Rabble is in ‘power’, but isn’t ‘governing’: Instead of a government, we have an ugly, vacuous rabble. They are somehow in power, but not “governing” in any intelligent way. Sexual assault accusations that go nowhere; deliberately divisive rhetoric (‘Whose side are you on?’ being a stand-out); Ministers accused of corruptly …
Our civil liberties movement is a broad church. We’re all genuinely committed to defending the freedoms of all people. But freedom, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Should we defend negative liberty or positive liberty, Mark Hemery asks.
The recent Australian Federal Police raids on a News Corp journalist and the ABC are an alarming extension of growing repressive tendencies by the Australian government. When you combine bad laws and expanded unquestionable powers with poor management decisions and a curtailing of public and media reviews, the result is that unalert citizens unknowingly become subjects of a police state. John Passant asks: how far along that path are we?Victoria’s Minister Lisa Neville is not well please with federal Minister Dutton’s ’thought bubble’ in January about a federal Sex Offender Register: “The Victorian Government was disappointed that it was not consulted prior to the announcement of the proposal and I have written to Minister Dutton requesting further consultation on …
I read recently that many treaties, including the Trans Pacific Partnership, contain clauses prohibiting restrictions on where data is stored. It is designed, I understand, to stop sovereign governments from requiring that, for example, data stored in your cloud account or at your bank be stored on national servers. It …
I believe that the USA like any other sovereign nation, has the right to make laws that govern the behaviour of people in its territory, including both its citizens & visitors. It is open to the USA, like any other sovereign nation, to make laws governing the behaviour of its …
I believe recreational marijuana use is a civil liberty, and this email is to state my concern regarding the current laws in place regarding its use. I wholeheartedly believe that the Australian Government is doing a disservice to the Australian public by continuing to criminalise the use of marijuana. The …
Richard Flanagan’s speech – at the Garma Festival in August 2018 should be reproduced in bronze on a monument in Canberra, along with the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Copies of both should be a mandatory presence in every school in the country, that every child/student be aware of the …
My interests and concerns include (but are not limited to): – the thickening web of wider police powers, increasing surveillance and greater secrecy in the name of security and anti-terrorism; – the rising tide of attacks on independent journalism and investigative reporting, particularly attacks on the ABC which is the …
What a truly rotten, despicable, cowardly, unprincipled, corrupt and wicked government we have (‘Former ASIS spy charged after exposing East Timor bugging, MP reveals’, Fairfax Online). While the former prime minister, whose government initiated the singular crimes against our neighbour East Timor, dog-whistles China from a dark corner, the former head …
