Morrison Protects Religions, While Discrimination Against LGBTQ Students Remains Possible
At around this time last year, then Australian treasurer Scott Morrison stated in an interview with Fairfax media that he’d be playing a leading role in the push to pass further religious protection laws in 2018. Now prime minister, Morrison announced last...
The Use of Solitary Confinement on Kids Must Be Banned
The Northern Territory passed legislation in May that prohibited the use of solitary confinement on children and young people. This followed revelations that teenagers were being held in prolonged isolation for up 23 hours a day at Don Dale youth detention...
Sex and Gender Diverse Suicide Prevention: An Interview With SAGE’s Dr Tracie O’Keefe
Tracie was a teenage intersex and trans woman growing up in 1960s northern England. It was a world she found hostile. Her family rejected her. The health professionals who were supposed to be helping were negligent. And things got so...
Land Rights vs Native Title in NSW: An Interview With Professor Heidi Norman
The NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Council (NSWALC) was established in 1977 as an independent lobby group to assist in the fight for Indigenous land rights. It formed at a meeting of 200 First Nations representatives held at the Black Theatre in Redfern....
People Power in Paris: Government Backs Down Over Tax Hikes
On 1 December, Paris was burning. Six buildings were set ablaze. Restaurants and shops were looted. Around one hundred cars were engulfed in flames, some overturned as they burned. And the Arc de Triomphe was graffitied with anti-government sentiment. The rioters were...
Berejiklian’s Answer to Falling Crime: Intensify Policing and Fill Prisons
Despite the NSW government’s tough-on-crime stance, increasing investment in police numbers and the expansion in capacity of state correctional facilities, as well as a perception within the community that the streets are getting less safe, crime’s not on the rise...
NSW Police Want the Unappealable Right to Shut Down Music Festivals
The NSW Police Force (NSWPF) is intensifying its already full throttle assault on music festivals. Not only does it want to saturate events with officers and turn away punters even though they are not in possession of illegal drugs, but it now...
Tough New Laws Against Child Sexual Abuse
A range of tough new laws to combat child sexual abuse in NSW came into effect on 1 December, which complete one of the most comprehensive overhauls of the state’s criminal laws in history. The recently enacted laws follow a...
The Modern Slavery Act Falls Short on Holding Corporates Accountable
Over 40 million people around the world live in conditions of modern slavery. Women and girls make up 71 percent of these people, while children account for a quarter of them. Around 25 million people are in situations of forced labour,...
Calling Out Drug Dogs: An Interview With Inner West Greens Councillor Tom Kiat
Inner West Greens Councillor Tom Kiat tipped off his Facebook page followers who might have been attending the Edge festival in Ashfield on 6 September about drug detection dogs that were present at the local train station. The post subsequently gained the...
