Children & Young People

Children and young people need to be supported to grow into the future adults they want to be. We need to better support children and young people to grow up healthy, safe and strong as they become the next generation of Territorians.

 

Principles

The NT Greens believe:

  1. All children and young people have potential to live happy, productive, sustainable lives if they are supported to do so.
  2. All children and young people have a right to participate in decision-making on issues that affect them now and in the future, such as climate change and service provision.
  3. All children and young people have a right to grow up healthy, safe and strong and surrounded by their own family, culture and community.
  4. Children and young people, their families and communities know what they need for young people to grow up healthy, safe and strong and should be consulted and listened to on matters impacting them and their families.
  5. All children, wherever they live in the NT should have access to good nutrition, health care, safe and secure housing, free education and a violence free life to enable them to have the best possible future.
  6. Alternatives to incarceration enable young people and their families to be fully supported to ensure those young people do not offend into the future. 
  7. All children and young people should grow up free of bullying, racism, discrimination and xenophobia of all kinds.

 

Aims

The NT Greens want:

  1. Children and young people to have a greater voice in all law-making, policy development and decision-making that affects them now and in the future (see the NT Greens’ Democracy policy).
  2. Children and young people to be treated in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other relevant international human rights laws.
  3. All children, young people and their families to have access to safe and secure housing, education, health care, and other services (eg, disability and family and domestic violence supports) no matter where they live in the Territory (see NT Greens’ Housing and Homelessness and Health policies).
  4. First Nations communities to determine how best to support First Nations children and young people to grow up healthy, safe and strong.
  5. To urgently reduce the number of children and young people, especially First Nations children and young people, impacted by the justice system  (see the NT Greens’ Justice policy).
  6. To urgently reduce the number of children and young people, especially First Nations children and young people, being removed from their families by the child protection system.
  7. To adequately fund community-led programs that support families to care for their young people and help them to flourish. 
  8. Adopt alternatives to incarceration when young people break the law, to ensure they face consequences that are appropriate to their age, culture and stage of development, and are supported to have better outcomes by addressing the drivers of offending (including housing, education and poverty).