Torture…from the other side
Does it help to see things from the other side, as brilliant cartoonist Jen Sorensen asks in this thought-provoking cartoon on torture from a different angle? 20 Dec 2014
Liberty loses in the Budget
Cartoon with thanks to John Ditchburn, InkcinctCivil liberties and human rights lost out in Budget 2013. Not only did they lose to the police, security-like agencies and the spooks by not receiving funds, but some civil justice and human rights areas we…
Refugee policy: long march into tyranny
How we treat child refugees says a lot about us as a nation. We’re on a downhill slide, says Graham Macafee, and the prospects are we’ll end up with unthinkable cruelty to children, whereas now we’re just plain cruel, inflicting on children the type of…
ACC: drugs report flawed, woeful record exposed
The Drugs in Sport affair has so far focused on the ‘sins’ of sports people. But the real guilty party may be the accuser, the Australian Crime Commission. We warned Parliament in October 2012 that the ACC would destroy reputations, and was dangerous: j…
2012: Year of the Boiling Frog
“The number and variety of threats to civil liberties of Australians during 2012 approached almost unprecedented levels,” says John Roskam, head of the Institute of Public Affairs. When commentators from all sides of politics start sounding warnings, it…
Priests, penitents, confessions…and children
The sexual abuse inquiry confessional Cartoon by Inkcinct
The Royal Commission into Abused Children will run into a minefield of conflicting rights and law: rules of evidence and of witnesses (including, perhaps, children), rights of the child, of reli…
ELECTION 2010:
Where parties stand on liberties
CLA asked 10 questions of parties (and some independents) standing for the 2010 federal election. Here are the replies of those who took the trouble to respond.Cartoon: thanks to Inkcinct, John Ditchburn – click to enlarge.Read more »…
Compassion should underpin our new response to refugees
New arrivals seeking refuge should receive a different response from that of a decade ago, writes James Dunn, ex-diplomat and human rights expert. Australia has a moral obligation to show compassion to people ‘facing the kind of despair we have never had…