NSW Police Officer Criticises the Use of Excessive Force Against Protesters
In a widely-distributed open letter to NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller, a senior member of the NSW Police Force Public Order and Riot Squad has drawn attention to a situation that’s seen “excessive force” being deployed by state police with...
No More Drug War Demands Sydney, as Berejiklian Drags Her Feet on Solutions
The 17th of June next year marks the 50th anniversary of the day on which US president Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs. Marking an intensification of then half-a-century-old global drug prohibition, this gung-ho approach to a health issue...
Boycott Global Brands With Forced Uyghur Labour in Their Supply Chains
Since April 2017, the Chinese government has been operating a network of extrajudicial political re-education camps involving the incarceration of at least one million Uyghur people in the far western province of Xinjiang. Reports of the mass detention of Uyghurs,...
Gamil Means No: An Interview With Gamilaraay Next Generation’s Ian Brown
Gamil means “no” in Gamilaraay: the language spoken by the Gomeroi people. Situated on what is today described as north western NSW, the Gomeroi Nation is currently saying gamil to the proposed Narrabri Gas project. In a statement released on...
The Dungay Family Call on the NSW Premier to See Charges Laid
When six immediate action team (IAT) officers stormed the Long Bay Prison hospital ward cell occupied by David Dungay Junior on 29 December 2015, the 26-year-old Dunghutti had served his time and was about to return home to his family...
Controlling the Discussion: Peace Campaigner Jacob Grech on the Brereton Report
The recently released Brereton report details 39 alleged murders conducted by Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan. The document also goes to great lengths to ensure the reader is well aware that no one knew about these war crimes above the...
High Court Rules that Refugees Can Hold Dutton to Account: An Interview with Lawyer George Newhouse
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton looks likely to be hit by a tsunami of breach of duty of care cases brought by asylum-seeking litigants temporarily in this country to receive medical treatment, after having suffered deplorably in offshore immigration facilities...
Berejiklian’s Drug Depenalisation: A “Modest” Step Towards “Inevitable” Decriminalisation
At a 30 November meeting, NSW government cabinet ministers discussed a three-tiered system of depenalisation for the offence of personal drug possession. First spruiked by attorney general Mark Speakman, the step-in-the-right-direction policy gained broad, but not unanimous, support. A conservative...
World Moves Closer to Cannabis Decriminalisation
Despite the lamentable outcome of the NZ cannabis legalisation referendum that saw the usually progressive nation vote in a slight majority against making the plant legal for recreational use, the ongoing international trend towards cannabis use becoming a legal practice...
Victoria Police are Primarily Responsible for the ‘Lawyer X’ Scandal
Established in late 2018, the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants handed down its final report this week. The inquiry delved into Victoria police’s use of criminal lawyer Nicola Gobbo as a police informant and the implications this...
