The 2023 Synod meeting will consider a proposal to call on governments to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14.
The Synod’s Director for First Peoples Strategy and Engagement, Nathan Tyson, will introduce the proposal.
Amnesty International Australia have highlighted that “Australia has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world – the global average is 14 years old. We have been repeatedly criticised by the United Nations, most recently by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, for failing to reform the current minimum age.”
Rev. Mark Kickett is the UAICC Interim National Chairperson.
“Thirty years ago, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody provided a blueprint for preventing deaths in custody and reducing the incarceration rate of First Peoples,” Rev. Kickett said in a statement.
“It’s now a generation later and governments at all levels have failed to act.”
The Raise the Age Campaign aims to address the issue. The coalition responsible for the campaign includes more than 100 organisations.
These include the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Change the Record, Human Rights Law Centre, Law Council of Australia, Amnesty International Australia, Australian Medical Association, Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association, Public Health Association of Australia, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
Uniting VicTas, Uniting Care Australia, The Uniting Church in Australia Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, The Uniting Church in Australia Queensland Synod and the South Australian Synod have all signed on to this campaign.
The 2023 Synod meeting takes place at the Katoomba Christian Convention Centre from 14 to 17 September.
