‘Silenced No More’: New Laws Prohibit the Silencing of Sexual Harassment
California has introduced a new law designed to bring all types of workplace harassment ‘out of the shadows’. Laws were introduced in California in 2019 which prevented employers from making employees sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), also known as confidentiality agreements,...
Queensland Businesses Vow Not to Discriminate Against the Unvaccinated
The Open 4 Everyone Facebook group has been set up for Queensland businesses which refuse to discriminate against unvaccinated customers. The group has quickly accumulated nearly 40,000 members, as the sunshine State gears up to implement two sets of health...
Chomsky Agrees With Keating and Toohey on the Fallacy of the China Threat
“The worst case is the increasing provocative actions towards China,” MIT Professor Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now host Amy Goodman this week, in response to a question about the Biden administration’s foreign policy. “By now, there is constant talk about...
Morrison Moves to Enshrine the Right to Be a Religious Bigot in Law
The exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 (RD Bill) was released on Tuesday. And compared to its first two iterations, it’s watered down. Folau’s clause has been dropped, and so too has the provision that permitted health practitioners...
What is the Legal Defence of Honest Opinion in Defamation Cases?
Federal Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been awarded $35,000 in damages after winning his defamation lawsuit against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi. The former Minister for Home Affairs commenced legal proceedings against Mr Bazzi in the Federal Court of Australia over...
The Climate Crisis Is an Extraordinary Emergency, XR Activist Jane Morton Argues in Court
The 2018 Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene paper first put forth the Hothouse Earth scenario, which outlines that global warming is likely leading to a “planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much...
Affirmative Sexual Consent Laws Passed in New South Wales
The New South Wales parliament passed laws this week, which mean that those who plan to have sexual relations are required to take active steps to ensure the other person is a willing participant. Welcomed by victims’ groups The laws...
“Strip Searches Were Never Meant to Be Routine”: RLC’s Sam Lee on the Splendour Class Action
The protocols stipulating when police can carry out strip searches are set out in a piece of legislation commonly known as the LEPRA. Section 31 of this Act requires that when outside of a police station “the seriousness and urgency...
Bail Laws and the Presumption of Innocence in New South Wales
New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott is pressing for a review of bail laws after coming on board with radio ‘shock jock’ Ray Hadley to slam the grant of bail to a man accused of sexual assault. The 35-year...
Climate Activist Imprisoned Over Successful Blockading of Newcastle Coal Port
The heat is turning up on all climate fronts. Keeping below 1.5°C on preindustrial levels is looking increasingly unlikely, while political leaders globally are growing more cunning at presenting their inaction as movement, and climate activists are becoming far more...
