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For justice advocates, Budget Estimates sessions provide an important opportunity to dig into the details of government policy and gain crucial information about priority areas of law reform.
A recent report by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research concluded that there was no significant spike in domestic violence during COVID lockdowns. However, community legal centres say that crime data fails to capture the whole picture.
The health and safety of our communities depend on a future where holistic, caring and healing approaches to drug use are the norm.
Fair Treatment is a public advocacy campaign led by Uniting NSW-ACT for the better resourcing of evidence-based harm reduction strategies, and the decriminalisation (removal of court processing and criminal penalties including jail terms) of personal use of small quantities of currently illicit drugs. In this article, Stafford Sanders proposes that we need to rethink our approach to drug policy and learn from worldwide best practice, such as the Portugal model of decriminalisation.
In the last 12 years, there has been an almost twentyfold increase in strip searches in New South Wales. This harmful proactive policing practice is disproportionately targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and young people, particularly in lower socio-economic areas and regional towns.
In this article, Rhys Evans looks back to the harm-reduction practices developed during the HIV epidemic which continue to save many lives, and how these programs might inform a pathway for evidence-based drug policy.
People with lived experience of drug use in NSW are paving the way in developing and implementing effective harm reduction measures..
Living in remote, regional and rural areas can often mean being geographically isolated from vital drug support services. In this article, Patrick O'Callaghan shares how things are changing in Dubbo, and where's next for localised drug support and reform.
Rather than continuing to punish drug use through criminalisation, which can exacerbate the ongoing impacts of trauma on peoples’ lives, restorative justice approaches can respond to harm and trauma through care.
At the start of 2021, we find ourselves in the middle of another harmful public debate about the rights of trans and gender diverse children simply to be themselves. The NSW One Nation Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, which is currently open for public comment, would deny children in our community the right to be seen, to be protected, and to be treated with integrity by schools and teachers.
Early on in the COVID-19 health crisis, as the first cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Australia and its seriousness became clearer, we knew the pandemic would have an impact on everyone across our communities, but renting households would be particularly vulnerable.
The gambling industry in New South Wales, particularly the poker machine sector, is extremely influential.