Category: Articles

CLArion Jan 2025: CLA calls on Labor to commit to HR Act

Civil Liberties Australia is calling on the Leader of the Government, Anthony Albanese, to commit his Labor Party to legislating a Human Rights Act for Australia before the end of 2025. “He must commit to doing so during the imminent election campaign, then follow through on the promise if his party is elected as a majority or minority government,” CLA President Dr Kristine Klugman said. “From his first speech in 1996 to now, he has said he is commitment to social justice: now is the time to deliver the fundamental underpinning of human rights legal protections for all Australians.”

Other highlights this issue include:

  • Beware DV on Australia Day
  • Canada shows lead to Australia on wrongful convictions
  • Beware votes that appear to show support for nuclear 
  • Tasmanians call for their own HR Act in 2025
  • Deaths by hanging bedevil police ‘investigations’
  • Aboriginal people come under increasing threat from ’tough on crime’
  • Wrongful conviction victim awarded $53 million

CLArion December 2024: New bid to ‘overturn’ Bromley in HC

The frustrations with a High Court which got it totally wrong in the Derek Bromley case may be countered by a novel way of securing a ‘different verdict’. Dr Bob Moles explains how fraud might be able to trump criminal law. Elsewhere in this issue, read about the shocking coronial situation exposed in the Senate, judges all over the place…and a federal Human Rights Act campaign about to be refreshed.

CLArion Nov 2024: Laws, kids, judges under scrutiny

Parliament regularly passes laws that infringe Australians’ human rights: here’s a rundown from just one recent report. As we debate whether the Senator or the King transgressed more, experts are saying new conservative governments in the north are ‘taking our kids back to the darker ages’. A judge blames everyone but judges for a low opinion of the legal system, but examples abound of how the quality of the law is much strained, particularly in the south, by judicial shenanigans.

CLArion Oct 2024: Priorities for next government

A Human Rights Act, reform of courts and evidence practices, as well as a wholesale overhaul of how we think about and treat Indigenous Australians, particularly the kids, are the priorities for the 2025 federal government from day 1. These are not party-political issues, but merely benchmarks for an improving and better Australian society for all its people. Civil liberties and rights people – all Australians – should demand no less.

CLArion Sept 2024: Lies and spin take away liberties and rights

This CLArion addresses the types of lies, untruths and spin that end up costing us dearly in liberties and rights, which can cause tragedy as shown in children’s jails in WA and adult jails around the nation. The WA Department of Justice has admitted lying…but how many other departments, agencies and police/prison bodies are doing the same?