• Australian Governments should review existing systems of monitoring and inspection of youth justice facilities for compliance with OPCAT and amend their legislative frameworks accordingly. • The Australian Government should establish a children’s sub-group of the National Preventive Mechanism in Australia to ensure those with expertise and experience of working with children can provide specialist advice, information and recommendations. • Australian Governments should better implement the principle of detention as a last resort by identifying and removing barriers for young offenders accessing diversionary programs, in particular for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. • Australian Governments should expand the availability and range of diversionary programs for young offenders, including community-controlled and culturally-safe programs. • Australian Governments should review bail laws for their impact on the number of children on remand in detention and ensure non-custodial options. • Australian Governments should abolish mandatory minimum sentencing laws that apply to children. • Australian Governments should raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years. • Australian Governments should ensure that laws that allow for children to be detained following a finding of unfitness to stand trial, or a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental impairment: o impose effective limits on the total period of detention o require regular reviews of the need for detention o require a plan to be put in place, including actions to be taken for the child’s rehabilitation to facilitate their transition into progressively less restrictive environments, and eventually out of detention. • The Australian Government should: 36