Standing up for right to boycott
Early in any government, maverick Ministers are a danger. CLA has written to Senator Colbeck, reminding him the right to free speech trumps corporate commercial demands
CLA warns over privacy limitations
In a rushed process, the Senate’s SLAC committee (Senate Legal And Constitutional affairs) is examining a privacy amendment that may have significant effect on our online rights. CLA recommends broadening a definition so that ‘harm to identity’ includes…
PM’s new COAG law would repress freedoms
Prime Minister Julia Gillard is proposing all states adopt new laws against bikies that would potentially repress every Australian’s freedom of association. A future federal, state or territory government could selectively use a law, supposedly targetin…
Give the terminally ill freedom to choose
People who are terminally ill – but also disabled – should not be discriminated against, CLA says in a submission on a voluntary assisted dying law for Tasmania. Lead author Richard Griggs explains why rights over our own bodies are uncontroversial, and…
CLA asks Privileges to end censorship…of CLA
CLA has been censored by a Parliamentary Committee, which is refusing to publish online a submission by CLA. The reason, the committee says, is that the CLA submission reflects poorly on a public official. But the CLA submission is merely reporting what…
Govt to penalise people with genetic defects
The government’s Bill to prevent discrimination is introducing new discrimination into how people with genetics defects are treated. Either inadvertently or deliberately, the government has omitted a key clause which was in the old Act. If it remains ou…
Reject discrimination Bill: Do no harm!
A Senate Committee should reject totally the deceitfully-named ‘Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012’, CLA says. It is not needed, has dumb and dangerous definitions, would create more problems than it solved, and would effectively censor the…
CLA supports open reviews for refugees
Refugees should have the right to know what information the Australia’s secret intelligence agencies are using to prevent their receiving asylum status, CLA says. We should not create ‘stateless’ people based on shadowy whispers no-one can know about, o…
ACC’s role changes to criminal intelligence
Not even 10 years old, the core role of the Australian Crime Commission has morphed into a ‘criminal intelligence agency’, a CIA, rather than a body that catches big-time baddies, CLA says in a submission to a parliamentary committee. And noted crime au…
Airports: Govt must run security risk analysis
A Senate Committee is inquiring into proposed mandatory see-through scanners at airports from 1 July but doesn’t have all the information it needs, CLA says. CLA is calling for a standards-based security risk assessment, an obligatory step under governm…