Laws Empowering Government to Revoke Citizenship May be Unconstitutional
The Morrison government announced late last year it would be passing legislation to lower the threshold for stripping Australians suspected of terrorist activity of their citizenship. The Federal Labor Party has now signalled its intention to oppose the measure after...
The Panama Papers: A Lesson in Tax Avoidance
An Oxfam report released on 20 January revealed that last year 26 billionaires owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people around the globe. This was down from 43 individuals the year before. And this extreme wealth...
Government Breaks Promise to Crackdown on Tax Avoidance by Multi-Nationals
The federal government has broken a promise to establish a public register of overseas shell companies owned by companies operating in Australia. The proposal was intended to assist in the detection and prosecution of illegal activities such as tax evasion...
Another Casualty of the War on Festivals: An Interview With a Psyfari Organiser
At the moment, the NSW Liberal Nationals government is conducting an all-out assault on this state’s festival industry. And the reason why it’s doing it, is it can’t deal with the fact that in order to stop drug-related deaths, it...
Royal Commission Denounces Top NAB Executives
Right before the Conclusion of Volume 1 of his recently released final report, sole banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne QC took special aim at the National Australia Bank and specifically made scathing comments about its chief executive Andrew Thorburn and...
Court Blocks Hunter Valley Coal Mine
The recent decision by the Land and Environment Court of NSW to reject an application to build a coal mine in the Upper Hunter Valley has been hailed as “momentous” and is expected to be “profoundly influential” on future projects...
Whataboutism: Avoiding Topics by Raising Irrelevant Ones
“Whataboutism” is a rhetorical manouvre often used by those seeking to avoid the topic at hand, and can frequently be seen in the comments section of articles posted on social media. An example of the technique is where an article...
Pill Testing Kits Available at Pharmacies
The President of the Australian Medical Associate, Kean Seng Lim, has urged caution following the announcement that a pharmaceutical chain is selling basic kits which test for the presence of popular illicit drugs such as MDMA (‘ecstacy’) and cocaine. A...
Criminal Lawyers Suspected of “Appalling” Misconduct
It was revealed late last year that a criminal defence barrister in Victoria – referred to as ‘EF’ - was paid as an informant to provide police with information about 386 people that led to their arrest, including her own...
Banking Executives Expected to Face Criminal Charges
Australia may soon join Iceland, the only other country in the world to gaol top banking executives for misconduct. In delivering a scathing final report of the findings of the Royal Commission’s hearings into the finance industry, Commissioner Kenneth Hayne...
