Sleeping Rough in Sydney: An Interview With Martin Place Mayor Lanz Priestley
The release of the 2016 Census homelessness statistics in March confirmed what most already knew: the amount of people with no permanent fixed address in this country is on the rise. The ABS figures revealed that 50 out of every 10,000...
Two Die at Defqon 1, But NSW Government Still Refuses to Allow Pill Testing
Tragically, this year’s music festival season has begun with two suspected drug-related deaths at a festival in southwestern Sydney. And this incident is all the more appalling as these deaths could have potentially been prevented if the NSW government was...
Curbing Rising Racism: An Interview With Greens Senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi
In her maiden speech in federal parliament, Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi warned against the growing “culture of online harassment,” which she explained specifically targets “people of colour and women.” The senator is no stranger to this sort of behaviour....
Time for a Treaty: An Interview With FISTT’s Lynda-June Coe
Australia is the only settler colonial nation not to have entered into a treaty with First Nations peoples. While countries like New Zealand and Canada have treaties in place, successive federal governments here have refused to even consider such an agreement....
Border Force Randomly Seizes and Searches Citizen’s Devices at Sydney Airport
On 16 August, British Australian Nathan Hague was making his way through Sydney airport as he regularly does, when he was randomly stopped by Australian Border Force (ABF) officers who demanded he hand over his smartphone and laptop computer. The 46-year-old...
Morrison to Enact Discriminatory Laws under the Guise of ‘Religious Freedom’
Scott Morrison indicated in an interview last week with Fairfax Media that enacting laws to protect religious freedoms is an important part of his agenda. This means the new prime minister wants to pass laws that would enable Christians to discriminate...
Australian Journalist Imprisoned in Cambodia Seeks Royal Pardon
A three-judge panel of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Australian journalist and documentary film-maker James Ricketson guilty of espionage on 31 August. And to the disbelief of those gathered there to support the 69-year-old, the court sentenced him to six...
Silencing Dissent: Morrison Threatens to Deregister Trade Union
Reigning Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has threatened to close down the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), following a union boss’ tweet that the head of the executive said was the last straw that broke “the camel’s back.”...
Stopping Abuses Behind Bars: An Interview With Churchill Fellow Steven Caruana
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” wrote the 19th Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. If his statement is anything to go by, then recent developments would indicate that such an evaluation could lead...
How the Government’s New Laws Will Unlock Citizens’ Private Data
On 14 July last year, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that the government wanted the power to access people’s encrypted messages. Last month, Dutton’s Home Affairs super-ministry delivered draft legislation that will allow authorities to do just that. And while...
