Free our Fathers
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Western Australia is the mother of all jailers, incarcerating its First Nations people at the world's highest jailing rate.
One in 12 of Western Australia's Aboriginal males are presently incarcerated - world's highest such rate.
Western Australia is the nation's backwater when it comes to rudimentary and universal human rights. Western Australia still jails the poor for unpaid fines. Western Australia still heaps hardship on the poorest.
Debbie Kilroy, CEO of the charity Sisters Inside has been bringing attention to the issues with the Free The People campaign in paying the unfair fines of First Nations mothers and preventing their incarceration.
Gerry Georgatos, suicide prevention researcher and coordinator of the National Trauma Recovery Project, has spent years securing the release of individuals jailed in Western Australia for unpaid fines - in early January Gerry highlighted the jailing on unpaid fines of Reuben, a theatre dancer and performer - a young person who had never before been to jail. In early February, Gerry paid the fines of a 27 year old First Nations father of three young children (with a fourth on the way) after he was jailed for the first time in his life because he could not afford to pay the fines.
Western Australia's response to poverty and homelessness continues to include imprisonment and explains why Western Australia has the world's highest racialized jailing rate of its Aboriginal peoples and why its prisons are overcrowded.
Western Australia is slow in its promises to change the laws to prevent the jailing of people who have no capacity to pay a fine.
Mervyn Eades, CEO of the charity Ngalla Maya is following the lead of Debbie Kilroy and Sisters Inside with FreeThePeople and will raise funds to pay the unfair fines of First Nations fathers, and thereafter others in unfair hardship and release those incarcerated and prevent the poor from being incarcerated and criminalised.
Ngalla Maya is backing the call by Gerry Georgatos to the West Australian Government for fines to be fair, equitable, to be income appropriate, for Western Australia "to go from the nation's backwater to the nation's champion" on relieving unfair hardship on the poor and end injustices. Gerry's call for income appropriate fines is backed by WA Aboriginal Legal Services CEO Dennis Eggington, ""Fines do not have any correlation to someone's income. If you get $420 on Centrelink and then face a $1,000 fine you are in real trouble and you are not going to be able to pay the fine."
We must do everything we can to relieve hardship and unfairness to our brothers and sisters living in absolute poverty and who cannot afford food and shelter for their children let alone pay a fine. Many, right from the beginning, do not have the financial capacity to pay a fine. The inability to pay fine(s) is then brutally compounded with unbelievable financial penalty after another and another. So let us send a message to the West Australian Government to prioritise true justice and equality and end draconian laws, remedy the Fines Enforcement Act and make fines income appropriate.
If you can financially assist this movement it would be greatly appreciated.
After donating please contact the Attorney General Honourable John Quigley on his email [email redacted].gov.au and demand that these discriminatory laws be repealed as a matter of urgency, to withdraw the thousands of warrants for impoverished people with outstanding unaffordable fines.
This campaign has been set up by Mervyn Eades, CEO of Ngalla Maya. There is no justice without justice for everyone.
One in 12 of Western Australia's Aboriginal males are presently incarcerated - world's highest such rate.
Western Australia is the nation's backwater when it comes to rudimentary and universal human rights. Western Australia still jails the poor for unpaid fines. Western Australia still heaps hardship on the poorest.
Debbie Kilroy, CEO of the charity Sisters Inside has been bringing attention to the issues with the Free The People campaign in paying the unfair fines of First Nations mothers and preventing their incarceration.
Gerry Georgatos, suicide prevention researcher and coordinator of the National Trauma Recovery Project, has spent years securing the release of individuals jailed in Western Australia for unpaid fines - in early January Gerry highlighted the jailing on unpaid fines of Reuben, a theatre dancer and performer - a young person who had never before been to jail. In early February, Gerry paid the fines of a 27 year old First Nations father of three young children (with a fourth on the way) after he was jailed for the first time in his life because he could not afford to pay the fines.
Western Australia's response to poverty and homelessness continues to include imprisonment and explains why Western Australia has the world's highest racialized jailing rate of its Aboriginal peoples and why its prisons are overcrowded.
Western Australia is slow in its promises to change the laws to prevent the jailing of people who have no capacity to pay a fine.
Mervyn Eades, CEO of the charity Ngalla Maya is following the lead of Debbie Kilroy and Sisters Inside with FreeThePeople and will raise funds to pay the unfair fines of First Nations fathers, and thereafter others in unfair hardship and release those incarcerated and prevent the poor from being incarcerated and criminalised.
Ngalla Maya is backing the call by Gerry Georgatos to the West Australian Government for fines to be fair, equitable, to be income appropriate, for Western Australia "to go from the nation's backwater to the nation's champion" on relieving unfair hardship on the poor and end injustices. Gerry's call for income appropriate fines is backed by WA Aboriginal Legal Services CEO Dennis Eggington, ""Fines do not have any correlation to someone's income. If you get $420 on Centrelink and then face a $1,000 fine you are in real trouble and you are not going to be able to pay the fine."
We must do everything we can to relieve hardship and unfairness to our brothers and sisters living in absolute poverty and who cannot afford food and shelter for their children let alone pay a fine. Many, right from the beginning, do not have the financial capacity to pay a fine. The inability to pay fine(s) is then brutally compounded with unbelievable financial penalty after another and another. So let us send a message to the West Australian Government to prioritise true justice and equality and end draconian laws, remedy the Fines Enforcement Act and make fines income appropriate.
If you can financially assist this movement it would be greatly appreciated.
After donating please contact the Attorney General Honourable John Quigley on his email [email redacted].gov.au and demand that these discriminatory laws be repealed as a matter of urgency, to withdraw the thousands of warrants for impoverished people with outstanding unaffordable fines.
This campaign has been set up by Mervyn Eades, CEO of Ngalla Maya. There is no justice without justice for everyone.
Organizer
Mervyn Eades
Organizer
