Truth-Telling: Activist Stephen Langford on Facing Time Over Craft Gluing a Colonial Statue
The Black Lives Matter-Stop Black Deaths in Custody movement erupted in Sydney last June. Despite COVID lockdown restrictions only just being lifted, thousands took to the streets, as they challenged the tired and wearying official narrative around the British takeover of...
Season’s Greetings: Australia Continues its Inhumane Treatment of Refugees
When Australian Border Force officials called the former offshore refugee detainees - who’d been locked up in Melbourne’s Mantra Hotel for over a year - to a 14 December meeting, the 60-odd men were well aware that five other Medevac...
As the Climate Crisis Accelerates, Morrison Shrugs Off a Future for Short-Term Profit
Due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the regular UN climate conference - COP26 - was postponed. But rather than simply forget about the ever-intensifying impacts of the climate crisis, the UK, France and the United Nations teamed up to run...
NSW Authorities Are Routinely Strip Searching Youth Inmates as Young as 10
Contained in a recently released NSW Inspector of Custodial Services report, revelations around Sydney’s Mary Wade Correctional Centre routinely strip searching women imprisoned within the state-run facility sparked public outrage. This was especially so as it came on the back...
Drug Decriminalisation for the ACT: An Interview With Labor MLA Michael Pettersson
Led by the Uniting Church Synod of NSW/ACT, Fair Treatment has been calling on the jurisdictions of NSW and the ACT to decriminalise drug use and personal possession since late 2018. This health-based campaign has the backing of over 60...
LECC Calls on Parliament to Review NSW Police Strip Search Protocols
The “recurrent issue” this state’s independent police watchdog found during the seven investigations into NSW police use of strip searches is that officers are failing to comply with the “legal thresholds for conducting a strip search”. Released on 15 December,...
A Violation of Civil Liberties: NSWCCL’s Elizabeth Htwe on Criminalising Drug Use
Since the drug-related deaths of two young Australians at the Sydney Defqon.1 festival in September 2018, the NSW Liberal Nationals government has understood that this state’s current approach to illicit substances isn’t working. Indeed, by the end of that music...
Morrison and the Prosperity Gospel: License to Torture Refugees and Damn the Poor
During his 2008 maiden speech in parliament, our PM Scott Morrison repeatedly referenced his Christian faith, even going as far as to invoke Jeremiah chapter 9:24: “I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, justice and righteousness on Earth for I...
The Increasing Militarisation of the NSW Police Force
Most of us have noticed it, the ever-increasing beefing up of NSW police. There’s the fortified appearance, the enhanced weaponry and the broadening of powers to the point that those on the beat look more like members of an occupying...
Identify and Disrupt: Dutton to Further Extend Surveillance State Reach
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton and department secretary Mike Pezzullo have again been tinkering away at the legislative framework governing the nation’s internal security apparatus to produce yet more legislation containing laws designed to further empower police and intelligence. Introduced...
