Political Correctness, Racial Profiling and Policing
Last weekend saw groups of young people rioting through the city of Melbourne, disrupting the city’s annual Moomba family festival. Melbourne police reported that the property damage and violence carried out towards festivalgoers was largely the work of the Apex...
2016 Census Change: Another Attack on Privacy
The 2016 Census is hardly a forum you’d expect to become a battleground for civil liberties, but this is precisely what is occurring due to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) unprecedented plan to retain personal data. On December 18...
‘Carpets for Communities’ and ‘The Orangutan Project’
Carpets for Communities Cambodia is a cultural wonderland: with its incredible architecture, breathtaking natural beauty and rich history, the country has become a tourist hotspot in recent years. But beneath its natural beauty, Cambodia carries the scars of a brutal...
Social Media: Helping Police to Crack Down on Centrelink Fraud
Australia has a relatively broad welfare system - with the federal government funding around $150 billion per year in benefits - a figure that is set to rise in coming years with our aging population. But not everyone plays by...
NSW’s Anti-Protest Package: Unconstitutional?
Australian legal bodies and human rights advocates warn that New South Wales’ controversial new anti-protest laws pander to the mining industry, stripping citizens of their rights and granting police excessive powers. The Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment...
Bullying to Become a Crime
Bullying comes in all shapes and sizes: from toxic employees forming chat groups to mock and disparage colleagues, to students forming pacts to ignore or gang up on others, to physical abuse. The question of how we should best deal...
NSW Police Pursuit Policy Leads to More Deaths
Community and legal groups have renewed their push for a change to NSW’s police pursuit policy, following the tragic death of three women in Sydney’s West last month. The trio were killed instantly when the car they were travelling in struck a...
NSW Government’s Attack on Civil Liberties
The New South Wales Government has attracted widespread criticism from civil liberties groups, after passing new ‘anti-protest’ legislation in parliament this week. The new laws, passed on Tuesday, will see increased penalties for protesters at mining and coal-seam gas sites,...
Government Tries to Help Police Avoid Investigation
You may have heard of ICAC, a NSW body which investigates corruption in a range of public bodies, including the police force. Victoria has a similar organisation called IBAC, or the Independent Broad Based Anti-Corruption Commission. Under the Victorian IBAC Act,...
Copycat Crimes
The “copycat effect” refers to crimes which are inspired by media coverage of a previous crimes - or movies and TV shows which document fictional offences. Over the years, there have been a number of high-profile “copycat crimes” both in...
