A new report has claimed disadvantaged and First Nations children in New South Wales were targeted by police during the COVID-19 pandemic, with fines up to $5000 being issued, pushing families into financial hardship.
Commissioned by the Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited (ALS), Children and Covid-19 Fines in NSW paints a troubling picture of the over-policing of disadvantaged communities during the pandemic which was "unsuitable for achieving positive public health outcomes for children".
The report observes fines were disproportionately issued to marginalised groups throughout the state, including to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, children with cognitive disabilities, and children experiencing socio-economic challenges such as homelessness, or unsafe home environments.
Between March 2020, and September 2022, 3,628 children in NSW received a penalty notice for a breach of a public health order. More than half of those were fixed at $1,000 and some were as high as $5,000.
In comparison, the maximum fine a child can receive in the NSW Children's Court is $1100 and besides two exceptions, children were liable to the same penalty fine as adults.
Furthermore, it observed public health orders were amended every 1.5 days on average during the Delta Wave.
"The frequent changes made it especially hard for children to understand the rules," the report said.
"I'm of the view…police got the law wrong, and many fines were issued unlawfully," one interviewee told the authors of the report. "And therefore, you have kids working off COVID fines who probably shouldn't have been issued with one in the first place."
Chair of the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) NSW/ACT, Karly Warner, said Aboriginal communities set the "gold standard" for caring for each other during the pandemic.
"Yet our children paid a higher price because of the Government's punitive approach to enforcing public health orders," Ms Warner said.
"Fines are an extension of the way Aboriginal children are criminalised and punished in NSW. It's time to reform the archaic and unjust fines system."
Read more at the National Indigenous Times.
