Great to hear news today of children and families being removed from detention and into community-based care. Thumbs up to the Australian Government. Yay!

I frankly have no interest in whether the Government is in cahoots with my party, The Greens, with this. I also have no interest in The Greens claiming credit for this announcement today. It is the voice of the community crying out for care and compassion being shown for asylum seekers and refugees rather than the harsh punitive alternative offered by the National Part/Liberal Party opposition.

What a great problem charities now have to care for children and families in community-based care! Unlike the corporate providers contracted to run our puntitive detention centres for the sake of making a profit from vulnerable children and families, we will now have values-based organisations with trained social workers, pyschologists and community development officers who will expend funds in a resourceful, creative manner based on evidence-based social science theory and practice.

However, not all good news today with a simultaneous announcement of two new detention centres being built in Australia. And this raises for me how we define a ‘family’.

What this means to me is that men and women who seek asylum in Australia (an international obligation Australia signed up to in 1951 as part of their commitment to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees – and its 1967 protocol) have different rights to children and to those who have children. I argue the Australian Government’s definition of family, particularly in contemporary Australia, is broader than this in the 21st Century. We see this in many areas of legislation in our country.

Please understand I am not poo poo-ing the decision to remove children (the most vulnerable of humans in our world) from prison, but I am wondering what the rationale is to keep adult men and women locked up.

Thoughts anyone?