Junior Lawyer Imprisoned for Multi-Million Dollar Fraud
Sydney lawyer Brody Clarke came from a privileged background, benefited from a stellar education and was employed by investment banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan before turning his hand to law in his early thirties. But it all came undone...
High Court Justice Tells Prosecutors to Appeal Lenient Sentences
High Court Justice Virginia Bell ended 2018 on an “incendiary note”, when she publicly implied that some sentences being handed down are clearly too light, and the Crown should be appealing them rather than exercising the restraint that has been...
Turnbull Continues Assault on Civil Liberties
On Tuesday, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull delivered his National Security Statement before parliament. During his speech, the PM focused on the threat of terrorism, declaring that his government was committed to “balancing the priority of community safety with individual...
Renewed Calls for Wage Theft to be Criminalised
A 2014 investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman found that the convenience store chain 7-Eleven had engaged in schemes to exploit workers by paying them below award rates, denying them holiday loadings and even failing to pay them for time...
Pill Testing Saves Lives, and Does Not Lead to Increased Drug Use
In the wake of a spate of recent deaths at Australian music festivals, the mainstream media is starting to report on the potential benefits of pill testing - and politicians from the major parties are starting to listen. The main...
Are the Sentences Imposed for Sexual Offences in NSW Too Soft?
Radio shock-jocks, tabloid newspapers and even populist politicians will often claim that members of the judiciary are too soft-on crime, and on sex offenders in particular. They claim the sentences handed-down do not sufficiently reflect the criminality of the conduct,...
Police Claim to Have Disrupted Drug Importation Rings
Yesterday, a 70-year old man came before Fairfield Local Court charged with commercial drug supply and participating in a criminal group after the NSW Police Force’s State Crime Command executed search warrants upon four homes across Sydney when they detected...
Stop Imprisoning People for Unpaid Fines
The Western Australian Government is under mounting pressure to revoke laws which imprison people for unpaid fines. WA is the only jurisdiction in Australia where you can go directly to prison for unpaid fines. Many of the people who fall...
Hung Jury in NSW Supreme Court Foreign Fighter Case
The NSW Supreme Court jury considering the ‘foreign fighter ‘charges of Kurdish-Australian journalist Renas Lelikan was dismissed on 6 December 2019, when it failed to a verdict after four weeks of deliberations. When the trial began in early October, Mr Lelikan’s...
Fascists Rallying over a Fallacy: Nazi Sentiment Seen as Acceptable by Some
Despite Australia being a well-established multicultural society, a group of Nazi sympathisers took to the waterfront last Saturday in Melbourne, once again holding on to the idea of a pure white Anglo past that never actually existed in our country...
