Law

The Queensland Government absolutely abhors any attack on a person based on their sexual preference and, to be absolutely clear, does not believe that anyone should be able to plead a non-violent homosexual advance as a partial defence for murder.

On this, we agree with Father Paul Kelly, who wrote the piece on The Punch on Wednesday, “An archaic defence that belongs in the dark ages”. However, it is important that we take expert advice. The legal reality is that the Criminal Code has to be drafted carefully.

It must be drafted on what will work to the letter of the law or else other people will seek to exploit it in unforseen circumstances where society would not support it.

Continue reading "We need to be careful so all are equal under the law" »

In July 2008 I was shocked when I received a call from the police telling me that my parish church of Saint Mary’s, in Maryborough, Queensland, was a crime scene.

A man was found dead by parishioners as they arrived for a morning communion liturgy. It was devastating and shocking. I and my parishioners followed the case closely. Very soon, two suspects were caught. Our church security cameras caught the events of the terrible bashing.

I was appalled when it was claimed that an alleged homosexual advance was a reason given for the man being bashed and left lying overnight in the church grounds. I was likewise appalled when I found that an alleged or perceived homosexual advance (of even the most minor gesture or touch) can be used as a partial defence in a murder case in Queensland (and also to an extent in NSW). What reason could justify a bashing that leads to someone’s death?

Continue reading "An archaic defence that belongs in the dark ages" »

In a perfect world, justice would be swift. Right and wrong would be black and white. Good people would feel protected by the law and bad people would go to jail. In reality, crimes like murder and rape are as complicated as they are common. Sound verdicts take time.

So a Sydney judge’s suggestion to do away with juries in these cases, in the interests of efficiency, presents serious risk to the way we understand and trust the law.

Speed in these decisions risks poor judgement. Worse, it can destroy people’s lives.

Continue reading "Don’t hang the jury" »

Have you ever taken a case to court? Are you a small business person who has taken a franchisor or a shopping centre landlord to court? Did your lawyers charge you an arm and a leg? Did your legal and court costs spiral out of control?

The sad reality is that the cost of justice is now unaffordable for many people including small businesses. With lawyers charging anything up to $1,000 plus an hour for legal advice, it’s clear that the average consumer or small business simply cannot afford to go to a lawyer, let alone to court.

There is no shortage of stories where a small business person has been hit with tens of thousands or more of legal costs from their own lawyers. Then there is the potential of having to pay for the other side’s legal costs if the small business person loses.

Continue reading "Law: the ultimate monopoly" »

One of the more striking photographs from the sadly crowded files of modern Australian terrorist coverage came in 2005, when 17 men were arrested for plotting the murder of hundreds of civilians in a bombing campaign against major landmarks in Sydney and Melbourne.

When the men were rounded up by the Australian Federal Police, two of their wives decided to go public. They said their husbands were just normal Aussies, good blokes going about their business who loved Australia and wished no one any harm.

The women were photographed in a normal suburban backyard with a Hills Hoist and a barbecue in the background and were wearing full body-length niqabs, those burqas on steroids, peering through the slots in their medieval outfits to say that they were no different from any other group of Australians. As a public relations exercise this little photo opportunity wasn’t exactly a roaring success.

Continue reading "Have these terrorists reformed? Fingers crossed" »

On the northern tip of Queensland, a young woman from the Philippines worked up to 18 hours a day for a married couple. She looked after their three small children, cleaned their house at night, and worked in their store in the day.

The woman, known in court as Ms G, was repeatedly raped by the husband, threatened, abused and exploited. After numerous appeals, in February 2010 the husband was jailed for slavery offences. The wife was also convicted, although she has since lodged another appeal.

These workers are Jills of all trades: cooking, cleaning, caring for kids, the elderly and the sick. Domestic workers – nannies, maids, au pairs, “the help” - make the lives of Australian families easier. But sometimes the lives of these workers are unbearably hard.

Continue reading "Slavery is alive and well in our own backyard" »

Gambling is a serious social problem with horrendous consequences for the vulnerable. I grew up in suburban Brisbane and my most vivid childhood memory of my step father is when he violently ransacked my brother’s school bag for $1.50 and said, “F—k Dean, he can go without.”

He took the boy’s lunch money, slammed the door, and went down to the TAB to place a bet on another horse destined to lose. I’ve never looked at the man the same way since.

Such is the addictive power of gambling that a father would rather see his own son go hungry so he can satisfy his hunger to gamble. Gambling addiction is a disease. It consumes, controls, and destroys. It’s a monster. I know because I’ve seen it. In the long-running sitcom, The Simpsons, Homer Simpson even gave a name to the addictive power of gambling when Marge got hooked on the pokies at George Burns’ casino. He called it “Gamblor”.

Continue reading "The gambling beast is greedy and shows no mercy" »

There is something enticing about the idea of life in the foreign service, with the promise of exotic travel, dealings and double-dealings with diplomats from the dodgiest regimes, cocktails on the lawn at lavish ambassadorial residences.

We have been reminded this week, however, that a very large part of the role of the foreign service is to lend a helping hand to ratbags who get themselves into strife overseas, and believe that it’s the job of the Government to get them out of trouble.

You would imagine that any Australian diplomat posted to a place such as Phuket would spend most of their time arranging ambulances for guys called Wazza who ploughed their Vespa into the back of a tuktuk after 14 bottles of Singha, safe in the knowledge that our Government can save them from their own stupidity.

Continue reading "Help me Kevin 747. You’re my only hope!" »

It’s easy to defend free speech when you support a speaker’s views. It’s harder when you oppose them. Now, after the ruling in the Bolt case, free speech champions – even those who dislike and disagree with Andrew Bolt – should be speaking out.

They line up, to the right and to the left, the self-appointed arbiters of political and societal fashion, the media commentariat. From their pulp pulpits they lay down how we ordinary Australians should think. Their words today are the gospels of tomorrow, regurgitated in dozens of accents and emphases throughout workplaces, bars and coffee shops as well and re-broadcast by phone, email and Twitter.

The best known is Alan Jones, motor mouth of the airwaves, syndicated nationally on commercial radio, hard-core conservative. But there are a dozen or two others, in newspapers and on radio and TV, of various political shades. Most of the time, the harsh pronouncements wash us by, grating and irritating in equal measure on either side of public debate. But occasionally they hit the mark, roughly on target: a surge of public opinion forces focused governments to respond to what appears to be the will of the people. 

Continue reading "Bolt case shows need for more free speech, not less" »

What’s more cruel and unusual? Banning same-sex couples from getting hitched or pressuring them to do it at warp speeds (thereby depriving them of the lengthy fights over floral arrangements and weird chair furniture that are the birthright of every straight dyad)?

When gay marriage became legal in New York last weekend, the race was on for queer twosomes to make honest gays and lesbians of themselves.

It was a case of on your marks, get set, MARRY.

Continue reading "Supporting gay marriage just makes cents" »

How can you tell the difference between a newly-elected government and a party that’s been in power for nearly a decade?

A newly-elected government is happy to admit that things could be done better.

A classic case in point this week was the new Liberal Government in NSW switching off 38 speed cameras deemed to have no real safety benefit.

Continue reading "Anti-speeding schemes need some acceleration" »

From the parliamentary precinct across Lake Burley Griffin to this correspondent’s home takes six or seven minutes by car - max.

But that was easily long enough on Wednesday night to highlight a massive contrast between the grindingly dull and scripted performance of the Australian House of Representatives and the more dynamic, and frankly more honest British equivalent on which ours is modelled.

Thanks to the storm over phone hacking and political entanglements associated with the now defunct News of the World, Question Time in the mother of Westminster parliaments was broadcast on the ABC’s News Radio.

Continue reading "Britain can teach us how to keep our House in order" »

Boasting everything from alleged molestation, a mistress, a suicide attempt, a chlorophyll/chloroform Google mix-up, a concocted character “Zanny the Nanny” right through to fake employment at Universal Studios and at the very heart one very dead toddler, the Casey Anthony trial had it all.

On July 5, the jury, after deliberating for a mere handful of hours, found Casey Anthony not guilty.

Not quite the same as saying she’s innocent. Nevertheless, the jury’s verdict came from the leftest of left field. And it was on that not guilty pronouncement that the story got really interesting.

Continue reading "Casey Anthony and the thirst for crocodile tears" »

Please allow me to reply to Geoff Russell’s specific claims about Kosher slaughter in “You won’t be stunned to hear that slaughter is brutal”. 

He says, “There is no shortage of scientific proof that religious (Halal or Kosher) slaughter involves more suffering than proper stunning.” 

Actually, Geoff, in the case of Kosher slaughter there is NO such proof. On the contrary, there is strong scientific evidence that Kosher killing is humane and does not cause the animal distress or undue pain. 

Continue reading "Brutal slaughter just ain’t Kosher" »

Waleed Aly is a well-rounded kind of chap. A lecturer in politics at Monash Uni and a former member of the executive committee of the Islamic Council of Victoria, he is also said to wield a mean axe in his rock, funk and jazz band.

Of Egyptian heritage, the Melbourne born-and-raised Aly has the gift of talking straight. And on the issue of the impending new NSW police powers to order drivers and suspects to remove their veils, he has a simple message: it was inevitable.

“This is the inevitable response to the scenario we saw a few weeks ago,” he told The Punch today, in what might cheekily be termed a “thinly-veiled” reference to the Carnita Matthews case.

Continue reading "Australia is still a long way from France" »

The case of magistrate Jennifer Betts, who explained to the NSW Parliament Wednesday how a mental illness was central to the behaviour that has put her job on the line, is a cautionary tale for workplaces everywhere.

Mental health issues are as prevalent in the workplace as their complexities are poorly understood by senior management.

Ms Betts, 55, has asked MPs not to discriminate against her because of a depressive illness. Only parliament can dismiss an appointed magistrate.

Continue reading "Magistrate’s mental health issue a cautionary tale" »

Justice is “the principle that punishment should be proportionate to the offence”. Well, that’s a dictionary definition anyway.

For many innocent victims of dangerous driving in South Australia, justice would seem to be a myth. In March last year, John Swindle was walking his dog when killed by a 17-year-old speeding along Saint Bernards Road, Magill. Under the effects of alcohol and cannabis, the P-plater panicked and fled.

In February, the Adelaide Youth Court spared the boy a jail term, instead handing down a suspended sentence, a $1,000 fine and a 10-year licence ban.

Continue reading "At long last, justice may come to hoons who kill" »

As we embark on another busy holiday period on our roads, I’m reminded of a tragic story.

It was late at night. A car ran a red light and an innocent family was in trouble.

As a police officer, I was one of the first on the scene. The father had died on impact in the car. The mother – who was given CPR by ambulance officers – also died at the scene.

Continue reading "This year, let’s not accept road tolls as normal" »

Apparently one in four teenagers experiment with drugs.  Though you’ve got to wonder whether the real hellraisers are dutifully completing questionnaires or participating in whatever research it is from which these statistics are derived.

For young people involved in the advertising industry the figure increases from one in four to three in four. Of course that second figure is bollocks – or more precisely, I made it up and have no evidence for it. 

In any event, in the vast majority of cases, the one in four have their fun, push their boundaries and get away with it. Now they’re grown up: They’ve got mortgages, business cards, ABNS, golf clubs, lawnmowers, children.  And their bongs, pills or powders are safely consigned to the annals of history.

Continue reading "Will you tell your kids you experimented with drugs?" »

Julian Assange repeatedly said that is the car accidents not the bus accidents of war that have resulted in the massive numbers of civilian casualties revealed by the Afghanistan and Iraq War Diaries in 2010.

Now it’s the media circus around the comparatively pedestrian accident of his legal situation that is drawing global attention away from Wikileaks and the revelations it has made.

Malcolm Turnbull was right when he said that Prime Minister Julia Gillard should not have jumped on what he called a “media frenzy” in describing Assange as a criminal when it had not been established that he broke Australian law.

Continue reading "Where’s Wikileaks in the celebrity circus?" »

The name Julian Assange has become synonymous with a number of freedoms. Freedom of information, freedom of expression, freedom of the press - Assange and many of his supporters champion the right of human beings to communicate with each other without governmental intervention.

In his public statements, Assange appears to reject outright the legitimacy of restrictions by governments on their people’s freedoms to speak and to access information. In March 2008, he called on his volunteers to defend absolute freedom: “it is time to sum the great freedoms of every nation and not subtract them. It is time for the world as an international collective of communicating peoples to arise and say ‘here I am’”.

Arising and saying “here I am” is something Assange is good at. We saw this most recently in his surprise video-stoush with Julia Gillard on last night’s Q&A. The televised appearance formed part of the ongoing struggle by the “Cypherpunk Revolutionary” to liberate individual freedoms from the stranglehold of the state.

Continue reading "Is Julian Assange betraying his own hacker ideals?" »

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been confronted by concerned members of the Labor Right over legislation that would restrict the ability of the Commonwealth to overturn territory laws.

Their fear is that it would allow the territories to introduce their own laws on same-sex marriage and euthanasia, and the Prime Minister has been forced to delay her support for the bill.  Wayne Swan this morning has said the concerns are “legitimate.”  It’s a statement of the obvious that Julia Gillard is squeezed from the left by her coalition with the Greens, and from the right by the Labor party’s right wing concerned it will lose touch with increasingly angry base.

Perhaps what is less clear is what the territories’ legislation will actually allow.  Legally it doesn’t actually allow gay marriage or euthanasia, but there is a divergence between legal and political realities which would open up the door to their legalisation.

Continue reading "Gillard’s gay marriage and euthanasia minefield" »

They called it Tangentopoli. ‘Tangenti’ is one of the Italian words for ‘bribes’, and Tangentopoli summed up the idea that Italian politics had become a game of Monopoly fuelled by kickbacks.

I spent a lot of time in Italy in the 90s, starting with a story for ‘Foreign Correspondent’ in April 1993. Tangentopoli had convulsed the country, with magistrates uncovering vast swathes of corruption involving most of the leading political figures of the previous three decades.

My first encounter with the new reality came in a town in Abruzzo called Chieti. It was a sort of magnified microcosm of Italy, because almost every councillor on the local government had been arrested for corruption.

Continue reading "How Berlusconi blew Italy’s chance to come clean" »

It is not fashionable for a member of Gen Y like myself to care about equal pay for women. So the Australian Services Union equal remuneration case currently before Fair Work Australia should perhaps hold no great interest for me. Equal pay was won in 1969 and equal pay for work of equal value in 1972, long before I was born.

I am apparently of the post-feminist era, and most of my friends have been to university, perhaps even more of the women than the men. At 26, I have watched the boys I went to school with complete engineering and IT degrees and the girls finish teaching, social work or arts.

Perhaps this observation should not bother me. I do not doubt that my friends are excellent at their chosen professions. The problem I have with this scenario is the gap in their respective salaries.

Continue reading "The equal pay case will affect all our interests" »

It doesn’t matter if it’s making babies as a commercial surrogate or a10-year-old kid stitching together basketball shoes in Vietnam, exploitation in any commercial transaction is wrong and should be punished.

But you don’t ban basketball shoes. And I don’t understand why Australians have been banned from using commercial surrogates overseas.

Last year NSW passed its Surrogacy Act which, when it comes into effect, will make pursuing commercial surrogacy overseas a criminal act.

Continue reading "Are we creating a generation of “cash in hand” mums?" »

In the last 48 hours only one thing is definite about the Julian Assange sex assault case – the hyperbole surrounding it has nothing to do with his guilt or innocence.

The question of his culpability has been lost amid the spiralling, competing narratives about sex, the media, Sweden’s hyper-liberal legal system and even the CIA, that are all part of the fight to make sense of this case.

This story isn’t about a sex crime – it’s become about the culture of 24-hour news cycles, war, supposed US imperialism, and the renegade elements of the digiterati who seem willing to wreak havoc in the name of a man they see as a hero.

Continue reading "Assange has prompted a troubling double standard" »

Many Australians will be welcoming yesterday’s High Court decision in the case of The State of South Australia v. Totani & Another HCA 39 (2010). This is the second legal defeat of this unjust and draconian piece of South Australian legislation.

While most Australians will see the decision as a big win for the bike clubs against the money-wasting, selfish and bloody-minded South Australian Labor Government, from the United Motorcycle Council NSW stand-point it‘s just one more step in the right direction. We have to continue to fight until these hastily enacted and unworkable laws are defeated in our state as well.

There’s no doubt though that we are off to a very promising start. Mike Rann backed himself in the South Australian Supreme Court and lost, then with significant egg on his face took his war to the High Court using taxpayer funds only to lose there as well.

Continue reading "High Court ruling just the beginning for bikies rights" »

Getting ready for my appearance before the High Court in Canberra this week I did some eccentric research. I watched The Castle for the first time.

And whether your name is Daryl or Derryn it is pretty daunting walking up those steps to the towering glass façade of the High Court building in Canberra. With life imitating art, some of the media gang and camera crews who played extras in The Castle were there again in real life for my High Court battle.

That’s where the similarity ended. The battler fighting to retain his home on the grounds that a man’s home is his castle had a suburban solicitor and a QC played by Bud Tingwell against a couple of high-powered lawyers.

Continue reading "I’d rather be treated like a criminal than protect them" »

Rule 1 - Santa never asks children whether they have been naughty or nice. These days all kids are nice (apparently…)

Rule 2 - Santa needs to regulate his ho-ho-hos to a moderate level so as to not scare small children. Therefore, the large bellowing ‘HO-HO-HO’ is a no-no.

Rule 3 – Santa needs to keep his hands visible at all times, especially when photos are taken. This rule is legally in Santa’s best (legal) interests.

Continue reading "The sad side of modern Santa" »

In a tearful face-off with the media last month, the heavily tattooed and visibly distraught Kristi Abrahams denied her involvement in the disappearance of her six-year-old daughter Keisha, last seen by her mother when she tucked her into bed on the night of 31 July.

“It’s disgusting what they’re saying,” she said. “They (the public) need to stop judging me. They don’t know me.”

The latest in a long line of women who have been questioned in regard to the death of their own child Abrahams was clearly feeling the weight of public opinion. What she didn’t seem to realise, was that while her points may have been fair, raising them won’t make an ounce of difference.

Continue reading "Should we take this mother’s grief with a grain of salt?" »

Christian Democrat MLC Fred Nile addressed NSW Parliament yesterday, condemning the Adoption Amendment (Same-Sex Couples) Bill on the grounds it would threaten the fundamental rights of children.

“Is this really an ideological issue or homosexuals demanding yet another human right?” For Mr. Nile, the debate is easily reduced to either ideological issues or gay rights. But where do children fit into the equation?

We can talk about ‘the best interests of children’ and many in this debate claim to, but why are these claims often made in polemical rather than empirical terms. That is, maybe we should look to actual families rather than our ‘common sense’ fantasy of the ideal family.

Continue reading "Sexuality and religion should be no barrier to a family" »

An unassuming bank manager who went missing in North Queensland is alleged to have made “full and frank admissions” to police about a missing $3 million from the community bank in which he worked.

The disappearance and subsequent arrest of bank manager Colin Carleton is a kind of crime story more fascinating than a heist pulled off by a gang of hardened criminals. The Courier Mail reports that Carelton is widely described as “quiet, down-to-earth, family man”.

Carleton’s alleged theft only came to light in the last few months, and is thought have taken place over a decade. He was due to meet with private investigators looking at financial irregularities at his Bendigo Community Bank when he disappeared on July 13, last seen going for a trail bike ride in the Herberton Ranges.

Continue reading "Election-Free Zone: the man who wasn’t there" »

For reasons beyond their control there are children, indeed babies, who find themselves in circumstances where the state is their legal guardian. It is not the choice of the child nor is it a new phenomenon. Seeing them as particularly vulnerable, societies have taken great care to look after such children, especially if they have neither a mother nor father.

Without a biological mother or father or suitable family member or relative, the state has deemed it in the best interest of the child to be raised by a woman and a man, a mother and a father in a permanent relationship.

New South Wales has had responsible government since 1856 - over 150 years. Over that period, governments of all persuasions have acknowledged and supported the general proposition that a child’s best interest is served when that child is raised by a mother and a father. This has been seen, correctly in my view, as a valid principle that has guided our collective decision-making with respect to protecting the wellbeing of children. The principle is underpinned by that profound bond that exists between a child and a mother and a father; a bond that is intrinsically known and understood by all cultures, down the ages for as long as anybody can remember.

Continue reading "No law change should allow gay adoption in NSW" »

While small businesses and franchisees are the engine room of the economy, it’s disappointing that only lip service is currently being paid federally to their concerns regarding anti-competitive and unconscionable conduct by larger businesses.

Sadly, the Federal Government, through its small business Minister Craig Emerson, is failing to fix the growing gaps in our laws dealing with anti-competitive mergers and unconscionable conduct. These gaps and the Federal Government’s ongoing failure to address them are costing small businesses and consumers dearly.

Instead, we are seeing window dressing federally in the lead up to the election. We have been seeing a flurry of proposed “amendments” that merely give the impression of doing “something” without actually fixing the problems.

Continue reading "Somebody needs to stand up and protect small business" »

Police officers are called a lot of names, but when the NSW Premier Kristina Keneally this week called us ‘wowsers’ for launching a campaign to close pubs at 3am, we were left scratching our heads.

Maybe something got lost in the translation to ocker for our Premier, but according to my research

Governments keep secrets sometimes. We all accept that. But you might be surprised to discover just how ingrained – ridiculously so, in some cases – the concept of secrecy is in Australia’s federal laws.

Disclosing classified security information to a foreign spy is an imprisonable offence.

But so is the unauthorised disclosure of subsidies paid to Australian dairy producers. Or details of the operation of the dental benefits scheme.

Continue reading "A chance to tackle the culture of secrecy in government" »

How much do we really care about whales? How much are the Australian people and its Government really willing to put on the line in our relationship with Japan to stop the killing of our sonar speaking cousins?

Tony Abbott has gone some way to answering this question by saying he doesn’t think it’s worth taking Japan to the International Court of Justice or International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. In Abbott’s summation it’s just not worth pissing off the Japanese and risking a legal fall-out with our number one trade partner.

“We don’t like whaling. We would like the Japanese to stop,” he told Macquarie Radio yesterday. “On the other hand, we don’t want to needlessly antagonise our most important trading partner, a fellow democracy, an ally.”

Continue reading "How much do we actually care about whales?" »

What really defines these three aspects of our society: Its race or colour? Peace or violence? Street crime or racial crime?

You might have thought that race, peace and street crime are more commonly seen in our society. People generally do. But take a second to think about your answers. 

To my mind, every person who lives in Australia should be given a ‘fair go’, an ideal that many Australians aim to hold. Australia was built by immigrants, and the influence of immigrants stretches broadly throughout society.

Continue reading "We need to face up to the reality of race based crime" »

* Warning - this post contains offensive language (actually, it depends a bit on your definition of “offensive”).

F***, f***, f***, f***, f*** and f*** it again. I have just agreed to write a 500 word article over the weekend. What a f****** pain in the arse. I should have said I was too f***** busy and they should get some other stupid f*** to do it.

Gosh, I hope I haven’t offended anyone. Have I used any offensive language? So what is offensive language anyway? You could go to any pub in Sydney and hear language much worse than I’ve used.

But you better not speak like that in front of a police man or woman. Especially if you are being difficult anyway and they are looking for some way to get you under their control.

Continue reading "Heading out tomorrow night - watch your mouth*" »

SHY Keenan (corr) doesn’t like to call herself a victim nor does she like the term survivor. Both imply a resolution to an issue.

But from the age of four she was systematically raped, beaten, degraded, filmed then, at the age of 10, sold to a gang of dockworkers in the UK for four more years of abuse.

In 2000 more than 25 years after the abuse, she armed herself with a small camera lent by the BBC and filmed one of her attackers boasting about his actions. Two years later she watched in satisfaction from the back of Liverpool Crown Court as three of her attackers, including a stepfather, were handed jail terms.

Continue reading "Abused as a child, with an angry message to Australia" »

The ability of Prime Minister Rudd and his Government to “talk tough” has never been in question.  It’s the one thing Labor actually do well.

Remember that first heady year in office when they declared a war on virtually everything – from childhood obesity and whaling, to banker’s salaries, unemployment and even the global financial crisis itself?
Conveniently, the rhetoric has never had to bear resemblance to reality. 

Continue reading "Tough on crime is an empty slogan for ALP" »

Did I read the story correctly? Now police can’t even fine a person for drunken behaviour in public places? Time to get serious with the idiots who drink to excess, befoul public spaces, wreck the ‘quiet enjoyment’ of others, and divert our accident and emergency teams…

Here’s the basic principle – if your drunkenness results in police officers, or ambulance officers, or hospital teams, having to deal with you, you pay the full cost of this intervention – call it the ‘abuser pays’ principle.

Now I’d be in favour of bringing back the charge of public drunkenness, but I suspect that the paperwork involved these days for police officers in processing someone charged with an offence deters them from doing so, and we probably don’t have the cell space available.

Continue reading "Abuser pays – make drunken idiots pay for their mayhem" »

The kid’s “parents” - his “parents” are his mum and her current boyfriend - don’t give a stuff. He hates school, and teachers are relieved when he truants. He will not likely complete the school certificate.

He’s never learnt to control his tongue, and his is the discourse of the gutter. He’s already been before the children’s court a couple of times, and is not scared by the police – in fact one of his highs is the foot chase after a bit of rock throwing.

His security and identity are found in his small group of mates. He can look forward to a life, to quote Hobbes, which is poor, brutish and nasty. Unfortunately for the tax payer, it will not be short.

Continue reading "Failing kids, failing the community" »

You aren’t allowed to smack your partner, so why should you be allowed to smack your child?

It also makes no sense to me to declare war on thugs in the street and yet still allow parents to hit their kids.

This is particularly the case when it’s done with a blunt wooden object rather than just a hand.

Continue reading "Wooden spooning is assault, no back chat" »

With the controversy in Melbourne of a mother who was brought before police and still could be charged with assualt for using wooden spoon on her daughter, we at the Punch thought we’d share with you wooden spooning techniques used in our families. Were you subjected to the wooden spoon? Is it acceptable or based on an outdated notion or corporal punishment?

Growing up in family of nine children discipline was not merely an issue for parents at one point in my family we had our own militia and counter-intelligence organisation. 

I’m actually surprised that we all survived some of those punch ups that would quickly escalate into riots putting those Nigerian crime gangs to shame. 

Continue reading "Close encounters with the wooden spoon" »

A good bit of campaign journalism was launched in Melbourne yesterday by the Sunday Herald Sun in throwing open the debate on whether the drink driving limit should be dropped to .02.

.

The Sunday reported that 39 people had been killed in Victoria alone in accidents involving drivers under the .005 mark in just the last five years.

Victoria’s Deputy Police Commissioner has tentatively backed the debate, if not quite advocating an actual change to .02

Continue reading "Should we cut the drink driving limit to 0.02?" »

Tegan Leach has become the unwitting “it” girl for abortion reform in Queensland. Unwitting, because who would have knowingly decided to sign up for the sort of exposure that has been thrust on this Cairns teenager, all because she made a choice thousands of women have made before her to abort a baby she knew she was not ready to care for.

However, the charge she faces is that she allegedly did not do it through the proper channels.

Tegan is expected to sell her story exclusively to a women’s magazine when the dust has finally settled on this case and she is legally able to speak freely outside of court, for hers is a case that has opened a hornet’s nest of debate about the rights or wrongs of do-it-yourself drug-induced abortions in Australia and women’s ability to access them.

Continue reading "The story that has put abortion back in the dock" »

A quick flick through some of the side effects of RU-486 makes for sober reading. These range from stomach cramps, through nausea, vomiting to ectopic pregnancies and severe internal bleeding.

Quite clearly, it is a serious drug that should be treated with some caution and strictly only under medical supervision.

If RU-486 weren’t an abortion drug there wouldn’t be any controversy. No-one would question the prosecution of two people for procuring and administering another pharmaceutical with side effects as serious as those of RU-486. But it was never about the drug. It was about access to abortion.

Continue reading "Abortion drugs are dangerous, just think about it" »

I’m trying to think of an intro that won’t make me sound like a Dirty Harry-style vigilante. But I can’t so I’ll just admit it – if serial paedophile Dennis Ferguson moved into my suburb I’d be out on the street with the rest of the neighbours demanding he be kicked out immediately, and asking why he was ever let out of jail in the first place.

With one exception, which I’ll deal with further down, all the wise-headed counsel against mob hysteria is coming from people who haven’t just discovered that their new next-door neighbour kidnapped and raped three children.

Or that he’s been charged with other aberrant or disturbing conduct since then too. And is still quite obviously as mad as a meat axe, a genuinely scary-looking weirdo who would probably be safer and happier if he were still in custody, rather than popping up in an endless series of new locations across our continent, on every occasion confronted by parents who become frightened and angry when they realise who’s just moved in.

Continue reading "In defence of the angry mob" »

It is safe to assume that Australia has the only high court in the world to have an important case of constitutional and military law decided over an incident of “teabagging.”

Following the High Court’s decision in Lane v Morrison on the illegitimacy of the Australian Military Court, the practice of “teabagging” will be forever etched in the legal lexicon of this country.

While Big Brother’s turkeyslapping incident introduced us to genital based attempts at humour taking hold of the national agenda, turkeyslapping was only brought up in Parliament while teabagging made it all the way to the High Court - and won.

Continue reading "The day teabagging dipped its way into legal history" »

Canberra just got a whole lot more boring.

With their Jedi Council-like wisdom, the ACT Government has banned the social evil that is fireworks from private sale and use in the capital.

While this decision kills off one of the few uniquely Canberran outlets of fun, it’s a pretty interesting ban from a Government that presides over laws that have enabled nobody to be convicted of murder in the last 11 years.

Continue reading "Murder’s okay, just don’t let off crackers in the ACT" »

The present political consensus among the major parties against permitting and recognising same sex marriages is so obviously an intellectual surrender to the religious right that one looks for a single phrase rhetorical demolition of this anti-gay pretence of a position that would show it in all of its hypocrisy.

I do not, for a moment, believe that those politicians (including speakers at the recent Labor Party National Conference) who go on about protecting the “sanctity of marriage” believe the nonsense they espouse. I also fail to believe that they believe that a majority of the Australian people support the continued refusal to recognise single sex marriages.

I believe that the political imperative is to avoid the anger of that noisy minority, the religious right, which, itself, is hardly representative of most people of a religious persuasion in Australia. The political imperative also concerns the possible swing vote of the Family First in the Senate.

Continue reading "The ‘sanctity of marriage’ argument is nonsense" »

Her voice was clear, eloquent and well-mannered. “I’d like to have the AVO cancelled, please,” she told the clerk confidently.

They see a lot, staff of local court registries and maybe this was nothing new. Curious, I turned to see who was speaking, not entirely sure of what I expected to see. Noting an appearance to match the voice - blonde, well-groomed and aged in her early-to-mid 20s - the young woman went on.

“You see, I was really drunk the other night, and I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

Continue reading "When an AVO is just a tactic in a lovers’ quarrel" »

IT’S so tempting to see misfortune as a money spinner. Slipped on a grape at the supermarket? Sue!

Stressed out by an overbearing boss? Claim! Hurt your neck in a car accident? Collect!

But here’s something to consider before you speed dial a lawyer – a compensation payout may make life worse.

Continue reading "Hurt? Suing over it may hinder your road to recovery" »

While the National Conference of the Labor Party has been protecting the sanctity of other people’s marriages (a topic for another day, perhaps), the House of Lords in the UK has been grappling with the complexities of helping one’s loved one board the plane to Switzerland. The case is called R (on the application of Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions.

Under the Suicide Act 1961, suicide is not illegal in England. However, the piece of legislation makes it a criminal offence to assist another to take their own life.

But assisted suicide is not an offence in Switzerland.

Continue reading "How will Australia deal with assisted suicide?" »

The humiliation of Marcus Einfeld is now complete. The NSW Court of Appeal struck him off this week, concurring with the argument of the NSW Bar Association that he is not a “fit and proper person” to practice as a lawyer ever again.

Representing the Bar Association, Barrister Christine Adamson SC said Einfeld’s speeding case showed he considered himself to be “above the law” and displayed “extraordinary hubris” in thinking he could use his “skill and ingenuity” as a respected lawyer of some 40 years to trick a court into cancelling a speeding fine.

A $77 speeding fine.The public reveled in it, as Einfeld for many years had been one of the greatest offenders of the deep-seated Australian belief that being massively up yourself is close on the worst crime a person can commit.

Continue reading "How the Marcus Einfeld story was almost not written" »

One of the first of the sadly limited number of court cases arising from the death of Dianne Brimble on a Pacific Sky cruise came to an end this week.

Its conclusion achieved nothing, other than to reinforce the public belief in the cavernous divide between community standards and the sentencing practices of the judiciary.

While there are other cases on the horizon which cannot legally be the subject of discussion here, the unsatisfactory conclusion of this week’s case involving one of the “Brimble Eight”, the execrable Leo Silvestri, has raised the worst case scenario surrounding the shocking death of this young woman.

Namely that the plodding nature of justice and the pernickety application of the law – all these things may conspire to ensure that no-one faces any genuine punishment over that fact that a woman was left for dead in a drugged stupor on the cold linoleum floor of a cheap cruise ship.

Continue reading "The evil men do and the courts that ignore it" »

WHO’D be a business owner in Australia?

With the way the Federal Government up-ends the apple cart every few months you’d have to have a thick skin, and a thick wallet, to want to have a crack at increasing the nation’s prosperity.

One of my mates runs a solar energy company - an occupation unrivalled in its capacity to guarantee you endless sleepless nights, wondering when the Federal Government will deliver its next windfall, followed by a swift kick in the guts.

Continue reading "Why Australian business needs to think on its feet" »

Like Peter denying Jesus after the arrest, as dawn was breaking and the cock was getting ready to crow, Australia is given a third chance to acknowledge its inconvenient associations. Will we, like Peter, deny any association with or responsibility with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detainees in Guantanamo? We probably will. We denied our own citizens in Guantanamo until the opinion polls started to turn dirty.

Australia, through the support of the Howard government for the actions of the Bush Administration’s war on terror, has as much responsibility for the Uighurs, who were found to have been wrongly detained, as does the US and the Bush Administration.

We should accept the Uighurs as refugees and permanent residents. If they are returned to China, they face certain persecution and, possibly, death. To do otherwise would display a flaw in our national character.

Continue reading "Haneef lawyer: Guantanamo inmates should come here" »

BRISBANE: Today’s news that AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty is stepping down in September provides an important opportunity for the Commonwealth Government to correct the accumulated mistakes of the past.

As one of Dr Haneef’s lawyers, my professional focus has been upon his legal rights. The AFP, under Keelty’s leadership, was responsible for many of the mistakes and failures of judgment which so impacted adversely on Dr Haneef and his family.

Dr Haneef was in detention for 25 days before the charge against him was dropped. It took another six months and two court cases to remove the threat to his passport and visa rights. Throughout all of this, the AFP, under Mr Keelty, refused to admit its mistakes and continued to attack Dr Haneef’s reputation. It was not until just before Christmas, last year, with the release of the Clarke Report, that someone in an official position was prepared to say, definitively, that Dr Haneef had done nothing wrong.

The impact of the actions of the AFP on the lives of Dr Haneef and his family has been devastating. However, the Clarke Report reveals even more alarming concerns about the AFP which the government must address. It showed the AFP exhibited severe organisational problems under Mr Keelty.

Continue reading "Keelty’s departure a chance to fix AFP: Haneef lawyer" »