Animal Agribusiness Practices Could Cause a Homegrown Pandemic
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was no surprise for scientists. Many had been warning that a disease with the ability to spread rapidly through communities across the globe was sure to make the jump from an animal host into...
In West Papua, the Threat Is the Indonesian Military, Not the Virus
Central Jakarta District Court sentenced six activists demonstrating over West Papuan issues to between eight and nine months prison time on 24 April. The five men and one woman were convicted of treason for their part in a rally staged...
Do Not Trust the PM’s Promises Regarding the COVID-19 Tracking Data
No matter which side of the political divide they fall on, what sort of creed they adhere to, or whether they’re law-abiding citizens or not, the overwhelming majority of Australians have followed government advice and locked down for the COVID-19...
Immigration Centres Analogous to Cruise Ships: An Interview With Doctors For Refugees’ Dr Barri Phatarfod
As of two weeks ago, the UK government had released around 400 immigration detainees into the community, with the aim of containing the spread of COVID-19. The move recognises that populations held within enclosed environments are at great risk of...
Prisoners Lives Are Still at Risk: An Interview With Ex-Inmate Damien Linnane
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Timothy Ginnane ordered on 1 May that the state’s justice department conduct a risk assessment of Port Phillip Prison in relation to COVID-19. The inquiry will include whether adequate cleaning and virus screening measures are taking...
Labor’s Home Affairs Spokesperson Stirs Up Xenophobia
Obviously, shadowing Peter Dutton is getting a bit much for Labor’s Kristina Keneally, so last weekend the opposition home affairs spokesperson decided to simply ape the minister in an op-ed she wrote for the Herald recommending Australia slow its migrant...
NSW Police Are Fining Teens for Visiting Their Friends
The controversial COVID-19 infringement notices that NSW police has been issuing since 26 March are some of the steepest on-the-spot fines available to it. With over a thousand now imposed statewide, the fines differ to many others as they can...
A Sensible Public Is Stopping the Spread of COVID-19, Not Heavy-Handed Policing
“Currently, Australia does not have widespread community transmission of COVID-19,” read the Department of Health website at 11 am on 1 May. At that time, there were 6,762 confirmed cases of COVID-19 nationwide, and 92 people had died as a...
Impossible to Distance in Detention: An Interview With Manus Detainee Farhad Bandesh
The subject of the ABC’s 20 April Q&A was COVID-19: Where to Next? And about 20 minutes into the program, long-term asylum-seeking detainee Farhad Bandesh appeared via video link to ask the panellists a question. The 38-year-old Kurdish man from...
Fossil Fuel Expansion Under the Cover of COVID-19
For those concerned that COVID-19 has somehow brought the Australian fossil fuel industry to a halt, you can rest assured it hasn’t. Indeed, the expansion of mining has simply continued in a “business as usual” manner. Construction at Adani’s Carmichael...
