SA Liberals Conduct Purge of Pentecostals After the Infiltration of Party Ranks
The South Australian Liberal Party terminated the membership of 150 Pentecostal Christians a fortnight ago, while it has further asked 400 more recently signed up members to show cause as to why they shouldn’t be turfed out as well. The...
“A Steady Deterioration in Rights” in Australia: An Interview With HRMI’s Thalia Kehoe Rowden
When the United Nations General Assembly announced that Australia would be serving on the UN Human Rights Council over the 2018-20 term, questions were raised about the nation’s fitness to hold a seat, especially in relation to its treatment of...
We Are All Friendlyjordies: The Systematic Silencing of Dissent
In line with the new norm for Coalition ministers, NSW deputy premier John Barilaro filed to sue Friendlyjordies presenter, Jordan Shanks, for defamation on 27 May, claiming the YouTube political satirist portrayed him as being corrupt in two video clips...
No Support for Religious Privileging Laws: An Interview With the Rationalist Society’s Neil Francis
Newly minted attorney general Michaelia Cash has signalled she’s producing a new draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill (RD Bill), which is a piece of legislation that purports to protect those of faith, whilst actually providing them with the privilege...
As Long Warned, Terrorism Laws Are Being Turned on Citizens
The federal government has passed around 90 national security-counterterrorism bills, with bipartisan approval, since the 9/11 attacks took place in 2001. And while the projected enemy is shifting from Middle Eastern terrorists to a rising China, the imposing edifice of...
Witness K Sentenced for Exposing Crimes of Australian Government
Former senior ASIS intelligence officer Witness K was given a three month suspended sentence on 18 June, after having plead guilty to revealing classified government information that he’d acquired via his employment with the nation’s chief foreign spying agency. Witness...
Drug Busts Like Ironside Make No Substantial Impact
Charges continue to be laid against those arrested in relation to the nation’s “most significant” drug racket investigation, Operation Ironside. More than 250 arrests have been made, six drug labs were shut down, over 3.7 tonnes of illicit drugs were...
Surveillance State Laws That Enabled the Encryption-Busting Anom App Affect Us All
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews called Operation Ironside the “most significant operation in policing history” at an 8 June press conference, while AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw outlined that the crime sting had resulted in 224 arrests, had shut down six...
Youth Detainees Continue to Be Routinely Strip Searched in NSW
The NSW Ombudsman has just released a report into the contentious full body strip searching of three youth detainees at Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre in November 2019 by Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) officers, who’d been called in to deal...
No War With China: An Interview With Sydney Peace and Justice Coalition’s Peter Murphy
The pace at which war with China talk has been emerging from Canberra of late is alarming. Last year there were rumblings coming from PM Scott Morrison around sophisticated cyberattacks, but since Peter Dutton took on the role of defence...
