Parl committee wants human rights front and centre       

         
In what would be a revolutionary development, a parliamentary committee wants all Appropriation Bills – the legislation allowing the government, its departments and agencies to spend money – to be compatible with human rights, and to say so up front. The Human Rights Committee argues that government spending impacts either positively or negatively on Australians’ human rights, so people should be told up front what the ramifications will be. CLA welcomes the initiative, which should spread through all levels of government.
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Call for WA govt to rein in integrity-lacking police 

The untrustworthy WA Police have done it again, ignored clear ‘community rules’ and played smart-alecs to abuse data privacy and potentially blow up trust in the system of Covid-19 venue tracing to save lives and prevent pandemic spread. It’s time the government realised WAPOL must be reined in, and that Police-Investigating-Police (PIP) must stop
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Police infiltrate iPhone privacy

Once again, for the umpteenth time during the Covid-19 pandemic, police appeal to have gone overboard the moment a new restrictions regime is implemented. They seem to be pre-ordained to use excessive intrusion and invasion of privacy in the first instance, before public complaints eventually force them to take a more reasonable and balanced approach. Why is there always a problem? Is it bad leadership, or bad training…or both?
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Federal govt to silence protest by charity crackdown

The federal grovernment is trying to stop protest against activities like fracking, geneically-modified crops and animal cruelty (among others) by a third-party, ’thought police’ approach to making charities responsible for activitie about which they are unaware and over people aover whom they have no control. Welcome to the world of political ideology gone rampant, as Paul Gregoire reports.
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Afghanistan: Australia cuts and runs – what about those left behind?

We must do much more for the Afghani people who worked with and helped Australia during our long deployment there, says Dr Tony Murney, who served several tours. Abandoning those who helped us would further destroy our international reputation, he says. Prime Minister Scott Morrison cannot simply walk away, leaving real people who provided real services to Australians during times of great stress and danger. Australians were once admired for courage and dependability…no longer. We should take responsibility for the consequences we have created.

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CLArion June 2021: Wrong priorities mean rights fight is harder

Governments’ abnormal priorities founded on warped ideologies and broken promises are skewing important decisions around liberties and rights issues. Citizens are having to fight for basic health and disabilities spending, and charities are under active national assault. However security services and matters military are being showered with excessive funds, while crime dogs get $0.5m each. With the pandemic sure to impose continuing stresses on daily living for another year or more, the nation is in the run-up to an important federal election, maybe just a few months away, in which it is hoped public values, personal morality and political philosophy may pay a greater role than personalities.

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Police Investigating Police (PIP) must end everywhere

Domestic violence cases where police are the perpetrators, or where they ignore women’s pleas for help, are highlighting how the system of police-investigating-police (PIP) means officers can get off scot-free in cases where their actions should be brought to public account. Even the Queensland Parliament is complaining that the PIP system doesn’t work, and must change.

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CLArion May 2021: Interstate squabbling means children suffer

Squabbling and politicking over ‘law and order’ elections is preventing states and the Northern Territory agreeing to set 14 as the Age of Criminal Responsibility for children, proving that federation is a waste of time, money and resources if we want a national approach to justice in the 120-year-old entity that is Australia. Meanwhile federally ministers are wasting billions of dollars locking up refugees and children on offshore islands, just so the government can maintain an anachronistic political ideology, and taking to court patriotic Australians whose only sin was to reveal alleged murders and grossly improper behaviour by public servants.

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Reining in the ’national security’ secrecy claims in courts

Not very long ago, a secret prisoner was discovered quite by chance in the ACT jail (even the ACT Prisons/Justice Minister did not know he was there). The prisoner, given the pseudonym ‘Alan Johns’, was a victim of being tried in secret under “national security” legislation. The laws that enable that abuse of his rights, and the rights of all Australians to know what happens in the courts, is now under detailed scrutiny by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Grant Donaldson. Here is CLA’s submission (authored by VP Rajan Venkataraman) to the process, and the separate sub of CLA member Kathryn Kelly also.
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