Articles by Paul Gregoire

Last Sunday, two women were killed in acts of violence perpetrated on opposite sides of the country. At around 4 am that morning, NSW police attended a Griffith residence to find 27-year-old Nicole Wetzler dead in a rear shed on the property. A few hours later 35-year-old Ashley Alchin was arrested and taken to Griffith police station, ...

The Turnbull government recently introduced legislation into parliament designed to lower the threshold for calling out the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to assist state police forces with public incidents. The Defence Amendment (Call Out of the Australian Defence Force) Bill 2018 revises Part IIIAAA of the Defence Act 1903, which was inserted into the Act in the lead ...

Queensland corrective services minister Mark Ryan announced on 3 July that Borallon Correctional Centre will be expanded to accommodate 349 more male inmates. Once the new cells are ready, the men will be transferred from the Southern Queensland Correctional Centre. This will allow for that facility to be turned into a women’s prison. The minister ...

Recreational cannabis will be legalised nationwide in Canada on 17 October. In the US, smoking pot is now permitted in nine states. And back in April, Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale launched a campaign calling for the plant to be legalised in this country. However, South Australian attorney general Vickie Chapman hasn’t been paying attention. Last ...

During a recent NT Estimates Committee hearing, it was revealed that 100 percent of children being held in youth detention in the Territory are Aboriginal. This figure is even more staggering when you consider that First Nations peoples account for only 25.5 percent of the overall NT population. In March this year, 47 percent of ...

Passed last Thursday, the Turnbull government’s espionage and foreign interference bill has established a series of draconian laws that further erode Australians’ civil rights, whilst taking particular aim at the already endangered right to freedom of speech. Ostensibly designed to crackdown on the threat foreign adversaries pose, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) ...

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard evidence relating to 4,444 alleged incidents of child sexual abuse involving 93 Catholic Church authorities over the period 1980 to 2015. During the six decades since 1950, 7 percent of Australian Catholic priests were accused of abusing children, the Royal Commission found. In its final report, ...

The Norwegian freighter MV Tampa entered Australian waters on 29 August 2001, carrying 433 asylum seekers who’d been stranded on a fishing boat in the Indian Ocean. The vessel crossed the maritime boundary close to Christmas Island, despite having been refused entry by Australia. Australian authorities responded by sending special forces troops to board the ship ...

US District Judge Denise Casper recently found that the US Department of Homeland Security’s policy of searching electronic devices at the international border without a warrant could be in breach of the fourth amendment. The Massachusetts federal judge ruled in March that a lawsuit challenging the rights of border agents to seize and search citizens’ smartphones ...

These days, it seems that every time a nasty policy suggestion is announced in Canberra, it’s Peter Dutton standing at the podium. Indeed, the ultra-conservative Liberal minister doesn’t seem to be at ease unless he’s making some divisive statement. The Australian Border Force, ASIO and the Australian federal police all now lie under his tutelage ...