Campaigns

Hands Up for Justice

The national advocacy campaign framework for the community legal sector which was launched on 22 February 2022 is Hands Up for Justice.

This campaign will provide the advocacy framework for community legal centres for the 2022-2025 Federal Parliamentary term.

External campaigns:

We undertake a range of strategic policy, advocacy and law reform work with and on behalf of the sector. For more information, please scroll down or contact us at info@clcs.org.au.

National Advocacy Campaigns

Raise the Rate for Good

CLCs Australia is one of the supporting organisations of Raise the Rate for Good.

The campaign to Raise the Rate for Good is key to reducing poverty and inequality in Australia. Experts define the poverty line in Australia as $480 – $500 per week for a single person with no children, including housing costs. In light of this, the goal of the Raise the Rate for Good campaign is to ensure a permanent and adequate increase to the social security safety net to keep people out of poverty for good, with income of $500 per week.

Raise the Age

CLCs Australia is part of the Raise the Age Advisory Group.

It is well known that children do best when they are supported, nurtured and loved. But across Australia, children as young as 10 can be arrested by police, charged with an offence, taken to court and detained in youth prisons. When children so young are forced through a criminal legal process at such a formative age, they can suffer irreparable harm and long-term damage – to their health, wellbeing and future.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted by Australia’s low age of minimum criminal responsibility, accounting for 65 per cent of children aged 10-13 in prison. There has been a chorus of calls made to the Australian Government on both a national and international scale – from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, expert United Nations bodies, human rights organisations, medical and legal bodies, and academics – for Australia to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years.

Change the Record

CLCs Australia is part of the Change the Record Steering Committee.

Change the Record is Australia’s only national Aboriginal-led justice coalition of legal, health and family violence prevention experts. Its mission is to end the incarceration of, and family violence against, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Change the Record has the solutions on how to build stronger and safer communities – all it requires is the political-will and resources to make these solutions a reality. It has called for immediate action following the deaths of 437 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in custody, regrettably even after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Two themes appear to be apparent – discriminatory policies and discriminatory policing.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence, and children are being taken away from their families at heart-breaking rates. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change the record.

Australian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms

CLCs Australia is part of the Advisory Group of the Australian Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms (ACHRF) campaign.

The purpose of the campaign is to unite the community behind a bold and positive vision of a fairer Australia, to create a Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms that will transform the Australian human rights landscape.

The Charter is about ensuring that the values we all share – such as fairness, respect, dignity and compassion – are placed at the heart of all government decisions, laws and policies. It is about clearly listing and articulating all of our human rights and freedoms so that everyone, from school kids to new Australians, are aware of their rights and understand the values and priorities we hold as a community.

Importantly, a Charter will provide a powerful tool to challenge injustice and gives people the power to take action and seek justice when their human rights are violated.

Time for a Home

CLCs Australia is one of the supporting organisations of Time for a home.

For the past seven years, successive governments have enacted harmful policies against people seeking asylum, including the indefinite detention of everyone who arrived by boat after 19 July 2013. Today, there are still 290 people held against their will in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Over 1000 women, men and children have been transferred to Australia for critical medical treatment and now live in ‘transitory’ visa limbo. Over 200 of those people are held in locked immigration detention centres and so-called ‘alternative places of detention’, such as the Mantra and Kangaroo Point hotel prisons.

This campaign calls for the Government to free these women, men and children, and resettle them into our community, so they can be safe and have a place to call home.

Media releases: Media Release from 5 November 2020

Hands Off Our Charities

CLCs Australia is a member of Hands Off Our Charities (HOOC).

HOOC is an alliance of charity and not-for-profit organisations in response to the growing number of attempts to restrict the voices of charities and not for profits and added significant barriers to advocacy.

The HOOC alliance was formed to protect the important role of public interest advocacy and the ability of community voices to be heard in national political debates. The members of HOOC together represent millions of Australians concerned with a wide range of issues including education, social welfare, human rights, animal welfare, the environment, health, climate change, disability rights and philanthropy. Our organisations, the issues we work on, and the communities we serve and represent, are diverse, but we all share a fundamental commitment: to act in the public interest.

Hands Off Our Charities page on our website.

United Nations Advocacy Campaigns

Universal Periodic Review of Australia 2020: NGO Coalition

CLCs Australia is part of the Advisory Committee of the UPR NGO Coalition.

In 2021, Australia will have its human rights record assessed before the UN Human Rights Council in a process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR provides an opportunity for other nations to identify human rights problems in Australia and make recommendations about possible solutions.

Submissions
A joint NGO Submission has been finalised and endorsed by over 200 NGOs. Prepared by the Human Rights Law Centre, Caxton Legal Centre and Kingsford Legal Centre, and working in consultation with an Advisory Group and other expert NGOs, this report provides a comprehensive insight into the state of human rights in Australia before COVID-19.

The Report’s 88 recommendations provide a thorough human rights roadmap for Australia’s future, and in doing so, serves to inform the UPR through the lens of Australian NGOs.

Australia’s Human Rights Scorecard: Australia’s 2020 United Nations UPR NGO
Coalition Report