What does the historic agreement to establish a ‘loss and damage’ fund at this United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt mean for small island developing states, particularly in the Pacific? How can negotiating parties ensure the fund is operationalised by COP28 in Dubai, rather than allowing countries to stall – as has been seen with previous initiatives? And with Australia looking to co-host the 2026 instalment of the conference with Pacific Island nations, what impact would a successful bid have on the region and the Australian public? Dr Siobhan McDonnell and Dr George Carter, who negotiated on behalf of Pacific Island countries at COP27, join Professor Sharon Bessell and Dr Arnagretta Hunter to discuss the talks and to look ahead to the next conference in Dubai. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3EUs29x

Siobhan McDonnell is a legal anthropologist with over 20 years of experience working with Indigenous people in Australia and the Pacific on land use, gender, and climate change. She is a Senior Lecturer at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and Chief Investigator for the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project on Climate Change and Gender in the Pacific.

George Carter is a Research Fellow in Geopolitics and Regionalism at ANU Department of Pacific Affairs and Director of the ANU Pacific Institute.

Sharon Bessell is Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

The post Podcast: The loss and damage consensus at COP27 appeared first on Policy Forum.

Euripides wrote 2,500 years ago that it is ‘life’s worst torment to lose your true home and native land’. Given the gravity of this torment, a government’s power to banish people from their home by stripping them of citizenship must surely have constitutional limits.

In its June 2022 decision in Alexander v Minister for Home Affairs, the High Court of Australia, while implying that these limits exist, failed to define them. The case should sound alarm bells for all those who value their right to call Australia home. The country’s highest court must take a more proactive approach to clarifying the limits of parliament’s power to visit grave sanctions upon its citizens.

The case saw Delil Alexander – a dual Turkish-Australian citizen imprisoned in Syria for terrorism offences, charges he denied – challenge the constitutional validity of section 36B of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth). This section allowed a person to be stripped of Australian citizenship for engaging in certain conduct or travelling to designated areas, like the part of Syria where Alexander was arrested. Its stated aim was to remove the citizenship of Australians who had repudiated their allegiance to the country.

Although ultimately striking down the section on different grounds, the court indicated that stripping citizenship for disallegiance is within parliament’s power under section 51(xix) of the Australian Constitution, also known as the ‘aliens power’.

More on this: Australia’s ‘doNation Building’ project

This reasoning was based on a nebulous concept known as the ‘Pochi limit’. The Pochi limit is a rule derived from a 1982 case which saw an Italian migrant, Luigi Pochi – who never gained Australian citizenship despite marrying an Australian women and residing in the country for decades – arrested and deported.

The High Court, faced with Mr Pochi’s case, created the so-called ‘Pochi limit’: that parliament cannot classify as an alien anyone that would not be described as such by a reasonable person. Mr Pochi, who was not an Australian citizen, was not such a person, meaning his challenge against deportation failed. In other words, within the Pochi limit, parliament may determine who is a non-citizen through legislation. So far, so good.

However, the High Court has repeatedly failed to define the full scope of the Pochi limit and the ‘aliens power’. In the Alexander ruling, it became startlingly evident that this failure – even refusal – to do so is incompatible with the High Court’s role as a constitutional ‘bulwark of freedom’ against government overreach.

Every judge agreed that rendering an Australian an alien for ‘repudiating their allegiance’ to Australia falls within the Pochi limit. However, the limit still prevents parliament from giving any definition it likes to the word ‘allegiance’. A disallegiant act must still be something that fit within the ‘ordinary understanding’ of what an alien is.

Indeed, both Justices Gordon and Edelman suggested that some conduct prohibited by the Act fell short of the ‘extreme, wrongful acts’ necessary for an individual to be called disallegiant. In other words, there is a definition of allegiance separate from whatever parliament wishes allegiance to mean.

And yet, no judge gave such a definition. Various abstract descriptions of disallegiance were provided, such as conduct ‘so reprehensible that it is radically incompatible with the values of the community’.

More on this: Affirmative consent in Australia’s refugee and migrant communities

However, these poetic definitions of disallegiance all fail to explain what allegiance actually means. As such, the limits on parliament’s power of banishment are tautological – to owe allegiance to Australia means not behaving disallegiantly. Kafka rolls in his grave.

Why should the High Court have defined allegiance more explicitly? Most importantly, because the power of banishment is not a trivial matter to be tested on an ad hoc basis, as Euripides alluded to two and a half millennia ago.

It is bizarre for the High Court to recognise this seriousness and agree that a definition of allegiance is required to put a limit on banishment, yet leave that definition to another day.

As the guardian of the constitution, the High Court must approach constitutional cases proactively, with the aim of clearly stating the limits of parliament’s power to impose grave sanctions on citizens.

Clarity is also desirable from a jurisprudential perspective. The Alexander case presented a golden opportunity to define one element of the Pochi limit, an opportunity which the court declined.

Of course, it is not reasonable to ask the court to describe every person who may not have their citizenship stripped. However, ‘allegiance’ is only one small component of the Pochi limit. If the court wishes to allow the scope of this limit to emerge organically over time, then it must proactively define necessary concepts like allegiance when given the chance.

This is crucial becuase the meaning of the term ‘allegiance’ has long been elastic, shifting throughout Australia’s constitutional history. Although parliament may define allegiance within the Pochi limit, it is incumbent upon the High Court to state where that limit lies.

The Alexander ruling was a lost opportunity – the High Court’s failure to define the limits of banishment leaves the security of all Australian citizens uncertain. The court must seize subsequent chances to clarify this limit with both hands.

Images: Keisuke Higashio on Unsplash & Ian Fieggen on Wikimedia Commons

The post The Australian parliament’s power of banishment appeared first on Policy Forum.

Is the allocation of $81.5 million for justice reinvestment initiatives in the recent federal budget a step in the right direction when it comes to reducing the high rates of incarceration of First Nations peoples? And why is truth-telling about Australia’s colonial history so important for reconciliation? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, Director of ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Professor Valerie Cooms joins Professor Sharon Bessell to examine the First Nations justice measures in the recent federal budget and the need for bravery from policymakers to ensure Australia achieves genuine reconciliation. Listen here: http://bit.ly/3V82dK0

Valerie Cooms is Director and Professor of Indigenous Policy at ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.

Sharon Bessell is Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

First Nations Justice package, Parliament of Australia (2022)

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Archives of Australia (1991)

Quandamooka Language Map, North Stradbroke Island Museum on Minjerribah

Policy Forum Pod is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can find us on Twitter at @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

The post Podcast: Justice for First Nations Australians appeared first on Policy Forum.

Malaysia’s infamous ‘1MDB scandal’ – which saw former Prime Minister Najib Razak jailed for his involvement in the misuse of the national sovereign wealth fund – was pivotal in the outcome of the country’s 14^th general election (GE14).

Ahead of GE14, it seemed that a political climate change was needed in order for the status quo to shift, and the 1MDB allegations provided it.

After 61 years in power, Razak’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and its right-wing government coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN), were defeated at the polls in 2018. In their place, the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition swept into power.

But this supposed ‘alliance of hope’ was short-lived. In only two years, PH collapsed under the weight of internal divisions and the COVID-19 pandemic, opening the door for UMNO to reclaim the prime ministership via Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

But after three prime ministers in a chaotic four years, what impact will the 1MDB fallout, and anti-corruption more broadly, have on the county’s general election on 19 November?

More on this: What next for Malaysia’s fallen prime minister Najib Razak?

Now that the scandal has been investigated and Najib – its most prominent antagonist – has been jailed, the immediacy seems to have come out of the issue somewhat, meaning Malaysian voters are unlikely to unite around that cause again.

In fact, Najib may even retain some public support, even from his jail cell. In a Bloomberg poll, conducted between August-September 2022, 11 per cent of respondents said Najib was their preferred prime minister.

It is, however, unclear how many of the respondents were polled after his imprisonment in late August, but the former leader still retains significant influence in Malaysia’s political debate.

However, Najib isn’t the only senior UMNO figure who’s been the subject of corruption investigations and controversy. UMNO president and BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is currently facing 47 charges, including criminal breach of trust, corruption, and money laundering, over alleged wrongdoing involving a charity. He denies the charges and the trial is set to resume in January 2023.

In August 2022, declassified documents revealed that Zahid was involved in the procurement process for the controversial Littoral Combat Ship project as defence minister, something he’d previously denied.

The project involved awarding a nine billion ringgit contract to Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn (BNS) for six naval combat ships, five of which were meant to arrive the same month as the documents were declassified. However, the ships are yet to be delivered and a former BCS managing director has been charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

More on this: Race, politics, and prospects for reform in Malaysia

None of this controversy has deterred Zahid, however, with speculation rife that he might be installed as prime minister if BN wins the election.

Indeed, the corruption allegations that are plaguing the country’s political elite have not been a central feature of the current campaign.

Corruption is being discussed, for example by the political coalition Perikatan Nasional, which includes ‘political and governance clean up’ as one of its 12 core values. Most of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)’s 72 candidates have also publicly declared their assets as part of the campaign. But these are exceptions rather than a general trend, and may not be enough impress the voters.

GE15 will still be historic – but for different reasons.

Voter turn-out will be one of the most interesting and telling statistics to look out for. Significant changes were made ahead of this election which could raise participation, such as lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 and the commencement of automatic voting registration for all eligible Malaysians.

On the other hand, the monsoon season might impede some people from voting, as may the possibility of contracting COVID-19, with the Malaysian Government requiring people who test positive for the virus to isolate at home. There is also the potential that voter dissatisfaction and disenchantment, given the unfulfilled electoral pledges made during the GE14 and political turmoil that’s since unfolded, might suppress the turn-out.

It will also likely be the last election campaign for some prominent political figures, such as the 96-year-old two-time prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is recontesting his Langkawi seat, and Tengku Razaleigh, who is currently the country’s longest-standing member of parliament, having served for nearly 50 years.

Moreover, even once the ballots are cast, the result might not be clear or stable. The last two years saw politicians party-hopping at a speed that left bystanders bewildered.

UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi already warned unnominated candidates against conducting ‘betrayals’ that could undermine the party, with the backstabbing that led to the downfall of the PH coalition in 2020 clearly fresh in everyone’s mind. Whether Zahid’s threats are enough to prevent this kind of politicking though remains to be seen.

If the results remain unclear until after election day, it could make obtaining a mandate even more difficult, making maintaining any ruling coalition more difficult still.

While many voters may be eager to see some stability return to Malaysian politics and policymaking, a close election will likely mean the country’s volatile political landscape will remain well beyond GE15.

The post The 1MDB scandal and Malaysia’s 2022 general election appeared first on Policy Forum.

How do poor housing conditions affect people’s health and wellbeing, particularly in the context of a cost-of-living crisis? How can policymakers ensure all Australians have access to safe, affordable, and healthy homes? And what role could anti-discrimination laws play in protecting people who might be experiencing homelessness or poverty? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, solicitor at Canberra Community Law, Farzana Choudhury, and Executive Director of Better Renting, Joel Dignam, join Professor Sharon Bessell and Dr Arnagretta Hunter to discuss how to improve housing accessibility. Listen here: http://bit.ly/3ULuo0P

Farzana Choudhury is a community lawyer and human rights advocate, specialising in poverty, homelessness and disability rights. She is Supervising Solicitor (Disability Law) at Canberra Community Law and President of the ACT Law Society.

Joel Dignam is the Executive Director of Better Renting, a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. He has a background in organising and campaigning across non-profits, unions, and electoral politics.

Sharon Bessell is Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

‘Private rental market ‘the epicentre’ of Australia’s housing affordability problem, report finds’ by Stephanie Convery, Guardian Australia (2022)

2022: Rental Affordability Snapshot, Anglicare Australia (2022)

Homelessness & Poverty Discrimination Law in Practice by Farzana Choudhury, Winston Churchill Memorial Trust of Australia (2022)

Disrupted: The consumer experience of renting in Australia, Choice, National Shelter and the National Association of Tenant Organisations (2018)

Urban Planning for Climate Change by Barbara Norman (2022)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

The post Podcast: Not every house is a home appeared first on Policy Forum.

In August 2022, Malaysia’s Federal Court upheld the conviction of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and its 12-year sentence.

For years, it appeared that the 1MDB scandal – which saw billions of dollars stolen from Malaysia’s ‘1MDB’ sovereign wealth fund – would gain little traction in Malaysia.

But in 2018, elections in Malaysia saw outraged voters end Najib’s party’s political reign in the country, ousting the ruling coalition for the first time in six decades. Under the newly elected government, investigations were reopened and charges were laid against Najib, his wife Rosmah Mansoor, and others.

Many courts, from Malaysia’s Federal Court to the United States Department of Justice, have been slowly getting to the bottom of one of the world’s greatest financial scandals.

At the time, onlookers knew that if the trials fairly convicted Najib, they could usher in a new era in Malaysia for political trials. But they also knew that if he walked free with his name cleared, his political career would be spared.

More on this: Policing Malaysia’s maritime border

After two years, on 28 July 2020, Najib was found guilty of all seven charges and was sentenced to 12 years in jail and slapped with massive fines. Then, on 8 December 2021, Malaysia’s Court of Appeal upheld the verdict and on 23 August 2022 the Federal Court upheld them again. With that, the judicial process came to an official end.

However, that does not necessarily mean that the political and personal story for Najib has also ended.

In early July 2022, weeks before the verdict by the Federal Court was handed down, a political deputy within Najib’s old coalition, Mohamad Hasan, continued to show his desire to free Najib.

He stated in an interview: “[e]verybody has to pay their dues. But if we want to pardon, [Najib] has to go through the process. He’ll have to go inside first.”

Hasan refers to the process laid down in Article 41(1) of the Federal Constitution, which provides the Agong (King) the power to grant royal pardons or reprieves for any punishment.

Receiving a royal pardon is not unheard of for politicians in Malaysia. In 2018, Anwar Ibrahim received a royal pardon after more than two decades of prolonged court cases. This allowed him a return to politics in 2018, though the pardon is currently being challenged.

In the case of Najib, it is worth noting that fellow former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad issued a statement in which he foreshadowed the possibility of a royal pardon, saying that “[f]or Najib, it is highly likely that he will be pardoned after being imprisoned”.

Whether this pardon comes is instrumental for the shape of Malaysia’s political future. If he does not receive a royal pardon, on top of his sentence, he will be disqualified from standing for elections for the duration of the sentence, including the one scheduled for November this year, and for a further five years upon his release from prison.

More on this: Race, politics, and prospects for reform in Malaysia

But how likely is a royal pardon will materialise, and how soon might it come?

He has already applied for a pardon, but as it stands, the chances of him receiving it seems low. The King, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, has been quoted as emphasising the risks for Malaysia’s law-making if the royal pardon is abused – though he did not mention Najib by name.

He was joined in his comments by the Sultan of Selangor, the head of one of Malaysia’s 13 states, Sharafuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, who recently revoked royal titles held by Najib and his wife in the wake of their convictions. The Sultan emphasised, also without naming names, that royal pardons cannot be abused purely for the ‘benefit of certain parties’.

However, this view is not necessarily held across Malaysia. While they no longer hold titles in Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan, Najib and his wife still hold their titles in Pahang, Perak, Melaka, Kedah, Perlis, Sabah, and Sarawak.

While hardly unanimous, these comments show that Najib’s fall from royal grace is underway, making a royal pardon highly unlikely, at least any time soon.

One thing, however, is for sure. While Najib was on bail during the appeal process, he is now actually in jail. The Malaysian people can also now see that he is being treated like any other prisoner, with rumours of special treatment, including that he had been given a house, debunked.

As to the future, Malaysia is notorious for its politicians making unpredictable comebacks. Najib also continues to enjoy the backing of his party and has significant power as a ‘kingmaker’ behind the scenes.

Malaysia is also not alone in this in the region. Earlier this year, the Marcos family was rehabilitated in the Philippines after 30 years, with Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr being elected president in June.

As such, Najib may feel that he still has a few years left in which he can plan his comeback and wait for a royal pardon to materialise.

With a national election imminent, it is a critical time in Malaysian politics. A win by Barisan Nasional, the coalition Najib used to lead, in the upcoming general election can arguably be seen as a positive step towards receiving such a pardon, especially since it had supported Najib’s bid for a royal pardon.

Long-term, if the country can demonstrate that even those in high public office will be held accountable for their actions, it should restore some of the faith of the Malaysian public, which was shattered in the wake of the 1MDB revelations. However, it remains to be seen which concerns are more pressing for the electorate, especially considering the current economic woes and the ongoing recovery from both the COVID-19 pandemic and the current floods.

The post What next for Malaysia’s fallen prime minister Najib Razak? appeared first on Policy Forum.

People in some nations are more philanthropic than in others – that is, they give more money away.

This isn’t just about who is most generous. It’s a matter of the role of governments. For instance, while American citizens donate a lot more money than Swedes, citizens of Sweden pay much more tax on average than Americans.

In this comparison, rather than donating directly themselves, Swedish citizens vote for an approach to government that results in the same thing – their money going to help the less fortunate and build a better society. In the United States, and many other places, giving directly to support these things is more common.

The deeper difference is what ‘needs’ financial support in the community is determined collectively in Sweden and individually in the United States.

This is not superficial – especially when one of these approaches doesn’t seem to work very well.

A collective system lowers transaction costs, reduces the incentive for charities to spend on marketing themselves, and provides government resources to ensure the charities that benefit from the community’s donations are achieving their goals.

An individual system has none of these strengths. While its advocates can say that people should have a right to directly choose who benefits from their money, they cannot hide from its weaknesses.

More on this: Democracy Sausage: Fair game with Andrew Leigh

Australia’s system is a funny mix of both. Individual donors elect to donate to a charity, but the government then uses collective funds to subsidise that choice by forgoing revenue on it. This is because all donations to designated charities in Australia are ‘tax-deductible’, meaning that any income an Australian earns, but then donates, is not counted as part of their taxable income, lowering their overall tax rate burden.

The new Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh, has a plan to double giving in Australia by 2030 under this system.

He has also made clear that the government will work to remove past constraints on charities lobbying for better policies for the sector.

This is an admirable goal. While governments are better suited than private charities to tackle systemic poverty issues, citizens, of their own volition, getting together to improve their community is crucial to a healthy society.

In Australia, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, about three million live below the poverty line. While the government must increase support to tackle this, citizen-based organisations, or not-for-profits, are often better suited to helping communities directly.

While most in the sector are involved in education and religious activities, it’s important to note the supplementary role some charities play when it comes to relieving poverty.

Ensuring charities keep playing this supplementary role, and enabling them to lobby to do so better, solves a number of problems with charitable giving. It encourages citizens to contribute to their communities, while those in poverty are still entitled to the government support they need.

More on this: The politics of aid in a crisis

However, it does not solve everything. Australia’s tax-deductible donation system needs a rethink.

As it stands, every deductible dollar is worth the same. This means that when a dollar is donated to a wealthy private school to construct a luxurious building, the taxpayer subsidises it just as much as a donation to a charity doing crucial work with those living rough.

Under this system, any charity, no matter its specific values and goals, and whether they reflect the majority of the Australian community, is subsidised – just as long as it can qualify for tax-deductible status.

For one, this system means that Australians support international development in two capacities – as taxpayers directly via the government, and as donors.

But only eight per cent of charities provide aid to people outside Australia. Reforming Australia’s system could help it better assist developing countries, where a donated dollar can go much further when it comes to improving lives.

If the government does achieve its plan to double giving, it also needs to consider that the current system is not always sending resources to where they are most needed.

As it stands, the giving system is uncoordinated and blind to genuine public need – the personal preferences of donors entirely direct government subsidies.

Charities play roles the government cannot, especially when it comes to building communities and they need support, but nobody could fairly say every charity is of exactly equal value.

The government needs to facilitate the meeting of the greatest needs by charities and ensure they have the resources to do the work they are best at. A system where one dollar given to a privileged private school or elite sporting club is subsidised just the same as one dollar given to a homelessness relief or to lift people out of poverty in the developing world isn’t capable of this – it needs change.

The post Australia’s ‘doNation Building’ project appeared first on Policy Forum.

Since the advent of the #MeToo movement, Australia has seen numerous policy and legislative changes around the issue of sexual violence and consent. In recent years there have been government-led media campaigns attempting to define consent, the introduction of affirmative consent laws, and reforms to education programs, with consent education now mandated in schools.

Affirmative consent refers to the conscious, voluntary, and expressed consent to participate in sexual activity, also referred to as an ‘enthusiastic yes’.

While, undoubtedly, any sexual activity should be consensual, power relations and systemic inequalities can complicate consent. These may include the presence of domestic and family violence, or structural or cultural barriers limiting access to services.

There are mainstream beliefs that refugee and migrant women’s cultural backgrounds put them at greater risk of violence, or that they lack awareness of what gendered violence is and how to access support services. As a result, they are often targeted in policy interventions that address gendered violence.

However, in some cases, mainstream strategies can result in ‘unintended consequences’ for marginalised groups. As a multicultural country we need to consider the wide-reaching effects that strategies developed to address gendered violence can have for all groups in Australia, and be careful not to repeat colonial patterns that further entrench discrimination and exclusionary practices. As such, refugee and migrant women should lead responses to gendered violence, rather than considering them merely recipients of services.

My research shows that refugee and migrant women are already doing the work on sexual violence and consent. As frontline workers, policymakers, and community leaders, they are supporting women experiencing sexual violence, consulting with communities, and designing interventions.

More on this: A deafening silence in Australia’s refugee conversation

In interviews with women who work in funded organisations or who volunteer in their communities, participants were supportive of the premise of affirmative consent: ‘my body = my consent,’ women’s rights, human rights, and the illegality of sexual violence. Some had even produced resources on sexual violence and consent, with one organisation producing a video and booklet on affirmative consent that was translated into 10 languages.

Compared to larger, mainstream organisations, migrant organisations are often poorly funded and resourced. Many have only a handful of workers, or exist as smaller programs within mainstream organisations, whereas some mainstream organisations or programs have upwards of 50 staff. Two migrant organisations I interviewed had been running as voluntary, self-funded organisations for over 10 years. Despite applying for grants, they have so far been unsuccessful.

Mainstream groups, organisations, and policymakers continue to be more successful in obtaining funding. This could be a result of established organisations being larger and therefore more attractive to funding bodies, and some might even have dedicated positions or teams to write tenders.

Problematically, workers in my study reported that larger, mainstream groups were sometimes replicating work already being done by smaller migrant services. In one instance, a migrant organisation was contacted by a mainstream organisation for ‘help’ to conduct a project, similar to one the migrant service had just completed, but with more time and resources.

There was no partnership or benefit to the smaller migrant organisation, just an expectation of introductions to refugee communities and knowledge sharing. This not only replicates work, but also exploits the knowledge, labour, and skills of refugee and migrant women advocates.

More on this: Temporary migrants are being left in the lurch

Addressing gendered violence in some communities can be complex. Refugee communities in particular face challenges of entrenched gendered norms, intergenerational conflict, and experiences of racism and discrimination.

There are also cultural nuances that can be difficult to identify or understand if you are not from that ethnicity, particularly around sensitive issues of sex and consent.

Importantly, policymakers must understand that what works in one cultural context will not necessarily work in another. Participants in my study reported that it is not enough to just translate information into different languages. Instead, they said, organisations offering these services need to ‘take it right back to the beginning’ and start from where people are at.

In order to effectively engage and support these communities, Australia must support refugee and migrant anti-violence advocates to take the lead on these strategies to address sexual violence and consent. By doing so, it will help diversify who holds positions of power in the sector.

In Australian society, it’s become commonplace to talk about advancing women in business and politics, however, we seldom discuss the lack of diversity among women who ‘make it’, and the discrimination and exclusion that women of colour continue to experience.

Intersectional and critical race feminists urge mainstream groups, including mainstream feminist organisations, to ‘give up their power’ and create the space for those with lived experience of these issues. In some cases, this will mean forgoing funding opportunities when they could go to smaller organisations that are led by refugee and migrant women.

Those with resources could also establish meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships, or even support them to write funding applications.

These are small steps towards a more equitable distribution of funding, but they could make a significant difference in providing better services for refugee and migrant women.

The post Affirmative consent in Australia’s refugee and migrant communities appeared first on Policy Forum.

During a recent interview with an Indonesian national television, Indonesian President Joko Widodo was asked about his loyal volunteers constantly proposing an extension of his tenure, in which ‘Jokowi’ – as he is famously called – played down the calls is simply ‘discourse’.

This comes after his statement earlier this year that he has no intention to extend his tenure by changing the 1945 Constitution.

Despite this, loyal supporters of Widodo have raised this possibility repeatedly, particularly during the pandemic. One argument for this was to ‘save the economy’ without having to spend money holding an election.

Extending the president’s term would violate the principles of constitutionalism, especially the limitation of executive power. That the president is ultimately serving at the will of the people must be respected as the main foundation of a constitutional democratic state.

If Widodo extended his term, that would mean postponing the election, denying the Indonesian people the chance to exercise their democratic rights. On top of this, the economic argument is no longer relevant, since the national economy has promising growth and is showing signs of recovery.

More on this: Assessing the Jokowi Presidency

In fairness, Widodo has repeatedly denied that he would do this. Still, in response to Widodo’s refusal to extend his term, some of his supporters changed tack, floating the idea that he could run for vice president instead. Yet again, he said that he would not do this.

The persistence of these calls is worrying. Directly amending the 1945 Constitution would be the only way to make either of these courses of action possible, and yet when polled, half of Indonesian voters say they would be comfortable with the president serving a third five-year term.

The level of support that exists for this process reveals the divided nature of Indonesian politics. Half of Indonesian voters, based on their support of one figure, support a course of action that risks normalising amendments to the constitution led by politicians.

This kind of political division has been increasingly prevalent since 2014 and has continued to worsen. In this context, taking a drastic step to amend the constitution to keep incumbents in the political arena longer would damage Indonesia’s democratic culture.

More on this: Indonesia’s state-owned predicament

Even if Widodo successfully shuts it down on this occasion, future presidents could use this trend to tinker with the constitution in a partisan way. This would damage the health of the constitution and its legitimacy over time.

Besides, Indonesia needs elected changes of the guard that bring forth leaders who foster cooperation and compromise. Putting off this change prevents the political regeneration that can bridge the country’s political divide.

With this in mind, Jokowi must clearly refuse an extension of any kind, shutting down any further speculation, and allow the country to focus on far more important issues.

For instance, data protection has been a recurring problem, and the government has not taken serious action yet. The state also needs to focus on the revision of the Criminal Code, as some legal scholars and civil society organisations deem it at risk of being used as a tool to criminalise freedom of expression and criticism of government.

This is a chance for the president to go out on a high note. By putting this issue to bed, he can also help Indonesia to focusing on its other goals and preparing it for a successor in 2024.

While these repeated calls from some of his supporters are worrying, they do give the president an opportunity. By focusing on preparing a strong transition to the next president and ensuring his last acts in the role aim to address some of the countries serious political divisions, he can cement his legacy as one of Indonesia’s most important leaders and set the stage for a more united future in the process.

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Over the past 20 years, policing in Australia has changed dramatically.

But unlike past periods of transformation, this has not come from changes in legislation or court decisions that affect the scope of policing. This time, it is expectation from the public for better policing that has demanded change.

It has had a dramatic effect on the way policing is provided, and without intervention, could set up policing to fail.

There is growing pressure being placed on police to focus not on traditional police work, like investigating organised crime and protecting order in the community. Instead, police are increasingly called upon to perform what are essentially mental health care interventions.

More than a law enforcement agency, policing has become responsible for addressing widespread societal challenges that police forces that are not readily equipped to handle.

For decades now, the mental health system has been unable to meet growing this demand for care. Australia’s collective response has failed to build enough capacity or capability to manage risks and deal with this demand.

Brought about by a shift in mental health care from institutionalisation to community-based models, people experiencing mental illness now encounter police much more regularly. When this happens, things don’t always go well.

The fact that Australia continues to identify these encounters as caused by the execution of the police response, rather than by a deeper division of labour problem, is causing massive issues.

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As overall mental ill-health proliferates, police providing first responses to mental health crises will proliferate too. A recent report published in July 2022 identifies that this is particularly acute among specific age groups, particularly younger people, and in Indigenous communities.

It also shows that police are responding to large numbers of mental health calls, and that officers often don’t have the time or training to manage this in a way that is respectful of the caller and the problem.

For those who argue that police forces simply need to better train the police to manage this challenge, the stark reality is that this is a poor use of police resources. An officer should not be expected to be a policing and security professional and a mental health professional at the same time. Trained mental health experts with strong knowledge and experience should be the ones on the front line.

A recent book published in Canada looks at this specifically, and argues that a use of police resources to meet a problem that is health-related, rather than crime-related, is negatively impacting both patients and law enforcement.

It also identifies that managing mental illness at the community level has become one of the wicked problems facing policing.

More on this: Rethinking the police’s role in mental health support

So, not only is this problem being handled by the wrong professionals, but because police need to protect their status in the community, negativity directed toward police for the way these situations are often handled then further distracts from their core work of public safety.

While some mental health crises would fall into the category of endangering public safety, the vast majority would not.

Because Australia has failed to explicitly ask itself what police should actually do, it has inadvertently tasked them with a large responsibility for one of the most difficult tasks in health care, mental health crisis response. This is increasingly a problem in other countries too.

The truly wicked problem emerges when police are blamed for the job they do when handling these situations, but then nothing it is done to address the root causes of the issue. Police in many countries have called for increased mental health resources to deal with this, and they must be listened to.

If the Australian community wants to see an effective response to the growing issue of mental health, the most important thing isn’t to ‘better train’ police. While this is as an admirable goal in general and may provide some benefits, Australian policymakers need to address the systemic problem beneath police response issues. They need to invest in training many more frontline mental health professionals and increase the capacity and capability of those currently in the health system.

Continuing to approach this problem in the same way into the future will only ever address its symptoms, leaving the disease that causes them untreated.

Of course, reform would not totally remove the police from mental health crisis response – and nor should it, as police are often required to support and protect professionals engaged in this work. Police reform that puts officers firmly in this supporting role, rather than asking them to lead the response to a huge range of complex mental health challenges, will ultimately make Australia a safer and more healthy place.

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