of us burn out and resign.²
Bruno DıAnorgio
The
Government has blood on its hands
A research project into HIV risk behaviour of injecting drug
users (IDUs) before, during and after imprisonment in New South Wales proves
yet again, "that prison authorities in NSW have been disinclined to
introduce measures shown to be effective in interrupting HIV transmission
".
The project conducted by researchers of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the Alcohol and Drug Service of St Vincentıs Hospital, the Drug and Alcohol Resource Unit of the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the National HIV Reference Laboratory of Fairfield Hospital (Melbourne) recommends greater emphasis on diversion of IDUs to non-custodial methods of punishment, prison methadone programs, provision of condoms and a pilot strict one for one needle and syringe exchange program.
But donıt hold your breath on these programs, given the painful gap between what we all know must be done and what Corrective Services is actually doing.
A herbal trial for HIV positive prisoners, which has the support of health care workers within the corrections system, the AIDS Council of New South Wales, and the Community HIV/AIDS Research Network was rejected by an internal ethics committee because ³in particular, you have not justified why the herbal trial needs to be undertaken on current inmates. The Committee still maintains the herbal trial can be effectively undertaken in the community and it remains unconvinced that the trial needs to involve inmates.²
The fact that trials of new treatments often provide the sole hope for HIV positive people seems lost on the Department. That this decision is discriminatory seemingly does not raise any issues either. This does not surprise, when one considers the general obstructionist attitude taken to implementing policy for reducing transmission of HIV (currently running at 40 times higher in prisons than in the community) and Hepatitis C (currently running at 160 times higher in prisons than the community).
In 1989 the National HIV/AIDS strategy recommended condoms be made available to prisoners freely and anonymously. In 1996, a condom trial is taking place at the Remand Centre, the Industrial Training Centre at Long Bay and the Bathurst Correctional Centre.
Corrective Services Minister Bob Debus stated, ³As well as ensuring that inmates are protected from disease we are also ensuring that the prison system does not become the source of infection for the rest of the community when the inmates return to their family and friends.²
Why this realisation took seven years requires an answer, why it is not occurring through the entire corrections system is bizarre, and why fourteen other countries can distribute condoms through prisons and NSW has only begun is a case for a clairvoyant.
When one moves to the issue of needle and syringe exchange the problem becomes even gloomier. The Inter-Governmental Committee on AIDS Working Party, which consists of the heads of State health authorities and Commonwealth health officials, recommended the introduction of a needle and syringe exchange program in prisons in 1992. There is no commitment to introduce such a program, despite programs operating in Switzerland and others to commence shortly in Germany and Canada, showing that practical concerns can be overcome.
If the Corrective Services Minister can be taken at his word, his statement about condoms applies even more so to the introduction of needle and syringe exchange, given Hepatitis C. Intransigence is of greater community concern if the corrections system itself becomes the breeding ground for a wave of HIV and Hepatitis C through the community, which the Corrective Services Minister it would seem is well aware of.
Stuart Loveday of the Hepatitis C Council of NSW says, ³Put the facts together and it is clear that a rapid widespread outbreak of Hepatitis or HIV is just around the corner, just as happened in the Scottish prison of Glenochil. The truth is, an outbreak may have already happened in New South Wales prisons- we just donıt know.²
Such has been the poor response that Richard Lynott (who gave permission for his name to be used in this article) is suing the NSW Government for breach of its duty of care in failing to provide the same level of access to prevention measures (ie. condoms and needles) as have existed in the community since the 1980s in the corrections system.
Lynott is currently in hospice care, dying of AIDS related illnesses, after having contracted HIV in prison. In an interview organised by Justice Action between Lynott and 7.30 Report which screened on 4 September, Lynott says he does not want peopleıs sympathy. However, his view, is that all people are entitled to be treated with human dignity and that you go to prison as punishment, not for punishment, and in this case a fatal punishment.
Following from this, Lynottıs view is that irrespective of incarceration, prisoners are entitled to a comparable standard and level of access to health and medical services as exist in the general community. This is the stated mission of the Corrections Health Service, so why they are not seen publicly lobbying about this discrimination is anyoneıs guess.
Although the outcome of this claim will not be known for some time, and how legal process will handle it is unknown, the issue will not disappear. Corrective Services must not shirk from its responsibility to preventing the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C within the prison population and the community at large and it must address the needs of people with HIV/AIDS in the prison environment.
After all a Government which spends most of its time crying about a lack of money, will find the economic cost of providing a clean needle far more cost containing than having to deal with a person who has contracted HIV or Hepatitis C because of their failure to provide the same access to prevention methods as the rest of the community.
George Selvanera
Of particular concern is the fact that the Home Detention Bill 1996 provides
for a single judge or magistrate to both 'sentence to jail' and then convert
this sentence to home detention. Will this be a real diversion?
The Home Detention Bill 1996 allows for a jail sentence to be converted, by the sentencing judge, into an regime of intensive supervision in the home. The Bill limits this option to those sentenced to 18 months or less (ie most prisoners) but also excludes certain categories of offence, such as homicide, sexual assault, armed robbery and domestic violence offences against "a person with whom the offender intends to reside or to continue or resume a relationship". Home detention will thus not be introduced to an environment of domestic violence. The scheme will also be monitored closely to ensure it does not create new conflict for families.
Chief architect of the scheme, senior Probation and Parole officer Ken Studeris, accepts that home detention will only be of use if it does divert people from jail, and that if it proves to be 'net-widening' the scheme will have failed. The Department will attempt to monitor any net-widening. He estimates that those eligible will be about 1800 of the 4-5000 jailed each year, and that if 20% or so of these are diverted, there will be a population of about 400 detainees within a year or two. As 24 hour a day staffing is required, the scheme is only initially planned for the Wollongong-Sydney-Newcastle corridor.
Studeris says that conditions of the scheme will mirror those of the pilot Intensive Community Supervision program, which ran in several local courts from 1992-96. These conditions included a requirement for compulsory blood and urine tests, a ban on alcohol and possible restrictions on association. Electronic devices were monitored through random phone calls, though the system depended on personal contact. In the ICS scheme, probation officers estimated that 80% of those sentenced represented 'diversions': those who would otherwise have been sent to jail.
The intensive nature of the scheme requires more resources than any other community supervision. Costs are about $11,000 per year, more than four times that of any other community correction but only a quarter the cost of full-time imprisonment.
The scheme is currently 'front end', aiming to divert at sentencing, but may be extended to a 'back end' system, converting the later part of a prison sentence into home detention. After 18 months the scheme must be reviewed and a report made to Parliament.
Tim Anderson
POST MODERN SCREAM: Australia's Political Prisoners or Just Victims of the Welfare State.
The Department of Community Services (DOCS) has been totaly neglectful in meeting the needs of all children, particularIy State Wards and those at risk. The Royal Commission, with 3% of DOCS yearly budget, has not only delved the considerable depths of police corruption but has also done what DOCS hasn't; unearth, pursue and publicise organised paedophilia.
This obviously begs the question; what has DOCS been doing and where is a DOCS unit investigating organised paedophilia?
One would presume that this state's peak child protection agency would have one. Alas, nothing could be further lrom the truth.
To fully understand this department's inadequate protection of all children in this state, the position of STATE WARDS must be exposed. Around 170 per 100,000 children enter DOCS in NSW. Whilst in care, female state wards enter the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) at a rate of 1 in 5. Female children from the general population enter DIJ at the rate of 1 in 2,500. That's 20,000 per 100,000 compared with 40 per 100,000!
There are no figures for male state wards. What is known at present is that DJJ consists of around 15% state wards and 30% aboriginal children. Therefore less than 3% of the state's children make up almost 50% of kids in jail.
Two interesting side points. Firstly, by studying the plight of state wards we may gain some insight into why Aborigines are grossly over-represented in our prisons. Secondly, one in five male state wards go on to be incarcerated as adults for crimes of violence. State-wide the figure is probably under 200 per 100,000.
About 50% of state wards do time in prison. and 33% of all wards spend a minimum of 10 years incarcerated. At $50,000 per year per person, it is an expensive burden on society, running into hundreds of millions of dollars. lt must be remembered that these figures start a disturbing paper trail with children entering this life-long punitive system at 170 per 100.000.
It is not surprising that 57% of wards have attempted or considered suicide. Indeed, 50'% of Aboriginal deaths in custodv were Aboriginal children 'stolen' from their families to become state wards (at least up until 10 years ago).
While most government departments account for waste in dollars and cents, this department must be made to account in terms of lost and wasted lives, restrictions to human rights and dignity, and neglect of the weakest people in this state. Most children leave 'care' in the back of a paddy wagon, to be caged by other government departments. The cost to our society through insurance, property and personal damage, hospitalisation of victims, solicitors, police, court, and finally imprisonment is impossible to calculate. lf Prime Minister Howard really wants to save money, he should ensure that DOCS, and its state sisters rechannel this wasted money in turning out productive, educated humans instead of prison fodder.
lt could almost be said that there is an interdepartmental trade in these children to keep crime statistics and imprisonment flourishing, so judges, police, solicitors and corrective officers can be kept in meaningful government employ.
Surely, children who have been orphaned, abused, sexually abused, who have suffered repeated traumas, attachments, separations and losses deserve better than this. Life wasn't meant to be easy, but it wasn't meant to be a dog.
John Murray
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSIC) funding has been slashed by approximately $470 million over four years. The long term effects of this loss will be devastating to many Aboriginal organisations. According to the ATSIC Board, the repercussions of this Budget across the spectrum of Indigenous affairs: in employment, self determination, health, business development and in terms of initiatives to prevent Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Yet the Howard Government maintains that it is not decimating Aboriginal funding, engaging in a racist pursuit nor threatening reconciliation. Sorry Johnny, actions speak louder than words!
The recent misinformation given (July 1996) by the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights, Geneva - the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, merely highlights the Howard Government's continuing pursuit of its assimilationist policies against our people.
The Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee are not sure how far the Budget will cut into our fight for social justice, but cut it certainly will! The Watch Committee receives its funding from the Sydney Regional Council and State offices, whose Budget allocation prior to 2 March, 1996 was $4.3 million. The cut, as proposed by our racist parliamentarians rips more than 50% from this Budget. Quite simply, half of ATSICıs services will close down if the Budget is approved.
We first received funding in September 1994 ($68,000) which was enough to have an office and employ two workers for a period of 20 weeks. Ray Jackson of the Watch Committee recalls that there was a suggestion that we would fail in this initial project.
In 1996, that funding has grown to $500,075, allowing our office to double in size, employ nine workers and our five caseworkers cover every juvenile justice centre and gaol in NSW, at least on a fortnightly basis. The future services of the Watch Committee are certainly in doubt and at least some sector of our services will be cut. This will have a severe impact on all our incarcerated brothers and sisters.
³What has taken two years of pure hard work - both by employees, the Management committee and volunteers - will now be wiped out if these horrendously selfish cuts are made by the Government² according to Ray Jackson. We totally support the actions of the unions, pensioners, unemployed, students and Aboriginal groups protesting the Budget but realise that the fight for social justice for all will continue until this Government is thrown out of office.
The final word should be left with Ray Jackson of the Watch Committee who says: ³It is a sad reflection on the Government that they are cutting deeply into Aboriginal programmes when it is stolen Aboriginal Land that is supplying great wealth to Australian society. It is absolutely bloody galling that this Government slashes to the bone funding for Aboriginal Communities and Organisations whilst giving the mining companies an absolute annual gift of $750 million through the diesel subsidy, or $3 billion over four years².
Marnie Aquilina, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee
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The Victims Rights and Civil Rights Project is a network group aiming to
advance victims rights without trampling on civil rights. It arises from:
The Reference Group for the Project, chaired by Ann Symonds MLC, was initially set up as a steering committee to lend support and direction to a smaller group of activists. However this group is now having regular meetings at NSW Parliament, as we discuss policy on a number of current issues. The project was conceived by Justice Action and the Community Law Centre of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), but now has the active involvement of a number of other groups. As well as academic criminologists and MPs, those attending and contributing to Reference Group meetings have included representatives from: Redfern Legal Centre, Yasmar, the Commonwealth DPP, the Department for Women, the Council for Civil Liberties, the Youth Justice Coalition, the Youth Action and Policy Association, CRC Justice Support, the Intellectual Disability Rights Service, the Sydney City Mission and Relationships Australia. We have begun commenting on some current legislation and law reform reports, and in the near future we aim to hold several public forums and produce several publications.
The Project is open to all community groups which support its aims and
objectives, ie:
Aim:
Objectives:
Tim Anderson
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