Tony Armstrong has taken square aim at the discriminatory nature of Australia’s criminal age of responsibility during the debut of his new ABC special, Always Was Tonight.
The one-off episode, which aired on last night, was a “satirical news show like all the ones you know and love, except a bit Blaker”, according to Armstrong.
While most of the show was light-hearted in nature (the inclusion of a cooking segment called Captain Cooks was genius), the closing moments took a more serious tone, parodying the iconic song “I Still Call Australia Home” to raise awareness around the criminal age of responsibility.
“In almost all of Australia, the criminal age of responsibility is just 10 years old,” Armstrong said.
“This is a crackdown on Blak kids, who are 21 times more likely to be imprisoned than other kids. Our government thinks these kids are too young and vulnerable to use a TikTok account, but we’re comfortable shoving them in prison.”
The segment featured young First Nations kids singing outside prisons rather than Australian landmarks.
“I’m only 10 and so far from grown, I shouldn’t call this place home,” the kids sang in between clips of them behind bars.
One of the kids was wearing a spit hoods, a reference to the Northern Territory’s decision last year to reinstate the practice in youth detention centres.
“They’re taking the kids like they took them before … No one should call this place home,” the choir sang.
The end of the song featured a reminder of the United Nations’ repeated calls for Australia to raise its criminal age of responsibility from 10 to at least 14 — an effort that’s been supported by advocacy groups like UNICEF Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre.
“[The song] speaks for itself. The age is too low and we need to keep working to raise it. [I’m] very proud of the show and all the writers, and hopefully the audience liked it,” Armstrong told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
Armstrong has been vocal about the issue of incarceration rates before, saying in 2021 that the SBS documentary Incarceration Nation — which examined the justice system’s treatment of Indigenous Australians — was “really hard to watch and reconcile with”.
“You’re not seeing white kids getting jailed for stealing a bottle of water,” Armstrong said.
Elsewhere in the special, Armstrong tapped an array of stars including TikToker Tilly Oddly-Black, actor Bjorn Stewart and The Bachelorette alum Brooke Blurton.
You can watch Always Was Tonight on ABC iview.
Lead images: ABC and Instagram
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