Coronial Inquest Into First Nations Teen in State Care Triggers Concerns of Systemic Abuse
The recent Coronial inquest into the 2018 death of George Campbell heard that the Yuin Dunghutti and Tharawal teenager, who’d spent the majority of his seventeen years in state care, had likely been a casualty of systemic abuses within the...
The Advantages of Activists Self-Representing: An Interview With NT Lawyer Russell Goldflam
Over the last 12 months, several states tightened the screws on the ability of climate and environmental activists to raise awareness around these issues, via nonviolent civil disobedience actions that disrupt business as usual to capture public attention. The NSW Coalition...
Australia is “A Human Rights Pariah”: Senator Nick McKim on Evacuating Offshore Detainees to Safety
On the first day of 2023, Australia continued to hold 159 asylum seekers in offshore detention, with 92 of them in Papua New Guinea and 67 on Nauru. These people fled persecution in their homelands, arriving by boat in Australian...
Out of the Coalition Playbook: Albanese Blocks Deportation Loophole in Migration Law
The Albanese government quietly released 100-odd noncitizen detainees from immigration detention over Christmas-New Year 2022, with no official reason as to why. Instead, it was left to advocates to explain to the media that the move was connected to a recent court...
Wong Rules Out War Powers Reform, Despite Parliamentary Inquiry Underway
At its March 2021 national conference, federal Labor determined that, if elected into government, it would hold a parliamentary inquiry into whether war powers should be a whole-of-parliament decision and not, as is the case now, the choice of the prime...
Towards Rights-Based Bail, and the Chilling Effect of Extreme Conditions on Climate Action
The last 12 months have been marked by a new tactic taken towards nonviolent direct actions carried out in the defence of climate and the environment, which has seen jurisdictions, such as NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, dramatically escalate the punishments...
Deportations to Continue Under Albanese’s Modest 501 Migration Reforms
The Albanese government has announced coming changes to the nation’s immigration deportation scheme that were first spruiked last July. The current laws have seen thousands of noncitizens expelled since 2015, with the largest cohort having been New Zealand-born people. The government,...
Authorised Psychiatrists Will Soon Be Allowed to Prescribe MDMA and Psilocybin
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced on 3 February that two popular recreationally used illicit substances, MDMA and psilocybin, will be available to specifically authorised psychiatrists to prescribe to patients for certain mental health conditions. Better known as party drug ecstasy, MDMA...
Agitating Against Mardi Gras Corporatisation: An Interview With Pride in Protests’ Mikhael Burnard
In less than a fortnight, Sydney city will be awash with hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe, as WorldPride 2023 kicks off, with the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras incorporated into the international event this year. So,...
“The Threat From China Is a Lie”: Peace Activist Nick Deane on the Build Up to War
Talk of war with China has been mounting over recent years. The current Labor government, and the Coalition before it, have been warning that Beijing has become increasingly aggressive, which is leading to growing tensions in the Indo Pacific that...
