"Security" is the new catch-all excuse for massive, over-the-top spending without having to prove value for money, or pass a cost-benefit analysis, says economics guru Saul Eslake. From manufacturing through food to electricity and water, "security" has become the password for avoiding rigorous, independent, arms length scrutiny.

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CLA is concerned at the creeping trend throughout Australia to make more offences subject to "strict liability". That is government lawyer speak: it means that, under these new types of laws, you have to prove you are innocent rather than the government proving you are guilty, which has traditionally been the basis of Australian law. Here, in a letter responding to CLA's criticisms, is how the ACT Chief Minister tries to justify proposed new and badly-written laws over smoking in cars.

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Health Minister Nicola Roxon has lashed out at privacy and civil liberties people, calling them "obsessive" about the risk of private health records of Australians being mislaid, stolen or inadvertently posted online for anyone to access. However, the advocates can point to real-life examples of health record systems gone pear-shaped, including another major stuff-up involving 20,000 patients at a prestigious US hospital revealed this week.

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A withering Ombudsman's report tabled in the NT Parliament is scathing about the recent failures of the Child Protection Agency and its master department to protect the Territory's vulnerable children. The report calls into question whether the NT public service is capable of managing its own child safeguards, or of competently delivering federal intervention programs. On the evidence of the report, the human rights of little children are much less than sacred in one-eighth of Australia.

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'Twenty years on, not enough has changed,' says Eddie Cubillo,delivering the Elliott Johnston tribute lecture for 2011 in Adelaide. An Aboriginal man and the NT Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Cubillo describes the impact on his son as they return to a home that a disrespectful Federal Government has formally signposted as booze-ridden and porn-rampant.

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Smoking today, alcohol tomorrow, food the day after? That's the anti-free will road we're heading down, says a smoker who tells his local MP that the only thing consistent about the government policy on cigarettes is its hypocrisy.

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The planned new personal health identifier – one number supposedly to identify you for all health purposes – is a disaster waiting to happen, the Australian Privacy Foundation indicates in a submission. APF, with CLA help, identified that the system makes extra work for doctors, is missing a proper governance framework, bends or breaks the reasons Parliament passed new law, and ignores vital safeguards around DNA sampling and storage.
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