Tamara Walsh
Biographic Data
| ID | 4076420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tamara Walsh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tamara |
| FAMILY NAME | Walsh |
| SIGNATURE | WALSH T |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Queensland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4119-3550 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The first three years of Queensland’s Human Rights Act: How was it used in legal proceedings
Back Off! Stop Making US Illegal: The Criminalisation of Homelessness in Australia
In Australia, vagrancy and public order laws have been used to criminalise homelessness since colonisation. Such laws have never provided an effective deterrent against ‘offending’ because most crimes committed by homeless people are survival-related or otherwise associated with their homeless status. It is generally agreed that a welfare-oriented rather than a punitive approach is needed if these ‘crimes’ are to be prevented, however the perspec…
Twenty Years of Human Rights Protection in the Australian Capital Territory: What Have We Learned
In 2004, the Australian Capital Territory (‘ACT’) became the first Australian jurisdiction to enact human rights legislation. Victoria and Queensland have followed since, and the Australian Human Rights Commission recently renewed the call for federal human rights protection. Legislative developments in one jurisdiction can lead to reforms in others. As such, there is much we can learn from the ACT’s experience. This article investigates the impa…
Hyper-policing the Homeless: Lived Experience and the Perils of Benevolent and Malevolent Policing
Drawing on interviews with 164 people experiencing homelessness across Australia, this article discusses the concept of hyper-policing to account for excessive police interventions. Hyper-policing is exhibited in the sheer numbers of police apprehensions of people experiencing homelessness (quantitative aspect) and the extreme use of force (qualitative aspect). By deploying Wacquant’s (Daedalus 139(3):74–90, 2010) notion of hyper-incarceration in…
Supporting birth parents’ relationships with children following removal: A scoping review
Birth parents of looked after children can provide emotional and practical supports for their children. Yet, beyond attempts at reunification, support for birth parents to build and maintain relationships with their children are rare. In this paper, we present a scoping review of programs aimed at developing and supporting birth parents’ relationships with their children in circumstances other than for the purpose of reunification. The review ana…
Coroners' perspectives on deaths in custody in Australia
Are human rights ‘toothless’ in Australian child protection matters? Perspectives of lawyers and social workers
Human rights law is in its infancy in Australia. Some states and territories have human rights legislation that requires government officials to take human rights into account in decision-making. However, there is very little Australian case law or commentary regarding the application of human rights law to child protection matters. In this article, we discuss the potential for human rights law to influence decision-making in child protection. We…
Looked after children's right to contact with birth parents: An Australian study
In Australia, there are more than 46 000 children in out‐of‐home care (OOHC). Most of these children have been in OOHC for more than 2 years. Similarly, there are more than 407 000 children in the United States and over 80 800 in England who are ‘looked after’ with approximately one third of these children being in OOHC for more than 2 years. This paper concerns ‘looked after’ children's rights to contact with their birth parents. The United Nati…
Youth Justice, Community Safety and Children’s Rights in Australia
Australian children have few legal rights and in the context of youth justice, community safety tends to be prioritised over the best interests and wellbeing of children. “Tough on crime” approaches to youth justice law and policy have been influenced by penal populism, whilst the voices of practitioners who work with young people who commit offences remain largely ignored. We interviewed 92 practitioners who work in criminal law settings in a lo…
Adolescent Family and Dating Violence and the Criminal Law Response
The criminal law response to adolescent family and dating violence is understudied in Australia. The aim of the present study was to examine the charges and sentences adolescents face when they perpetrate acts of violence against family members or intimate partners, and to better understand the personal circumstances of these adolescents, including whether they have been diagnosed with a mental illness, whether they have a criminal history and wh…
Social Housing, Homelessness and Human Rights
Social housing is reserved for the most vulnerable tenants, yet social housing tenants are subject to the same residential tenancy laws as private tenants and may even be held to a higher standard of behaviour. As a result, social housing tenants are at high risk of eviction. This article reports on the results of a mixed methods study on eviction proceedings involving social housing tenants. The study involved textual analysis of 98 published ju…
Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia
Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare condition…
The moral hazard of conditionality: Restoring the integrity of social security law
This article examines the extent to which the Australian and UK social security systems meet their legal obligations to provide basic relief to citizens in need. Conditionality and “mutual obligation” are at the core of both the UK and Australian social security systems and are based on the concept of moral hazard, the goal being to ensure that claimants do not consider living on benefits to be preferable to engaging in paid work. Yet, we argue t…
Deaths in custody in Australia: A quantitative analysis of coroners’ reports
This paper reports on a large-scale documentary analysis of all publicly available coroners’ reports on deaths in custody released between 1991 and 2016. The research was undertaken to mark 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. We collected quantitative data from 505 reports including characteristics of deceased persons, causes of death, type of custody and the state or territory in which they died. We found that …
Queensland’s new right to education: What does it mean for children with disabilities
Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019 includes a right to education. Schools will be required to consider the human rights of children when making decisions about enrolments and educational adjustments. This article investigates how the right to education might operate in Queensland state schools, and discusses the potential of this new provision to bring positive change for children with disabilities
Public nuisance, race and gender
It is well established that Indigenous people are significantly over-represented amongst those charged for using offensive language, often because they have directed an (offensive) accusation of racism at a police officer. In this paper, statistical information and reported appeal decisions concerning Indigenous people who have been charged with public nuisance in Queensland are examined and analysed. The statistics presented in this paper indica…
Public Order’ Policing and the Value of Independent Legal Observers
This article examines the nature and effectiveness of the legal observer model developed for, and implemented at, the Brisbane G20 in 2014. ‘Independent’ legal observers (‘ILOs’), who were all admitted lawyers, recorded interactions between police and members of the public, with a view to encouraging peaceful relations in public spaces during the event. Few arrests were made, and police were praised for their restraint. The relationship between t…
Juvenile Economic Sanctions: A Logical Alternative
Continuing the Stolen Generations: Child Protection Interventions and Indigenous People
Indigenous Australian children are significantly over-represented in out of home care. Figures evidencing this over-representation continue to increase at a startling rate. Similar experiences have been identified among native peoples in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with lawyers who work with Indigenous parents in child protection matters in Queensland, Australia, this article examines how historical factors, d…
Lawyers and Social Workers Working Together: Ethic of Care and Feminist Legal Practice in Community Law
In Australia, experimentation with, and literature on, interdisciplinary teams comprising lawyers and social workers has remained limited. This is despite the fact that many legal organisations employ social workers to support their practice. In many community legal settings, social workers work alongside lawyers in the delivery of socio-legal services. This article explores the nature and effectiveness of working relationships between lawyers an…
Children with special needs and the right to education
In Australia, the vast majority of children with special needs are educated in mainstream schools and mainstream classrooms. The Education Acts in the states and territories outline the kinds of services that can be made available to children with special needs in schools, but they stop short of providing a right to accessible or appropriate education for children. This is in direct contrast to the situation in the United States and the United Ki…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection: Toward Collaboration and Engagement
We appreciate the opportunity to consider the responses from the four commentators to our discussion in the main article in this symposium. The workers we interviewed for the main article identified a disconnect between the domestic violence and child protections fields, and similarly the commentators, from four diverse professional backgrounds and from different jurisdictions and using different languages and metaphors, also accepted this was th…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection
This article explores the relationship between understandings of domestic violence and the child protection response drawing on material gathered in focus groups with workers who support mothers dealing with both domestic violence and child protection issues. The interviewees expressed concern that the dynamics of domestic violence are often misunderstood and inappropriately responded to by child protection workers. This article critically examin…
Mothers and the Child Protection System
Child protection intervention has increased dramatically in Australia and elsewhere over recent years. The increased intervention has left many parents, especially mothers, feeling bewildered, confused, and distrustful of the legal system. There has been limited research conducted about the experience of mothers involved in legal processes associated with child protection intervention. Drawing on information gathered from focus group discussions …
Legal responses to child protection, poverty and homelessness: Research Article
Removal of children from the care of their parents is one of the most fundamental forms of intrusion the state may have in the lives of families. Those experiencing poverty are disproportionately targeted for intervention by child protection departments. This article reports on the results of two research studies that provide empirical evidence regarding the relationship between child protection and poverty. The links between child protection and…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection
This article explores the relationship between understandings of domestic violence and the child protection response drawing on material gathered in focus groups with workers who support mothers dealing with both domestic violence and child protection issues. The interviewees expressed concern that the dynamics of domestic violence are often misunderstood and inappropriately responded to by child protection workers. This article critically examin…
Mothers and the Child Protection System
Child protection intervention has increased dramatically in Australia and elsewhere over recent years. The increased intervention has left many parents, especially mothers, feeling bewildered, confused, and distrustful of the legal system. There has been limited research conducted about the experience of mothers involved in legal processes associated with child protection intervention. Drawing on information gathered from focus group discussions …
Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia
Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare condition…
Down and out? Homelessness and citizenship
It is widely recognised that homeless people are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of Australian society. But further to this, those who are homeless are excluded from participation in a wide variety of socio-political activities that other citizens take for granted. A survey of homeless people conducted in Brisbane in 2003 has confirmed that many homeless people do not identify as Australian citizens, and many believe that they…
Continuing the Stolen Generations: Child Protection Interventions and Indigenous People
Indigenous Australian children are significantly over-represented in out of home care. Figures evidencing this over-representation continue to increase at a startling rate. Similar experiences have been identified among native peoples in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with lawyers who work with Indigenous parents in child protection matters in Queensland, Australia, this article examines how historical factors, d…
Legal responses to child protection, poverty and homelessness: Research Article
Removal of children from the care of their parents is one of the most fundamental forms of intrusion the state may have in the lives of families. Those experiencing poverty are disproportionately targeted for intervention by child protection departments. This article reports on the results of two research studies that provide empirical evidence regarding the relationship between child protection and poverty. The links between child protection and…
Looked after children's right to contact with birth parents: An Australian study
In Australia, there are more than 46 000 children in out‐of‐home care (OOHC). Most of these children have been in OOHC for more than 2 years. Similarly, there are more than 407 000 children in the United States and over 80 800 in England who are ‘looked after’ with approximately one third of these children being in OOHC for more than 2 years. This paper concerns ‘looked after’ children's rights to contact with their birth parents. The United Nati…
The moral hazard of conditionality: Restoring the integrity of social security law
This article examines the extent to which the Australian and UK social security systems meet their legal obligations to provide basic relief to citizens in need. Conditionality and “mutual obligation” are at the core of both the UK and Australian social security systems and are based on the concept of moral hazard, the goal being to ensure that claimants do not consider living on benefits to be preferable to engaging in paid work. Yet, we argue t…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection: Toward Collaboration and Engagement
We appreciate the opportunity to consider the responses from the four commentators to our discussion in the main article in this symposium. The workers we interviewed for the main article identified a disconnect between the domestic violence and child protections fields, and similarly the commentators, from four diverse professional backgrounds and from different jurisdictions and using different languages and metaphors, also accepted this was th…
A right to inclusion? Homelessness, human rights and social exclusion
IV ResumenEn este trabajo se explica la problemática de la atención integral dirigida a la población habitante de calle (PHC) en la localidad de Los Mártires de la ciudad de Bogotá, en el marco del establecimiento tanto de directrices normativas, así como de la implementación de instrumentos de gestión económica y territorial durante el periodo 2004-2019.Se encuentra integrado por cuatro apartados: Primero, una definición sobre el habitante de la…
Who is the ‘Public’ in ‘Public Space’: A Queensland Perspective on Poverty, Homelessness and Vagrancy
Homeless people and their service providers agree that public spaces must be regulated to ensure that members of the public are able to enjoy them without interference - however, existing laws which aim to regulate public spaces often criminalise behaviour conducted in public spaces which would be lawful if performed in private space - summary offences law reform is overdue in Queensland and other states with similar laws
Back Off! Stop Making US Illegal: The Criminalisation of Homelessness in Australia
In Australia, vagrancy and public order laws have been used to criminalise homelessness since colonisation. Such laws have never provided an effective deterrent against ‘offending’ because most crimes committed by homeless people are survival-related or otherwise associated with their homeless status. It is generally agreed that a welfare-oriented rather than a punitive approach is needed if these ‘crimes’ are to be prevented, however the perspec…
Youth Justice, Community Safety and Children’s Rights in Australia
Australian children have few legal rights and in the context of youth justice, community safety tends to be prioritised over the best interests and wellbeing of children. “Tough on crime” approaches to youth justice law and policy have been influenced by penal populism, whilst the voices of practitioners who work with young people who commit offences remain largely ignored. We interviewed 92 practitioners who work in criminal law settings in a lo…
Social Housing, Homelessness and Human Rights
Social housing is reserved for the most vulnerable tenants, yet social housing tenants are subject to the same residential tenancy laws as private tenants and may even be held to a higher standard of behaviour. As a result, social housing tenants are at high risk of eviction. This article reports on the results of a mixed methods study on eviction proceedings involving social housing tenants. The study involved textual analysis of 98 published ju…
Queensland’s new right to education: What does it mean for children with disabilities
Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019 includes a right to education. Schools will be required to consider the human rights of children when making decisions about enrolments and educational adjustments. This article investigates how the right to education might operate in Queensland state schools, and discusses the potential of this new provision to bring positive change for children with disabilities
Juvenile Economic Sanctions: A Logical Alternative
Policing Disadvantage: Giving Voice to Those Affected by the Politics of Law and Order
Breaching the Right to Social Security
Under Australia's current social security breach penalty regime, harsh monetary penalties are imposed on income support recipients who commit (often very minor) breaches of their mutual obligation requirements. The current regime offends a number of provisions of international human rights law, including the rights to social security, an adequate standard of living, free choice of employment and rest and leisure. In addition, the regime contraven…
Down and out? Homelessness and citizenship
It is widely recognised that homeless people are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of Australian society. But further to this, those who are homeless are excluded from participation in a wide variety of socio-political activities that other citizens take for granted. A survey of homeless people conducted in Brisbane in 2003 has confirmed that many homeless people do not identify as Australian citizens, and many believe that they…
Who is the ‘Public’ in ‘Public Space’: A Queensland Perspective on Poverty, Homelessness and Vagrancy
Homeless people and their service providers agree that public spaces must be regulated to ensure that members of the public are able to enjoy them without interference - however, existing laws which aim to regulate public spaces often criminalise behaviour conducted in public spaces which would be lawful if performed in private space - summary offences law reform is overdue in Queensland and other states with similar laws
Won't Pay or Can't Pay? Exploring the Use of Fines as a Sentencing Alternative for Public Nuisance Type Offences in Queensland
The complex relationship between marginalized people, 'public nuisance type offences' and fines law is explored. Court observation research conducted in Brisbane is reported which suggests that indigent people are more likely than others to appear before the court on charges related to public space offences, and that they are just as likely as others to receive a fine in response to their offending behaviour despite the legislative provisions aim…
It's Not Academic
A right to inclusion? Homelessness, human rights and social exclusion
IV ResumenEn este trabajo se explica la problemática de la atención integral dirigida a la población habitante de calle (PHC) en la localidad de Los Mártires de la ciudad de Bogotá, en el marco del establecimiento tanto de directrices normativas, así como de la implementación de instrumentos de gestión económica y territorial durante el periodo 2004-2019.Se encuentra integrado por cuatro apartados: Primero, una definición sobre el habitante de la…
Poverty in Australia: Poverty and the Criminal Justice System
A Case of Misrepresentation: Social Security Fraud and the Criminal Justice System in Australia
In this article we examine the extent of social security fraud in Australia and the sentencing outcomes for a sample of social security recipients prosecuted in two magistrates’ courts in Queensland. What the empirical study illustrates is that the characteristics of those prosecuted for social security fraud challenge the media driven stereotype of the organised criminal willingly defrauding the government for large sums of money. In terms of se…
Policing Disadvantage: Giving Voice to Those Affected by the Politics of Law and Order
Mothers and the Child Protection System
Child protection intervention has increased dramatically in Australia and elsewhere over recent years. The increased intervention has left many parents, especially mothers, feeling bewildered, confused, and distrustful of the legal system. There has been limited research conducted about the experience of mothers involved in legal processes associated with child protection intervention. Drawing on information gathered from focus group discussions …
Legal responses to child protection, poverty and homelessness: Research Article
Removal of children from the care of their parents is one of the most fundamental forms of intrusion the state may have in the lives of families. Those experiencing poverty are disproportionately targeted for intervention by child protection departments. This article reports on the results of two research studies that provide empirical evidence regarding the relationship between child protection and poverty. The links between child protection and…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection: Toward Collaboration and Engagement
We appreciate the opportunity to consider the responses from the four commentators to our discussion in the main article in this symposium. The workers we interviewed for the main article identified a disconnect between the domestic violence and child protections fields, and similarly the commentators, from four diverse professional backgrounds and from different jurisdictions and using different languages and metaphors, also accepted this was th…
Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection
This article explores the relationship between understandings of domestic violence and the child protection response drawing on material gathered in focus groups with workers who support mothers dealing with both domestic violence and child protection issues. The interviewees expressed concern that the dynamics of domestic violence are often misunderstood and inappropriately responded to by child protection workers. This article critically examin…
Lawyers and Social Workers Working Together: Ethic of Care and Feminist Legal Practice in Community Law
In Australia, experimentation with, and literature on, interdisciplinary teams comprising lawyers and social workers has remained limited. This is despite the fact that many legal organisations employ social workers to support their practice. In many community legal settings, social workers work alongside lawyers in the delivery of socio-legal services. This article explores the nature and effectiveness of working relationships between lawyers an…
Children with special needs and the right to education
In Australia, the vast majority of children with special needs are educated in mainstream schools and mainstream classrooms. The Education Acts in the states and territories outline the kinds of services that can be made available to children with special needs in schools, but they stop short of providing a right to accessible or appropriate education for children. This is in direct contrast to the situation in the United States and the United Ki…
Continuing the Stolen Generations: Child Protection Interventions and Indigenous People
Indigenous Australian children are significantly over-represented in out of home care. Figures evidencing this over-representation continue to increase at a startling rate. Similar experiences have been identified among native peoples in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with lawyers who work with Indigenous parents in child protection matters in Queensland, Australia, this article examines how historical factors, d…
Juvenile Economic Sanctions: A Logical Alternative
Public Order’ Policing and the Value of Independent Legal Observers
This article examines the nature and effectiveness of the legal observer model developed for, and implemented at, the Brisbane G20 in 2014. ‘Independent’ legal observers (‘ILOs’), who were all admitted lawyers, recorded interactions between police and members of the public, with a view to encouraging peaceful relations in public spaces during the event. Few arrests were made, and police were praised for their restraint. The relationship between t…
Public nuisance, race and gender
It is well established that Indigenous people are significantly over-represented amongst those charged for using offensive language, often because they have directed an (offensive) accusation of racism at a police officer. In this paper, statistical information and reported appeal decisions concerning Indigenous people who have been charged with public nuisance in Queensland are examined and analysed. The statistics presented in this paper indica…
Deaths in custody in Australia: A quantitative analysis of coroners’ reports
This paper reports on a large-scale documentary analysis of all publicly available coroners’ reports on deaths in custody released between 1991 and 2016. The research was undertaken to mark 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. We collected quantitative data from 505 reports including characteristics of deceased persons, causes of death, type of custody and the state or territory in which they died. We found that …
Queensland’s new right to education: What does it mean for children with disabilities
Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019 includes a right to education. Schools will be required to consider the human rights of children when making decisions about enrolments and educational adjustments. This article investigates how the right to education might operate in Queensland state schools, and discusses the potential of this new provision to bring positive change for children with disabilities
Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia
Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare condition…
The moral hazard of conditionality: Restoring the integrity of social security law
This article examines the extent to which the Australian and UK social security systems meet their legal obligations to provide basic relief to citizens in need. Conditionality and “mutual obligation” are at the core of both the UK and Australian social security systems and are based on the concept of moral hazard, the goal being to ensure that claimants do not consider living on benefits to be preferable to engaging in paid work. Yet, we argue t…
Coroners' perspectives on deaths in custody in Australia
Are human rights ‘toothless’ in Australian child protection matters? Perspectives of lawyers and social workers
Human rights law is in its infancy in Australia. Some states and territories have human rights legislation that requires government officials to take human rights into account in decision-making. However, there is very little Australian case law or commentary regarding the application of human rights law to child protection matters. In this article, we discuss the potential for human rights law to influence decision-making in child protection. We…
Political science (31 works) · Law (27 works) · Law (27 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Criminology (15 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (10 works) · Medicine (8 works) · Business (7 works)