What is Extortion?
The Federal Court’s judgment in 2020 had found Centrelink’s ‘robodebt system’ to be unlawful, and ordered the federal government to pay the legal costs of a social security recipient who challenged a debt notice that was issued to her in...
Could NSW Police Officers Be Getting Off on Strip Searches?
It’s commonplace these days to hear the ever-increasing practice of strip searching the public likened to a form of state-sponsored sexual assault. And the thing with this sort of violation is perpetrators get off on it. State police watchdog the...
Officers Who Report Police Misconduct Must Be Protected, Court Rules
In late February 2010, the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) received a public interest disclosure letter relating to the conduct of two police officers that then Queensland police sergeant Rick Flori asserted had been involved in official misconduct. The letter...
Activists Imprisoned Over Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
Rising climate crisis awareness has been evidenced of late by the increasing numbers turning up on the streets demanding change. And it’s been fairly obvious from the start, that fossil-fuel addled politicians were going to respond with harsher penalties, rather...
Police Ordered to Pay for Endangering Domestic Violence Victim
In a win for domestic violence victims and others who have had their private information illegally accessed by police officers, the Queensland Police Service (QPS) has been ordered to pay compensation to Julie (not her real name), after an officer...
Iraqi Protesters Risk All for a Unified, Diverse and Secular State
Young Iraqi protesters have been taking to the streets in Baghdad since October. They’ve been demanding employment opportunities, an end to widespread economic disparity, adequate services and infrastructure, but further, a general overhaul of a corrupt governing system. The brutal...
The Repeal of Medevac Laws Mean More Power to Peter Dutton
In the past few years, what goes on behind the closed doors of Parliament has become a source of consternation for many Australians who are witnessing a slow undermining of democracy. This week Parliament reached a new low when a...
The Violence of the Frontier Wars Has Never Really Ended
Two police officers entered the home of a First Nations family in the remote NT community of Yuendumu in early November. One of them allegedly shot an unarmed 19-year-old Warlpiri man. This incident is now classed as one of the...
Suspicious Circumstances: Detained Eddie Murray Was Not in a State to Hang Himself
Eddie Murray was found dead, hanging in a cell at Wee Waa police station at around 3.00 pm on 12 June 1981. The 21-year-old Gamilaraay man had been detained by officers about an hour earlier for public drunkenness, under now...
George Pell’s High Court Appeal: Last Throw of the Dice
The High Court of Australia will hear George Pell’s application for ‘special leave’ (permission) to appeal, which if granted will provide him with the last throw of the dice to have his convictions for historical child sexual offences overturned. High...
