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...
Text Message Killer Sentenced
As previously reported, the case of an American woman who sent several text messages urging her boyfriend to commit suicide made legal history in the US, after she was found guilty of manslaughter. Michelle Carter now 20, was 17 when...
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...
The Dangers of a Blanket Ban on Synthetic Drugs
“The global war on drugs has failed,” the Global Commission on Drug Policy declared on June 2 2011. The panel of world leaders and intellectuals outlined in its report that prohibition has led to increased drug consumption, fostered powerful crime networks...
Sexual Assault: ‘Part of University Life’
Recommendations have been made for an independent investigation into the problem of sexual assaults at Australian universities, after a survey found that students are suffering “unacceptable” rates of victimisation. The findings arise from a landmark survey of 31,000 Australian students,...
Police Back Down on Sniffer Dogs: An Interview with MLC David Shoebridge
NSW police have begun to back off with their drug detection dog operations. The latest figures suggest that the number of searches carried out by police after a positive indication from a sniffer dog has almost halved over the last six years....
‘View the Footage’, Says DPP Solicitor to the Judge
On 11 September 2014, David Mulligan was walking his dog along a street in Alexandria, when another man approached walking two boxer dogs. All of the canines were on a leash. As they got closer, the boxers lunged at Mr Mulligan’s...
Big Tobacco Will Pay for its Day in Court
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered to pay the Australian Government millions of dollars in legal costs, after its failed bid to kill off plain packaging. Australia’s plain packaging tobacco laws are some of the toughest in the world,...
