Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise tonight to talk about the launch of Change the Record Coalition's blueprint for change. Change the Record is a coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander human rights, legal and community organisations calling for urgent and coordinated national action to close the gap in the imprisonment rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to cut rates of violence experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly women and children.

It was at the launch that I met Keenan, a youth worker from Redfern who told the reality of his life—a life of crime, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, transformed by a justice reinvestment program which began in jail and continued through to Keenan's release back into the community.

Keenan was born and raised in Redfern. He lost both of his parents at an early age and fell in with kids who got into trouble. Keenan soon found himself doing time in juvenile justice centres. So from a very young age Keenan was in and out of juvenile detention and spent most of his birthdays detained. He had no positive role models. Most of his family and friends were detained along with him. At 18 he was sentenced to adult prisons—again doing time for crime, again spending time in and out of adult prisons, until he got to the age of 25 and two things happened. First, he met two old Koori fellas in Goulburn prison who laughingly told him they had 100 years of imprisonment between them. Second, he started doing a justice reinvestment programme in the jail—a three-step program which supported him in the prison.

Once he was released back into the community, Keenan slowly turned his life around, giving up the drugs, the alcohol and the cigarettes. Keenan says it was a hard slog but definitely worth doing. At 27, Keenan got his first job and his first tax file number—all of which was made much more difficult as his birth was never registered.

Keenan is now working as an advocate and youth worker in Redfern with Weave's Kool Kids Club program. Given his powerful speech yesterday—there was hardly a dry eye in the room at Change the Record—I know that Keenan is a powerful advocate and an important role model for the young people he works with. And he is an example of why we need to do more to ensure that all young people, but particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth, get access to justice reinvestment programs rather than detention.

The core recommendations of the Change the Record Coalition's blueprint for change call for a whole-of-government strategy, justice targets, national agreement on how we report information and an independent central agency with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander oversight to coordinate a consistent national approach to data collection.

Given the shamefully high rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment, it is time for urgent action. Having met Keenan yesterday I know from his story that there are many Keenans in juvenile justice in adult prisons who—if given a chance, given a different approach—make fine, upstanding human beings who give back to their communities. Keenan and his partner are expecting a baby in a couple of weeks. He will be an amazing father. He will be a role model for his future child and future children, as he is a role model for young children from the ages of seven in Redfern today. Let's get on and start with that national coordinated approach. Let's give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people justice for the first time.