Movement on a Federal Human Rights Act, With Ability to Seek Remedy
The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions placed on Australian society sparked a huge national debate on whether governments across the continent had the power to encroach upon the rights of citizens and residents in imposing extraordinary measures, such as statewide lockdowns. Many...
Report Condemns Heavy-Handed Response to COVID and Calls for Fines to Be Dropped
A Redfern Legal Centre-led challenge to three COVID fines issued by NSW police, resulted in the NSW Supreme Court finding in November that the infringement notices were invalid as they weren’t in accord with the Fines Act 1996 (NSW), which requires the...
Sovereign Citizens: A Burgeoning Breed of Domestic Terrorist
Last week’s massacre at Wieambilla in the Queensland Western Downs region reveals that the schism that developed in Australian society during the pandemic lockdown period has produced a small but dangerous group of new extremist actors. This outcome was similar...
NSW Government Under Pressure to Withdraw All Remaining COVID Fines
Earlier this year, three plaintiffs, Rohan Pank, Brenden Beame and and Teal Els, filed challenges in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against fines issued to them for allegedly failing to comply with a public health order. The challenges...
Half of All COVID Fines Revoked, as NSW Supreme Court Rules Three Invalid
In a statement a week prior to the Redfern Legal Centre challenge to COVID fines issued by NSW police taking place, acting principal solicitor Sam Lee said, the case was about more than just two fines, rather it spoke to “the need...
NZ Delegation Puts Australian Deportation Abuses on UN Torture Agenda
A delegation of high-level Australian officials appeared before the UN Committee Against Torture last week to participate in the nation’s four yearly review on how its tracking in terms of adherence to the 1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT), as well...
World Leaders Sign Declaration to Introduce COVID Vaccine Passports
At this year’s G20 Summit in Indonesia, the twenty participating world leaders signed a declaration to introduce vaccine passports for their respective jurisdictions, with the stated intention of creating a global verification system to facilitate safe international travel. What is...
The Workplace Offence of Engaging in Discriminatory Conduct for a Prohibited Reason in NSW
Australia’s most famous airline is in Downing Centre District Court this week, facing criminal charges after it allegedly dismissed a worker for raising concerns about contracting Covid-19 from aircraft arriving from China at the start of the pandemic. Qantas has...
Tibetans Storm Delhi’s Chinese Embassy Over COVID Abuses: An Interview With TYC’s Tenzin Dhonden
Seventy three members of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) stormed the Chinese Embassy in the Indian capital of Delhi on 1 October to demand that Beijing stop using its Zero COVID policy as a means to further repress those living in occupied...
‘Covid Dictator’s’ Days in Politics are Done
New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard is set to retire from politics after three decades in Parliament. While Mr Hazzard was instrumental in facilitating the decriminalisation of abortion in New South Wales in 2019, it is perhaps the years...
