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Keywords: Law

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Whatever happened to 'kindness to strangers'?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 July 2018
    14 Comments

    It has become clear that the brutal Australian treatment of people who seek protection is part of an international punitive policy. This is sometimes attributed to a failure of political leadership. But it may reflect a deeper cultural change in the Western attitude to strangers, seen in migrant and refugee policy, penal policy, international relations and the scope of the rule of law.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal participation before recognition

    • Dani Larkin
    • 09 July 2018
    5 Comments

    We already know most Australians will support a referendum that would recognise Indigenous Australians within the constitution. What we now need is to examine how the constitutional reform procedures can themselves be reformed to support Indigenous political advancement. This includes reforming electoral laws and processes that limit Indigenous political participation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Witness K and foreign interference hypocrisy

    • Lizzie O'Shea
    • 03 July 2018
    10 Comments

    Over this last week, two remarkably contradictory things happened in Canberra. The Attorney-General shepherded through some of the most significant changes to foreign interference laws in recent times. It was also reported that he signed off on charges laid against Witness K, a former officer of ASIS, and his lawyer.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Parents, it's time to spike the spank

    • Barry Gittins
    • 19 June 2018
    4 Comments

    If you are inclined to discount expert opinion from medicos, lawyers and criminologists, you could consider the evidence of your own eyes. Observe the body language around you if a parent hits their kid in public. A hush descends and tension increases. Post-Royal Commission, violence against kids is more and more on the nose.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The fight to make water a human right

    • Cristy Clark
    • 03 May 2018
    2 Comments

    In 2010, the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council recognised a human right to water, guaranteeing access for everyone to 'sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses'. Eight years on, it is past time that Australia incorporated this right into domestic law.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Public servant to the First Australians

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 April 2018
    2 Comments

    'Nothing gave Barrie greater pleasure than to see Aboriginal Australians replacing him and taking their rightful place in the administration of the nation.' Funeral Homily for Barrie Dexter CBE, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 26 April 2018

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Clay feet

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 April 2018
    2 Comments

    Mohandas was a lawyer and a saviour, who took his beatin's and refused to eat; Mahatma won, the Union Jack was flaggin’, then one of his own dropped Gandhi at his feet. Jesus was a rabbi and a dreamer, who talked and stirred and gave up carpentry; Mary cried as spearpoint slid past femur, godson egressed into mystery.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Can white South African farmers be refugees?

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 05 April 2018
    3 Comments

    Recently the Minister for Home Affairs has confirmed he still wants to provide humanitarian visas to 'persecuted' white South African farmers. Regardless of any political issues, there are a number of legal hurdles these farmers could face in order to meet the strict definition of refugee in Australian law.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Don't be the Australia Dutton wants us to be

    • David Holdcroft
    • 26 March 2018
    8 Comments

    There are two laws for how to get out of a hole: the first is to acknowledge you are in one. The second is to stop digging. I suspect Peter Dutton won't care too much for this advice. He is clearly enjoying his job, playing the populist card with great aplomb, including recently in his advocacy for white South African farmers.

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  • RELIGION

    A fine line between tolerance and freedom

    • David Holdcroft
    • 23 March 2018
    16 Comments

    As Australia moves to a post-Christian state, there are numerous tendencies to see limits on the expression of religion as some kind of necessity. But religions remain legitimate voices in the political process and life of the community, and the space that permits the hearing of these voices is one of the marks of a healthy democracy.

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  • PODCAST

    The things we miss about young offenders

    • Podcast
    • 20 March 2018
    1 Comment

    Youth detention seems to only attract attention when there's a crisis. What are we not confronting when it comes to young people who run into the law? How do we advocate for them in a hostile political and media environment? We talk to former Victorian children's commissioner Bernie Geary.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    God in the cell

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 16 March 2018
    2 Comments

    Kane insists God doesn't make mistakes: 'That's what makes him God.' Lena retorts with reference to the Hayflick limit — the naturally occurring limit on the number of times cells can divide. Never mind cancer; the very fact of ageing, she says, comes down to a flaw in our DNA. It's a telling scene, pointing to a scientifically enlightened humanity at odds with its own physiology.

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