Category: Articles

It should be up to We The People to set priorities for a new federal government’s early actions, not political parties. Here’s a list of issues that need urgent attention from CLA’s viewpoint (you can bet mining and farming and fracking/gas and mining and coal industries don’t need to be on any priority list for assistance!). Meanwhile, in the West, CLA will launch a hard-hitting documentary early this month: in it, real people tell real-life stories of justice and legal system failure. Also, in this issue is a litany of neglect, ignorance, lack of caring and failure to allocate appropriate funding to juveniles: these are unconscionable ’state crimes’ against children in one of the world’s richest societies.

Australia’s governance system allows Ministers to impose over-the-top rules and regulations without Parliament able to have a say. The system should be changed, CLA says. In this issue, we report on the new ‘Right To Appeal’ laws in three states – they have not opened any floodgates: many wrongfully convicted people still languish in our jails. And we note that lawyer David McBride, the alleged whistleblower, is the only person so far charged over alleged murders and assaults on Afghan nationals by members of the ADF's SAS, despite four years of initial investigation and now a further 18-month (and counting) second internal inquiry.

As governments, national and state, and their police and security agencies continue to obfuscate about their malfeasances, Home Affairs supremo Michael Pezzullo claims we citizens have more to fear from the private sector than public sector ministers and mandarins. Is there a more dangerous man in Australia than he who controls criminal justice, emergency management, immigration, refugee claimants and citizenship, national security and ’social cohesion’? All under him, according to his website.