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Keywords: Laws

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Florida shooting and the cult of individuality

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 February 2018
    6 Comments

    The mass murderous gun, even in the hands of a disgruntled teenager, remains a manifestation that will linger in the face of legislative apathy and constitutional fervour. A civilised society may not require such guns, but US civilisation expresses a frontier brutality that refuses to abandon them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Legislation is no substitute for respect

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 December 2017
    11 Comments

    The government has appointed a panel to report what legislation may be necessary to safeguard religious rights in light of changes to marriage laws. Given the conflictual nature of public conversation, it may be helpful to step back and to reflect on human rights more generally.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The inherent rationality of gun laws and nuclear disarmament

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 October 2017
    5 Comments

    It is heartening that the Nobel Peace Prize went to an Australian initiated group pressing for nuclear disarmament. It is disheartening, though unsurprising, that the Australian government did not celebrate its achievement. Down under, deterrence is dogma.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Immigration and the baby shortfall

    • Sean Cowan
    • 25 August 2017
    8 Comments

    It seems like immigration hasn’t been seen in a positive light of late. Control over immigration has been a central theme in the successful Brexit bid in the United Kingdom. America elected a president who suggests tougher laws and screening for immigrants. Syrian refugees were welcomed by the thousands into Canada (46,700 in 2016 alone to be exact) not without considerable controversy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Using ignorance to know if mandatory drug testing laws are sound

    • Daniel Fleming
    • 14 August 2017
    16 Comments

    Sometimes ignorance can be a virtue in political decision-making. The great 20th century political philosopher John Rawls had a thought experiment called the “Veil of Ignorance” which he suggested should be applied to any political decision to test whether or not it is just. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Citizenship changes make a new enemy of the migrant

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 24 April 2017
    16 Comments

    Australia has long had a successful migration program, and the country's economic success is proof of this. So when Turnbull calls a press conference to impart the news that 'membership of the Australian family is a privilege and should be afforded to those who support our values, respect our laws and want to work hard by integrating and contributing to an even better Australia', he is making a redundant point. The vast majority of migrants and new citizens already do this.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Rule of law' furore reveals real thugs

    • Fatima Measham
    • 16 March 2017
    18 Comments

    A new round of anti-union chest-thumping is underway, following ACTU secretary Sally McManus' remarks that 'I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair ... But when it's unjust, I don't think there's a problem with breaking it.' If any other person had said this in the context of civil and political rights, the words might not be so incendiary. Laws are not as neutral as we imagine them to be. They are constructed by individuals of immense power, with their own set of values and connections.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Watching the 'mixed bag' Senate cross bench at work

    • John Warhurst
    • 05 December 2016
    4 Comments

    To say the Senate cross bench is a mixed bag is an understatement. All that is really lacking is an extreme left senator unrestrained by Labor/Green discipline. Amid all the controversy I've grown comfortable with their place in the Senate and appreciative of their collective presence in an otherwise party dominated chamber. They each have their flaws, but they make a generally positive contribution to public discussion and to ultimate legislative outcomes. We are better off for their presence.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    How to relieve poverty in India without endangering the planet

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 December 2016
    9 Comments

    Neither India nor Australia can go it alone when confronting a global issue such as climate change. India cannot disregard the effects on other nations when it adopts laws and policies for alleviating the poverty of the poorest of the poor. Australia cannot disregard the effects on other nations when it considers restricting the availability of resources for export such as coal which might help provide electricity for the world's poorest citizens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stand with heroic Gillian Triggs

    • Moira Rayner
    • 25 October 2016
    55 Comments

    This damnable pursuit of Gillian Triggs must stop at once. Triggs is an outstanding independent statutory office holder, one of the many appointed by governments over decades to remind them of Australia's international human rights obligations and to oversee the functions of laws to mitigate social wrongs such as age, race, disability and sex discrimination in public arenas. But no government likes watchdogs on the moral and legal limits on its power.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    New Canadian and US laws revive euthanasia debate

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 May 2016
    30 Comments

    Once the state legislates to permit assistance with the suicide of a dying, suffering, mentally competent person, the door could well be opened to those who agitate a right to kill and not just a liberty to assist with suicide, and that door could be pushed open onto a class of patients which ultimately will include those who are not dying at all That door is now wide open in Belgium and the Netherlands, while he Canadian Parliament is trying to place appropriate limits. I'm for keeping that door firmly shut.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Depp dog stunt distracts from real ecological violence

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 21 April 2016
    15 Comments

    In the face of the increasing environmental destruction legally occurring within Australia's borders, chasing actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard for bringing their undeclared dogs into Australia in breach of biosecurity laws comes across as a curated media stunt. Like everywhere in the world, Australian environmental law is at a crossroads. On one hand government regulations that permit violence against habitat increase, and on the other, legal challenges against this destruction rise.

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