It’s Important to Know Your Rights this Music Festival Season
The music festival season got off to a tragic start this year. Two young Australians died after taking drugs at the Defqon.1 festival in September, while another drug-related death occurred at a festival at Sydney Olympic Park a fortnight ago. And despite...
Fighting Adani: An Interview With Wangan and Jagalingou Council’s Adrian Burragubba
Indian mining giant Adani filed an application with the Federal Court last week asking that a legal challenge to its proposed Carmichael coalmine be thrown out, unless the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners fronted up with $160,000 in potential court fees...
Violent Crackdown in West Papua: An Interview With Independence Leader Benny Wenda
Date first published: 20 December 2018 Right now, the Indonesian military are carrying out a violent crackdown in the Nduga regency of occupied West Papua. Reports have been emerging about the ongoing assault, which is a reprisal over an incident...
Premier’s Solution to Youth Dying at Festivals: Create More Criminal Offences
Following the drug-related deaths of two young Australians at Sydney’s Defqon.1 festival on 15 September, NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed she would do everything in her power to shut down the event. But, after she had a moment to reflect, the...
Ombudsman to Investigate Youth Solitary Confinement
Following unrest at Melbourne’s Parkville Youth Justice Centre in mid-November 2016, Victorian authorities sent 15 youths to continue their detention at the Grevillea Unit inside Barwon Prison: an adult maximum security facility said to the be the state’s toughest. The incarceration...
Courts Are Becoming Sympathetic to the Cause of Medicinal Cannabis
It’s estimated that around 100,000 patients are using cannabis medicines across the country. And even though the federal government legalising medicinal cannabis close to three years ago, most of these patients are forced to access their medicine on the black market. Despite...
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....
