The High Price of Australia’s Flawed Criminal Justice System
Incarceration rates in Australia are at an all-time high. The sharp increase in the number of people being imprisoned in this country began back in the 1970s. In June last year, there were 38,845 adults being held in Australian correctional facilities,...
Changes Brought In by the New National Firearms Agreement
First published: 10 August 2017 Last week, we featured a piece on the mass shootings that led to tighter gun controls in Australia, such as the Hoddle Street and Strathfield massacres. There were others. Frank Vitkovic killed eight people and then himself...
The Campaign Against Drug Testing of Welfare Recipients
As part of the May budget, the Turnbull government announced its controversial plan to drug test people who are in receipt of social security. Australian treasurer Scott Morrison described it as a “modest drug testing trial” for 5,000 new Youth Allowance and...
Turnbull Drags His Heels on Same-Sex Marriage
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Monday that his government was reintroducing legislation to enable a national plebiscite on same-sex marriage. The bill – which is to be debated this week -is expected to be rejected by the Senate once more, as...
Martin Place Rough Sleepers Agree to Move, But There’s Nowhere to Go
It seems the City of Sydney has had a change of heart in regards to the Martin Place homeless camp. Rather than trying to move them on, Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore announced on Monday evening that she’d negotiated a solution...
Appeal Court Finds GBH Sentence Inadequate, But Does Not Resentence
At 6.43 pm on 6 February 2015, Craig Lulham sent a text message to Bill, the husband of his friend Allison’s mother. It stated, “Bring the cops. I don’t care. It won’t stop me from smashing you are [sic] face...
The Massacres That Led to Tighter Gun Control in Australia
The National Firearms Agreement (NFA) established tighter firearm control laws back in 1996. This led Australian gun laws to become the envy many other countries. But over the following twenty years, these laws have slowly been eroded. And this has much...
Government’s Ban on ‘Stop Smoking Aid’ Makes No Sense
Over three million Australians continue to partake in one of the most deadly habits around. Although smoking rates have fallen dramatically in recent decades, the last national survey found that 15.6 percent of the adult population are still lighting up. Two...
Changing Attitudes: An Interview with Domestic Violence NSW CEO Moo Baulch
Last Saturday, NSW Labor committed to introducing 10 days’ paid domestic and family violence leave. The move follows a campaign launched in July by the Australian Council of Trade Unions to have the leave enshrined in the national employment standards...
Premier Demands that Council Moves-On Martin Place Rough Sleepers
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters this week that the Martin Place rough sleepers make her feel “completely uncomfortable.” But that’s to be expected. As NSW MPs are confronted with the state’s homelessness crisis directly across the road from Parliament House, it’s...
