CLArion July 2022: Push for No Rights Without Remedies

Pressure is mounting on the federal government to announce a national review leading to introducing a Human Rights Act (HRA) for Australia. A HRA is a priority issue once a National Integrity Commission law is before parliament: a full review is promised in the Labor Party platform. Meanwhile, the Justice committee of the ACT Legislative Assembly is urging improvements to the ACT Human Rights ACT – possibly as a model for a national Act – to ensure that in future there are ‘No Rights Without Remedies’.

CLArion June 2022: ‘Teals’ asked to back Human Right Act

CLA has formally asked the ’teal’ members of the Parliament, and other independents, to support a Human Rights Act (HRA) for Australia as an early, first 100 days, action item alongside a National Integrity Commission. Together, the two initiatives would rein in the excesses of politicians and elites at the top end of town, and underpin rights, liberties and justice for the bottom end among people who are doing it tough. Australia has already held its biggest-ever consultation on a HRA, with massive support for the concept. It’s time to make it happen.

CLArion May 2022: What should be the new govt’s priorities?

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.

CLArion April 2022: Parliament powerless over Covid-19 rules

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.

CLArion March 2022: No Rights Without Remedies needed

CLA is working hard behind the scenes to encourage a new approach to Human Rights Acts, federally and in the states and territories. The aim is to ensure that all such Acts in future contain simple, easy, quick and cheap access to a remedy – starting with a conciliation process, through a tribunal to a senior court if necessary – for people to have their rights enforced against political and bureaucratic decisions. An inquiry in the ACT will soon consider the issues in detail.

CLArion Feb 2022: Pezzullo the Fox dons sheep’s clothing

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.

CLArion January 2022: Australia should stand up for Assange

Throughout the world, journalists are dying to tell the truth: a record number of reporters are jailed. Australia Julian Assange has been locked up on a superseded bail offence by Australian ally and cricket competitor, England, for two years while being illegally sought for extradition rendition by another ally, the USA, which itself does not abide by the ‘rules’ it is trying to enforce on Assange. PM Scott Morrison: bring Julian home, before the 2022 federal election.

CLArion December 2021: Sue Neill-Fraser appeal DISMISSED

Sue Neill-Fraser remans convicted, despite one of three judges ruling that she should not have been convicted in the first place. The other two say that there’s a possibility that that her conviction a decade ago was wrong, but it is not a “significant” possibility, so she should stay in jail. SNF has 12 more years to serve of a 23-year sentence. She is eligible for parole in August 2022. (See fuller analysis of the appeal ruling on the CLA website in early December).

CLArion Nov 2021: Headed towards an Australia we don’t want

Constantly, when Parliament sits and when it doesn’t, new federal issues emerge every week that cry out for an 'ICAC with teeth' to rein in the excesses of the big end of town (politicians and corporates), and a national Human Rights Act to restore some power to correct wrongs back to the little people of Australia. These needs will be present whichever major party wins the upcoming federal election, so it is important during the election lead-up to drive home public demands for these non-negotiable additions to how we can ensure greater morality and improved ethics in national governance in future.

CLArion Oct 2021: New law gives police power to pry and lie

There have been mass protests nationwide because police have the power to make people wear masks, and keep 1.5m from each other to minimise Covid-19 sickness and deaths. There have been NO public protests about a new national law approved last month that gives police the power to pry secretly into your electronic devices, change the information on them any way they like, and then charge/convict you on the “evidence”. All police forces have track records of telling lies, or twisting reality, to secure convictions: how in future will we ever know what is true, and what is ‘changed truth’?