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• September 2020 CLArion newsletter: CLA outlines vaccination policy

  As the virus pandemic grinds on, people are increasingly questioning traditional daily Australian life, from how Parliament convenes (eg, with electronic access and voting, or not) to how we value older people’s lives during a Covid-19 disease which specifically targets ...

• August 2020 CLArion newsletter: Pollies, spooks fail to tell full truth

  With another election season upon us, politicians and candidates are trotting out their ‘law n order’ fear-creating campaigns to gain election, not telling us that it costs taxpayers more than $300 a day to house each prisoner, which adds to ...

• July 2020 CLArion newsletter: Worst of times provide opportunity to change baseline rights for the future
  As the Covid-19 pandemic restricts traditional freedoms wholesale, and the police and security community seeks even greater powers of surveillance and data control over our photos and faces, these appear to be dark times for personal liberties. But times ...
• June 2020 CLArion newsletter: Can liberties and rights survive onslaughts from spikes of the Covid-19 pandemic?

  Can liberties and rights we previously enjoyed survive the Covid-19 pandemic? Already the right to privacy has been formally legislated away in one Australian jurisdiction, while the Federal Court is under investigation for allegedly unlawfully revealing hundreds of asylum ...

• May 2020 CLArion newsletter: Trust emerges as even stronger factor in which politicians and parties we’re prepared to put our faith in next time around

  With the immediate emergency fading, thoughts turn to what we need restoring first: personal freedoms (our civil liberties) back is No 1, just to walk on a beach, take a drive, go interstate. Then comes democracy: parliaments sitting again to ...

• April 2020 CLArion newsletter: Governments impinge on liberties, freedoms as Covid-19 lockdowns become more widespread, individual and draconian

  As the health crisis stretches into months, governments are becoming more authoritarian by the week. Police and military enforcement squads are on the streets. The open air freedom of beaches is denied citizens. People are copping large fines for walking ...

• March 2020 CLArion newsletter: Year of change is likely as politicians battle over personal power ‘without wisdom, lacking moral compass’

  The prognosis for positive progress in 2020 is not good. The government has lined up its divisive Religious Freedoms to wedge society, even as one ambitious Minister has a plan ready to unleash vigilantes throughout Australia. Elsewhere, governments fail to ...

• February 2020 CLArion newsletter: Integrity Commission must have teeth; praise for ANAO; decisive leadership needed

  Bushfire hesitancy, climate change uncertainty and sports rorts chicanery are indicators that national leadership and management is sub-optimal as Australia faces major issues from the start of the 2020s. The problem is exacerbated in the areas of civil liberties and ...

• January 2020 CLArion newsletter: CLA helps chalk up rare win as initiatives begin on prisons, press freedom, whistleblowers 

  A former Chief Justice dropped a ‘bombshell’ when his year-long inquiry in WA found criminal assets-seizing laws were “largely unconcerned whether confiscation is fair or just’. CLA has campaigned against the laws for about 15 years. Similar laws elsewhere should ...

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