Vatican Accuses Australian Bishop of Sexual Offences
An independent report commissioned by the Vatican has labelled a Catholic Bishop from Western Australia a ‘sexual predator’, accusing him of sexually assaulting four Indigenous youths and grooming dozens of others. Vatican commissioned investigation The Vatican confirmed it commissioned the...
The Legal Defence of Necessity In New South Wales
Four seamen are stranded on a life raft after their ship capsizes. After seven days without food and five without water, the situation gets desperate and a sinister decision is made. The victim? The teenage cabin boy, who is killed...
There’s a Desperate Need to Focus on Rehabilitation in Australian Prisons
A new programme introduced this year at Cooma Correctional Centre in in Southern New South Wales is matching inmates with homeless, unwanted dogs, and the early results are exceptionally positive. The programme is a collaboration between the prison and Snowy...
How Can I Make a Statutory Declaration in New South Wales?
A statutory declaration is a legal document containing a written statement that is sworn, or affirmed and declared, before an authorised person such as a Justice of the Peace, legal practitioner or notary public and backed by the force of...
Russell Brand: Next on the #MeToo Sexual Abuser Hitlist
Following the well-publicised convictions in the United States of Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Bill Cosby - the last of which was subsequently overturned - the latest in a series of sexual assault allegations to come in the...
The NSW Drug Summit: Where Other Labor Leaders Triumphed, Minns Fears to Tread
A key objective of the 2023 NSW Labor policy platform stated that “a top priority” for the party on election would be to hold a state drug summit, so the experts can “advise on a wide variety of policy challenges”. This would...
Police Powers to Deal With Intoxicated Persons in New South Wales
Victoria says it will formally decriminalise public drunkenness on the 7th of November 2023, which would leave Queensland as the only jurisdiction in Australia where public intoxication remains a criminal offence. New South Wales formally decriminalised public drunkenness way back...
Can Obtaining Another’s Consent Be Used as a Murder Defence?
Just a few weeks short of Halloween in 1996, 35-year-old Sharon Lopatka left her home in Maryland USA, leaving her husband a note which simply read: If my body is never retrieved, don’t worry: know that I’m at peace Lopatka...
Outrage Grows Over NSW Government’s Backflip on Drug Law Reform
NSW premier Chris Minns last week shattered the drug law reform agenda he’d been spruiking pre-election. The Labor leader has pushed his drug summit back to the end of the term and said he has “no mandate” for decriminalising drugs...
‘Sextortion’ Can Amount to a Criminal Offence Across Australia
According to recent media reports, there has been a rise of attempts as Australia at ‘sexual extortion’, abbreviated to ‘sextortion’, with social media sites being used to target and blackmail victims, many of whom are young men concerned about compromising...
