Newsletters / Bulletins

This week we cannot have avoided being made aware of the treatment of primary school aged child ‘prisoners’ in a Perth justice centre. This was a picture of trauma, disadvantage, distress and injustice. And it was not the first time. At the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Period Review (a three year cycle of review) of Australia’s compliance with international human rights charters to which we are signatory, 29 of 47 countries made a recommendation relating to the age of criminal responsibility as demonstrated in the recommendation by the Republic of Maldova: “[That Australia] adjust the national child justice system in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age”.

A few years ago, I went to Finland on a holiday. My late husband who had a fascination with Nordic countries selected Finland for us at that time and later he went to Iceland in a journey he had been wishing for his whole life. He wrote on a postcard back to our daughters that he had been meeting “warm wonderful people”

This week we acknowledge the unique and invaluable contributions of carers, support people, and their family members and loved ones

“I am so sick of hearing about mental health” he said after I answered his question about where I work. He had trouble articulating why he was sick of hearing about it. It seemed to be a sense that the radio + news + TV + life in general was saturated with rhetoric and it was overwhelming. For my taxi driver its mental health YEAR not just mental health week and month 2022 with World Mental Health Day on Monday 10th! It’s all too much for him.