Prohibition Causes the Harm: An Interview With Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform
There’s a rising awareness that the century-old system of drug prohibition is failing. It’s evident in the global moves to legalise cannabis, the internationally-lauded Portuguese drug decriminalisation model and the widespread calls to start treating drug use as a health issue, not...
RIP Privacy: Mass Surveillance to be Ramped Up in NSW
This week, the NSW government is set to open up access to all NSW citizens’ driver licence photos and associated personal information, so that it can be utilised by law enforcement agencies across the country and matched with images from...
Empowering Adolescent Girls: An Interview With Plan Australia’s Holly Crocket
Kampala is ranked amongst the fastest growing cities in Africa, and reported crime is on the rise Cases of robbery, rape and harassment are common. This has led to a situation where 80 percent of the adolescent girls living in the...
The Far-Right’s Assault on LGBTIQ Communities
In another development in the current global shift to the far-right, the world’s fourth largest democracy Brazil elected extremely divisive presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro to office on October 28. And as seems to be part and parcel of the right-wing...
NSW Police Continue Unfair Exclusion Policy at Music Festivals
There was a public outcry mid-year after NSW police began employing a new strategy, whereby punters were denied entry to music festivals following a positive indication by a drug detection dog even though no illicit substances were subsequently found. And despite...
New Adoption Laws Will Intensify Stolen Generation in NSW
Currently, there’s an amendment bill before the NSW upper house that if passed would place a two year limit on the amount of time a child can remain in out-of-home care prior to the court having the power to order...
The Ethics of Covert Operations: An Interview With Ex-Undercover Operative Dr Clive Harfield
The purpose of covert operations is for law enforcement agents to obtain evidence that would not otherwise be accessible using conventional investigatory methods. This secretive acquiring of evidence is meant to be done in a lawful manner, so that it...
Pill Testing, Not Penalties: An Interview With Take Control’s Kieran Palmer
Two young people died after taking drugs at the Defqon.1 festival in September. At the time, there was saturation policing at the music festival. There were 194 police officers deployed at the event, some of whom were accompanied by drug detection dogs....
NSW Premier Plays the Race Card
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian caused a stir last month when she took aim at her new whipping boy: immigrants. The daughter of Armenian migrants herself, the premier said she wants the state’s migration levels to be halved. “The rates have gone...
Re-Radicalising Mardi Gras: An Interview with Pride in Protest’s Bridget Harilaou
The first Sydney Mardi Gras parade was a protest march for human rights. Members of the local LGBTIQ community walked down Oxford Street calling for an end to the criminalisation of their lives and the freedom to openly express their...
