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The ACT Parliament yesterday passed legislation that will make possession of cannabis legal, provided it is a small amount for personal use. The laws will come into effect on 31 January 2020. The change makes the ACT the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise personal use of cannabis, following 11 US states and numerous countries including…

In August it was revealed that the Queensland government had granted exclusive possession of tracts of land in the Galilee Basin to Indian mining company Adani. The decision had the effect of extinguishing the native title rights of the Wangan and Jagalingo people, who may now be forcibly expelled from their traditional lands. An Indigenous…

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced that the government will convene a Joint Parliamentary Committee of both the House and Senate to conduct an enquiry into the family law system. The family law system has already been subject to two extensive reviews in the last two years. The Terms of Reference that have been…

Whilst Australia has legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race and disability, it does not currently have anti-discrimination laws protecting religious freedom. In recent weeks, liberal MPs have been calling for a Religious Discrimination Act to be passed, following the same model as existing anti-discrimination legislation, which forbids discrimination in employment and…

There is a long history of Australian states and territories criminalising public drunkenness. In various forms, laws have existed making it an offence to be intoxicated in public for the last 200 years. The laws have long been criticised for being unevenly enforced, with a disproportionate number of Aboriginal people being arrested for behaviour that…

The Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner reportedly today approached Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk about changing Queensland’s laws relating to public assemblies such as political protests. The move comes after climate change protests organised by international activist network Extinction Rebellion caused chaos in the city last month. It also follows another announcement last week that police would…

On 21 August 2019, the Victorian Supreme Court handed down its decision in Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against findings of guilt for child sex offences that occurred in Melbourne in the 1990s. The court dismissed Pell’s appeal by a majority of two to one, with Justice Weinberg dissenting. Pell will continue to serve his sentence…

Hundreds of people yesterday protested outside the Sydney office of Home Affairs against the continuing use of Temporary Protection Visas for people found to be genuine refugees. Temporary Protection Visas, which have been used since the 1990s, have long been criticised for the uncertainty they bring to refugees who have been through trauma and want…

On 9 August 2019, the New South Wales Supreme Court sentenced Mustafa Dirani to imprisonment for 28 years with a non-parole period of 21 years for conspiracy to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act. Dirani had been found guilty after a trial by jury. The conspiracy in which Durani had been involved ended…

The way strip searches are conducted by the New South Wales police has repeatedly become the subject of controversy in the last few years. Today it has come to light that police in NSW routinely use body-worn cameras to film a strip search, raising concerns about privacy. The revelation comes in the wake of reports…

The Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 has been introduced to the New South Wales parliament by independent MP Alex Greenwich and will be debated later this month. The bill seeks to decriminalise abortion procedures and to introduce provisions that would regulate terminations as a medical procedure. The bill has widespread support in the Legislative…

In May 2019, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia decided an application to exclude video recordings made in secret from evidence in a parenting matter. The secret recordings had been made by the mother in the matter when the father was attending her home for hand overs of the children. There were also two audio…

In March 2019, the Full Court of the Family Court decided an application in the parenting matter of Mahoney v Dieter. The mother in the matter sought the variation of orders made by the Family Court Division of the District Court of New Zealand on the basis that there had been a change of circumstances…

Under legislative changes proposed by the Andrews government, Victorians will be able to change the sex recorded on birth certificates without the need to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. The Labor government on Tuesday introduced a bill to allow individuals to nominate a gender to be listed on their birth certificate. This may be male, female…

On the 6th June 2019 the NT Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne delivered her independent monitoring reports on the two youth detention centres in the Territory. The reports found numerous shortcomings in the facilities and the procedures followed when dealing with youths who were at risk, separated or in lock-down. They also found the provision of…

On 19 June 2019, the High Court handed down its decision in the matter of Masson v Parsons. The case concerned whether a man engaged as a sperm donor was a parent within the meaning of the Family Law Act. Mr Masson had donated sperm to a lesbian mother on the understanding that he would…

While police and judicial officers are responsible for prosecuting and sentencing individuals for criminal offences, sometimes people in positions of authority are themselves charged with perverting the course of justice. This commonly arises in circumstances that amount to an abuse of power. A recent case from the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dealt with a…

The Queensland government announced in March that Queensland’s two privately operated prisons will be brought back under government control. The decision came in the wake of a Crime and Corruption Commission report on corruption in corrective services facilities. The report, released in December 2018, found that corruption was rife in private prisons and that the…

Acclaimed author Fiona Wright was last week refused entry onto a Qantas flight From Sydney to Alice Springs, resulting in her missing the NT Writers’ Festival. Wright claims the decision was ‘out and out discrimination’ against her as a person who suffers from a mental illness and requires the help of an assistance dog. She…

The operation of Queensland laws around sexual assaults has come under scrutiny in recent months, with calls emerging for the state to be brought into line with other Australian jurisdictions by abolishing the defence of honest mistake. Queensland lawyer and author and Bri Lee, whose memoir Eggshell Skull documents her experience of sexual assault as…