NSW Passes Stronger Child Sexual Abuse Laws, But Priests Remain Protected
Late last night, the parliament of NSW passed one of the most comprehensive criminal justice reform packages in state history. The state’s attorney general Mark Speakman introduced the legislation designed to crackdown on child sexual predators into state parliament on...
Australia Pioneered Drug Harm Reduction and Must Continue
Programs, strategies and policies designed to prevent or reduce the harms associated with the use of illicit substances are collectively known as harm reduction. This approach to drug use has been a key pillar of Australia’s National Drug Strategy since...
Challenging Abuse of Police Powers: An Interview With Greens MLC David Shoebridge
The NSW police use of drug detections dog in public places without a warrant has been widely discredited in the public eye. The damning NSW Ombudsman report into the program was released as far back as 2006. NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge...
Pioneer Sex Worker Rights Activist Awarded Order of Australia
The governor general, Sir Peter Cosgrove, announced 1007 awards in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list on Monday. And in an Australian first, a leading sex worker rights activist has been made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Julie Bates...
Punishing Asylum Seekers: An Interview With Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul
Australia ratified the UN Refugee Convention in 1954. But, despite the country having formally agreed to the terms outlined in the international agreement that protects refugees, the Turnbull government continues to deny people seeking asylum the basic rights the document...
Magistrate’s Rebuke of “Privileged” Drug Takers Was Misguided
Magistrate Robyn Denes chastised a number of young professionals from privileged backgrounds that appeared before her in Burwood Local Court on drug charges last week. The magistrate warned that these women can’t hide behind their “social fortune for too long.”...
Drug Driving Laws Criminalise the Legal Use of Cannabis
The Berejiklian government announced in January that NSW police are set to more than double the number of roadside drug tests they conduct from 97,000 to 200,000 a year by 2020. And along with more tests, another drug will be added...
The Rights of Vulnerable Children: An Interview with Walking Warriors Australia
William Tyrell disappeared on the morning of 12 September 2014. When he vanished, the then 3-year-old boy was dressed in a Spiderman suit and had been playing with his older sister in the front yard of a house in the...
Australia Justifies Atrocities Against Palestinians
Israeli warplanes struck dozens of targets throughout the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in response to a barrage of rockets and mortar shells fired upon southern Israel by Palestinian forces. This is the greatest escalation in fighting between the two sides since...
Should Prisoners Be Allowed to Vote?
It is often said that people are sent to prison as punishment, not to be punished. In other words, the loss of liberty is the price of committing crime, and inmates should not been unjustifiably denied other basic civil rights....
