NSW Government Finally Agrees to Trial Pill Testing at Music Festivals
The Minns government announced on Thursday, 19 December, that it “will commence a music festival-based pill testing trial in early 2025”, with the aim of reducing “risks and harms associated with illicit drug use”, and with this, the decade-long refusal...
NSW Police Officer in Unmarked Car Chases 12-Year-Old Gomeroi Boy on Foot
At around 8 pm on Friday 13 December 2024, an unmarked police car was caught on CCTV footage chasing a 12-year-old Gomeroi boy, who was on foot, down Chester Street in Moree in relation to a recent break and enter...
“A Genuinely Appalling Trifecta of Cruelty”: Albanese Targets Refugees for Political Gain
The Albanese government jammed a trio of migration bills through federal parliament on the last sitting day of the year, which have implications for tens of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant communities. And taken together, these laws that...
“Effectively a Death Sentence”: Shoebridge Visits Refugees Stranded in PNG by Australia
Sixty-odd refugees that arrived in Australian waters by boat about 10 years ago have been stranded in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. The majority of these men are the forgotten remnants of hundreds of people who were...
Criminal Offences Relating to Doxxing in Australia are Broader than Required
On the last sitting day of parliament in 2024, the Albanese government enacted two new federal criminal offences to outlaw doxxing, which, while they had already been under contemplation, were brought forward by Australian attorney general Mark Dreyfus at the...
The Antisemitism Envoy’s Call to Ban Antigenocide Protests in Cities is Undemocratic
“What we have experienced every single week in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne are these demonstrations and marches, and having insults hurtled at Jews and at Israel and anyone who supports Israel,” Australia’s antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal told SBS...
Should a Special Licence Be Required to Drive an ‘Ultra High-Powered Vehicle’?
On 1 December 2024, holders of South Australian driver’s licences were required to hold a special U-class licence for vehicles classed as ‘ultra high-powered vehicles’ (or UHPVs). Failing to hold such a licence when driving an UHPV amounts to a...
NSW Fails to Embrace Harm Minimisation, Preferring to Continue the Futile War on Drugs
This week’s New South Wales Drug Summit gave many people hope that our state would finally move away from the failed war on drugs and embrace drug minimisation measures such as decriminalisation and pill testing. But drug law reform experts...
NSW Government Proposes to Extend Anti-Protest Regime to “Places of Worship”
Just when it appeared that NSW premier Chris Minns had exhausted all possible avenues to further expand the draconian NSW antiprotest regime, the top Labor minister has pulled yet another rabbit out of his hat, and this time the potential...
Five Eyes Nations Collectively Warn of Rising Online Youth Radicalisation
The intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the Five Eyes nations released a joint communique late last week, in which these bodies warn about the rising threat of youth radicalisation, and in particular “minors who support, plan or undertake terrorist...
