Police Watchdog Finds that Illegal Strip Searches Did Not Amount to ‘Serious Misconduct’
The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) released its report into Operation Karuka on 8 May. It was one of a number of reports into questionable strip searches carried out by NSW police officers over recent years, at a time when...
Welcome to Country: Lidia Thorpe on the Mantra Refugees
Right now, governments around the country are in the midst of a staged lifting of the COVID-19 restrictions that have been set in place for the last couple of months. And while many out there in the community are breathing...
Dutton’s ASIO Bill Further Erodes Legal Protections
Original publication date: 16 May 2020 As a reduced Australian parliament met for a series of special sitting days this week to deal with matters that couldn’t wait until after it resumes normal duties post-pandemic, home affairs minister Peter Dutton...
Occupying the Mantra Rooftop for Refugees: An Interview With WACA’s Sam Castro
Right now, there are over 65 former offshore refugee detainees being held at the Mantra Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of Preston. Brought to Australia under the provisions of Medevac, these men with compromised health are now fearing for their...
India Cracks Down Further on Kashmir Under the Cover of COVID-19
Indian soldiers fatally shot a young Kashmiri man on Wednesday, claiming he’d ignored instructions to stop at two checkpoints in the disputed region of Kashmir. However, eyewitnesses state that the man - who was complying with security officials - was...
Post-COVID Restart Tough for Sex Workers: An Interview With SWOP’s Cameron Cox
The intimacy involved in a lot of sex industry services was always going to be problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, now it seems that as the economy begins reopening, there’s confusion mounting around when the industry will be fully...
Digital Climate Disruption: An Interview With Extinction Rebellion’s AJ Tennant
The big four Australian banks - Westpac, Commbank, ANZ and NAB - “collectively poured” around $35.4 billion dollars into the fossil fuel industry over the four years to 2019, Market Forces reported on 7 May. It added that $7.1 billion...
Illegally Strip Searching Teens Does Not Amount to “Serious Misconduct”, LECC Finds
A 16-year-old First Nations boy was walking down the main street of a major town in north western NSW on 25 November 2018, when, on seeing some police, he dropped a foil of cannabis in his possession. The youth then...
The COVID-19 Restrictions Are Easing, But Draconian Laws Still Stand
As of this Friday, NSW authorities are easing the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that have been set in place since the end of March. The national cabinet has decided it’s time to gradually open society back up, as the number of...
Move On Orders in New South Wales: Quotas, Bias and Intoxication
As of 11 am on 9 May, NSW police officers had issued 1,198 COVID-19-related penalty infringement notices since 26 March. But, as Australian governments are beginning to gradually lift lockdown restrictions, officers are easing up on the issuing of the...
