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 seeker names. As well, the government is blaming the pandemic for the absence of a much-needed integrity mechanism, even as courts themselves lock down behind closed doors into secret trials spreading around Australia. People’s locally-elected representatives are being by-passed as an invented executive mechanism, the National Cabinet, takes over from parliamentary democracy. The signs are not good.
Other items in this issue:
- Ex-ICAC man calls government integrity proposal ‘a joke’
- The other side of Diggerdom revealed
- AG’s Department needs auditing over legal obligations
- ABC asks AFP: Call off the hounds
- WA acquittal: did police plant ‘evidence’?
- Jail release program continues to be urgent
- USA confirms terrorism is no longer main threat
- Another tin-pot republic on verge of collapse?
- Parliament passes wrong Bill
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