Terror laws: some good, some unneeded
Delivering the Lionel Murphy memorial lecture for 2014, Prof George Williams gave this excellent rundown of the status of Australia’s terror laws. MPs, please take note. 6 Nov 2014
Photos of two giants, drinking…
Many will be the national memories of Gough Whitlam. Here are some recorded in historic photos illustrating how he gave Aborigines the rights to their own land. 21 Oct 2014
Rights on the right, as well as left
Sometimes, conservative governments can introduce liberties and rights that governments of the left can’t, Prof George Williams says. We should hold out hope for progress under PM Abbott.
Qld govt is losing the bikie wars
A change in investigative and policing strategy is needed if the Queensland government is to win the ‘bikie wars’, says ex-sergeant and law/crime academic, Dr Terry Goldsworthy.
Law Reform given Herculean task
Attorney-General George Brandis has given Australia’s Law Reform Commission a huge task to review our ‘freedom’ laws, and allowed less than a year to do it.
The year privacy flew out the window
Our personal privacy took a battering in the past year from our own government and the America’s NSA. What have Australians lost, and how do we get it back?
In defence of peaceful protest
Will Tasmanians have to fill the streets to regain the right to protest freely? CLA Director Richard Griggs questions whether mandatory sentences and massive fines should constrain people’s liberties.
Monitoring…but govt fails to hear
The Independent Monitor of security law, Bret Walker QC, has done his job well…but successive governments are ignoring what he says, at our peril, Jessie Blackbourn writes.
Torture: PM Abbott must rule it out
PM Abbott appeared to half-endorse torture when in Sri Lanka: CLA is calling on the PM to clearly and totally rule out torture…and Crikey agrees.
UN may end police ‘self-surgery’
The UN Human Rights Council may recommend Australia abandons police investigating police. The UNHCR is expected to adjudicate within weeks on a dispute involving a boy being impaled on a fence in Sydney…and the outcome could end police ‘self-surgery’ investigations in Australia. TJ Hickey, a 17-year-old Aboriginal youth, was impaled on a fence post during a police operation – allegedly a close chase – in the ‘Aboriginal quarter’ of Redfern in 2004.