26th Nov 2018, 3:42 PM – Senate Motions - Universal Children's Day - Children in detention

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Labor Senator Anne Urquhart (Tas), which means it succeeded. Motions like these don't make any legal changes on their own but are politically influential because they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) observes that 20 November 2018 is Universal Children's Day, commemorating the UN General Assembly's same-day adoption of the 1958 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child ('Children's Convention');

(b) acknowledges the work of UNICEF Australia and other stakeholders involved in the Australian Child Rights Taskforce's Children's Report and its recommendations;

(c) notes:

(i) that Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continue to experience disadvantage,

(ii) the report and recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory,

(iii) that children in Australia face growing issues of intergenerational inequality,

(iv) that no child under Australia's care should suffer harm, and

(v) that refugee children under Australia's care have been languishing in indefinite detention on Nauru for over five years;

(d) invites the Morrison Government to take steps to improve Australia's adherence to the Children's Convention; and

(e) calls on the Morrison Government to accept New Zealand's resettlement offer and get the children off Nauru.