Government Is Likely Tracking Young Activists: An Interview With Dr Stanley Shanapinda
Alarm bells rang for digital rights advocates in August 2014, when at a joint press conference, then prime minister Tony Abbott and attorney general George Brandis announced that the government was introducing a metadata retention regime to counter the threat...
Truth-Telling Before Treaty-Making: An Interview With Ken Canning
In late May, fourteen Australian organisations came out in support of the constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament. This was the proposal contained within the Referendum Council’s May 2017 Statement from the Heart. Amongst the organisations that issued the response of...
Preventing Evictions: An Interview With The First Nations Homelessness Project’s Jennifer Kaeshagen
Western Australia has the highest rate of public housing evictions in the country. Over the period July 2016 to April 2018, 1,242 households were ordered to vacate their public housing property, with extreme poverty being the major driver behind these...
Recognition Is a Diversion From Treaty: An Interview With Lidia Thorpe
Recently appointed Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt announced at the National Press Club on 10 July that he’s proposing the country hold a referendum on constitutional change for First Nations peoples during the current parliamentary term. The debate around constitutional...
Legalise Drugs to Reduce Violent Crime: An Interview With LEAP’s Greg Denham
One of the unintended consequences of the war on drugs listed in the 2011 Global Commission on Drug Policy report is “the growth of a ‘huge criminal black market’, financed by the risk-escalated profits of supplying international demand for illicit...
Decriminalise Queensland Sex Work: An Interview With Respect’s Janelle Fawkes
Amnesty International adopted a sex work decriminalisation policy back in 2016. It was a move that formally recognised the high rates of human rights abuses in the industry, as well as that many of the harms associated with sex work...
“Legalise and License the Supply of Drugs”: An Interview With Chris Daw QC
Criminal defence barrister Chris Daw QC is an outspoken advocate of drug legalisation. The 1912 International Opium Convention was the first transnational drug control treaty. Born out of concerns over opium use in China, the document was signed in the...
A Voice for Progressive Reform: An Interview With Labor MLC Rose Jackson
During her June maiden speech in NSW parliament, newly-incumbent Labor MLC Rose Jackson reminded those gathered that this state was once a world leader in harm reduction, which was exemplified by the establishment of the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre...
Stop the City to Stop Adani: An Interview With NUS’ Lily Campbell
The Queensland Department of Environment and Science signed off on the final government approval that Adani needed prior to beginning work on its Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. And the week following, the Indian mining giant started construction...
A Creeping Surveillance State: An Interview With the Human Rights Law Centre’s Emily Howie
The ABC has launched a legal challenge in the Federal Court against the validity of the search warrant that AFP agents used to raid its Sydney office on 5 June. The national broadcaster claims the warrant breaches the implied freedom...
