Shane Cuthbert supported causes aligned with the United Nations 'Sustainable Development Goals' nationally and internationally. Locally, Shane Cuthbert is supporting initiatives and projects as he personally advocates for the environment, mental health, human rights, justice and equality.

WHAT WE ARE DOING LOCALLY

Shane Cuthbert is currently working with local, State and Federal members of parliament and community leaders in Cairns, working to reduce youth homelessness and youth related crime. This is the first of many local projects here in Australia. We are working with a team of leaders, NGO's, Psychologists, Youth workers and local community based partners on funding proposals.
24 Hour Youth Services
Shane Cuthbert is advocating for a 24-hour youth centre in Cairns. The over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the criminal justice system is at an unacceptable level in Cairns. With remand rates rising and growing community outrage with the youth crime epidemic. This program proposes to operate from 9pm until 9am week nights and 24 hours over the weekend. The program will operate within a functional program space using case management to provide much needed support and address the needs of the child and refer the individual to day time programs. The program will aim to work over the weekends and peak times that criminal activity is noted to spike (12am-2am) with outreach a key component.
This program is designed for disengaged young people who are at risk and needing a safe space throughout the night. The program aims to be a culturally capable, holistic and targeted community program, aiming to keep kids safe during the night and reduce criminal activity. The program is designed to assist and enhance the development of existing case plans with outside stakeholders whilst reducing the number of unsupervised young people out on the streets at night. The services 'aims' provide a framework for holistic and wrap around delivery of services.
It is estimated that presently, 30-40 individuals will frequently use this service and there will be anywehere up to 50 individuals present during any one particular period of time, according to the latest watchouse statistics and relevant market research.
These children are currently falling through the cracks. For some of these children, psychological and physical abuse is inflicted upon them frequently. There is a growing rate of domestic violence in these ares/suburbs where the youth are residing. We believe that children are in desperate need of a safe space and somewhere to go at night to avoid toxic households, abuse, drug misuse, alcohilism and alcohol related crime, sexual abuse and extreme violence.
Services such as police, FACS and other government organisations are unable in many cases to intervene. The cooperation rate with police over domestic violence is in particular low. Children are often fearful and remain silent and do not cooperate with police and FACS.
Because there is simply nowhere for these kids to go at night they resort to wandering the streets where they are committing crims, stealing cars and finding themselves arrested and brought before the courts. Our aim is to reduce youth homelessness and as a result, youth crime.
CAIRNS CRIME FORUM 2020Front Row - Third from right, Mayoral candidate for Cairns Georgia Babatsikos, fourth from right Shane Cuthbert, fifth from right Division 1 member for Cairns Brett Moller, sixth from right Division 9 member for Cairns Brett Olds, Seventh from right former Divison 4 councillor for Cairns John Schilling, eigth from right Division 5 member for Cairns Cathy Zeigler. Photo Courtesy NT News.
LawToks Project
In 2021, Shane Cuthbert was invited as a student of law, to represent the Business and Law Faculty of Central Queensland University, visiting schools and community organisations in Rockhampton, presenting the LawToks project to young people.
Two years ago, the Rockhampton community, Durambul Youth Network and Youth Justice started to conduct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community consultation meetings to create community led discussions about communtiy needs. From that, a few smaller sub-committees were formed. One such sub-committee was established to address the issue of Youth Crime. One of the elders, stated that he had concerns about the discrepancy between what young people knew or believed they knew about dealing with police and what the parents/carers knew.
Central Queensland University was approached and asked to work with community groups on the LawToks project. The LawToks project began creating short, accessible, informative videos around the rights and responsibilities of young people in Rockhampton whilst in custody, attending court or under arrest. Central Queensland University has worked collaboratively on this project since 2020. In September 2021, Dr Linda Lorenza, the head Drama Lecturer at the Central Queensland University Mackay campus, travelled to Rockhampton with the drama student team and Shane Cuthbert, to present draft videos to Rockhampton youth for assessment.
The videos and live presentations of the 'real life' scenes gave the Rockhampton young people great insight into how different actions could create different outcomes, what their rights were and how the Durumbul Youth Network as a service, could provide better support to young people. The team visited the Durumbul Youth Network drop in centre, Rockhampton High School and the Rockhampton Flexi School. The team was able to gain valuable and insightful information regarding the experiences of young people when confronted by police. The young people gave real feedback about what they wanted to see in the videos and how these videos would help them in the future.
YOUTH HOMELESSNESS AND YOUTH CRIMEPhoto Courtesy - Cairns Post
Indigenous Justice Research Project
In 2021, Shane Cuthbert supported an application by the Central Queensland University to the Indigenous Justice Research Project and successfully lobbied local community and state leaders to support the application.
The Indigenous Justice Research Program is a joint initiative by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) and the Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse (IJC). It’s been established to fund academic research relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander criminal justice. It will broadly support Closing the Gap, Priority Reform Four:
• Improve and share access to data and information to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities make informed decisions.
The Program will specifically support the National Agreement’s justice targets:
• By 2031, reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults held in incarceration by at least 15 per cent (Target 10).
• By 2031, reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (10-17 years) in detention by at least 30 per cent (Target 11).
Our research: How can young people in regional Queensland work together to contribute to a reduction in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the criminal justice and related systems?
This research will build upon the pilot Lawtoks project. Durambal Youth Community Network Inc. approached the CQU Law faculty about Indigenous young people in Rockhampton not knowing how to interact with police. The pilot Lawtoks project enabled the creation of short video clips made by CQU drama and law students co-devised with the Indigenous youth of Rockhampton. The videos were shared with young people on mobile devices by the students in the videos after which the students and the young people talked about the videos. The conversation between the students and young people was key to learning about the lived experiences of the young people in Rockhampton. The interaction between peers that occurred by the drama and law students ‘yarning’ talking together, opened up conversation. The young people of Rockhampton gave advice as to what really happened and what they needed to see in the videos. The students revised the videos according to this advice. Initial findings:Being heard: the young people felt validated as others wanted to hear their stories and find ways to communicate;Providing information through an easy access resource to help young people and their families navigate police interaction and the law. Research aims:To listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young peoples’ lived experience and their contact with the criminal justice and related systemsto explore experiences raised and enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to share ideas and offer ‘direction’ to the student actors, without having ‘shame’ in being put in front of their peers,to develop Lawtoks, a collection of short short videos which demonstrate alternative ways of interacting with police (to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in each location through assisting young people and their families in comunicating with police.) The proposed interactive research is to run applied theatre programs in four locations with known rates of youth crime and incarceration of Indigenous Youth in Juvenile Justice: Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Mackay. Central Queensland University invited Darumbal Youth Network Inc. and Youth Justice centres in Mackay, Townsville and Cairns to be partners in this research project proposed for 2022-2023.
Copyright © Shane Cuthbert 2025 In the spirit of reconciliation, Shane Cuthbert acknowledges the traditional owners of the land upon which he stands and their connections to land, sea and community. Shane Cuthbert pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples and thier leaders, past, present and emerging.