CLA’s policy on criminal justice
All Australians are entitled to protection from arbitrary arrest and unnecessary detention; to a fair, speedy and public trial; to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to legal advice and representation.
Sentencing should be based on the principle of rehabilitation wherever possible.
States around Australia – Tasmania, Victoria, WA – are handing over the images of their citizens collected for a driver’s licence to be used as a national crime database. Some people and groups, including CLA, are very worried how politicians can be so cavalier about people’s personal privacy.
Bodies like museums, arts entities, orchestras and the ABC are preparing for another financial savaging in the upcoming budget. Every year, increasingly greater amounts are spent on bigger weapons and more over-the-top security. Each year, spending on the lifeblood of any civilised nation, culture and education, is constricted further to a barely survivable drip, Dr Des Griffin AM says.
Within Australian serving ranks, there are growing calls for a Senate Inquiry into why so many serving, reserves and ex-serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel are committing suicide. Is institutional abuse to blame? asks ADF Veteran’s advocate Kay Danes OAM.
The security app used in Australia is not the worst, but still has significant flaws, an internet security firm says. They analysed the core protocols behind the major apps and rated them. Here’s what they say about the Australian one.
The High Court of Australia has decided, to its legal satisfaction, that there was a sexual harasser in its midst, former judge Dyson Heydon. But the court was apparently reluctant to act (it took 15 months). And has it learned the real lesson of this sorry affair, that it is judicial hubris at the High Court in general that’s the problem, not just one randy old judge. The High Court should take a long, hard look at itself…and so should the rest of Australia examine the performance, competence and protocols of one of the three arms of national governance.
Several states are handing over their drivers’ photos to national police and security agencies without any federal legal safeguards or privacy protection in place. In the Apply Isle, the Tasmanian Times has reported on a petition begun by CLA’s Tasmanian Director, Richard Griggs.
We lock people in quarantine so they won’t infect anyone else. But that doesn’t mean they should lose their right to breathe fresh air. A lockdown pair explain why it’s incongruous that upper floor windows can’t be opened occasionally, or supervised walks can’t be managed n a nearby park. Criminal prisoners get more fresh air than innocent travellers.
Increasingly, Australia’s Parliament House looks like a fortress or maximum security jail. Bollards and fences are obvious, as are some of the heavily-armed guards. But is the level and type of protection sensible, or dangerous overkill, asks security expert Dr Tony Murney?
Camouflage green fences exude precisely the wrong symbolism for a parliament building purpose-designed to be an accessible People’s House. From one angle, the most prestigious building in the National Capital looks like a jail, with slum attached. Are we keeping the prime inmates protected, or locked away behind our own ‘Berlin Wall’? Gates and upward-rising bollards – which have hoisted Commonwealth cars skywards – are further barriers to openness, security expert Dr Tony Murney says.
