By Adam McBeth Following Tuesday’s budget, much has been made of the government’s deferral (yet again) of the commitment to increase spending on official development assistance (or overseas aid) to 0.5% of gross national income until 2017-18. This amounts to a cut of $1.9 billion from previously forecast aid levels over the period to June […]
May 15, 2013
Hurting the most vulnerable: the Disability Discrimination Act does not apply to immigration law
By Adam Fletcher I have already written on this blog about religious exemptions to the various federal anti‑discrimination laws, but there is another exemption which gets less coverage than it deserves. Section 52 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) says that the Act does not ‘affect discriminatory provisions in,’ or ‘render unlawful anything that […]
April 29, 2013
Circumventing the system: no, not the asylum seekers, the government
By Azadeh Dastyari On 9 April 2013, 66 Sri Lankan asylum seekers sailed into Geraldton harbour in Western Australia. Their arrival was met with great alarm by politicians and the media. It had been a long time since any asylum seekers had reached the mainland, and none had ever made it so far south. The […]
April 26, 2013
Shell Has No Case to Answer on Nigeria
Joanna Kyriakakis On Thursday last week, the United States Supreme Court delivered a judgment that rewrites the rules on international human rights litigations. In Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum the Court decided that an idiosyncratic US law dating from 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), does not apply to events that occur in the territories […]
April 22, 2013
Sex Discrimination Act amendments – crucial, but flawed
By Adam Fletcher Last month the Government introduced a Bill amending the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) to prohibit discrimination on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status, as well as participation in a same‑sex relationship. It is currently the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry, the Castan Centre’s submission to […]
April 18, 2013
Thermal coal exports killing our future
Guest Blogger: David Ritter A moment has been reached in our national history where the prosperity and wellbeing of Australia are at threat. Radical plans to expand coal exports endanger our most precious places including the Great Barrier Reef, and stand to make a major contribution to tipping climate change out of control. But in […]
April 16, 2013
Children’s Ground: A model that could end intergenerational poverty in Australia
By Claerwen O’Hara, Castan Centre In-House Intern Short and long videos of our event with Children’s Ground can be found at the bottom of this article. Children’s Ground is an innovative organisation that works with children in communities that are devastated by intergenerational poverty and inequity. While the model has been inspired and reinforced by […]
April 3, 2013
Jeopardising access to justice for people experiencing mental illness
Guest Blogger: Catherine Leslie, Mental Health Legal Centre For many people with mental health issues in Australia, infringements on human rights and inequality are everyday lived experiences through forced psychiatric treatment and detention and restrictions on their ability to manage their own affairs. The many social and economic disadvantages they encounter mean that free independent […]
March 25, 2013
Rainbows in the Court Room: How the Law Can Protect Our Environment
Short and long videos of our event with David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia, can be found at the bottom of this article. By Asher Hirsch By the end of the century, scientists predict that without serious policy changes the world’s temperature will rise by four degrees Celsius. According to the World Bank, the effects […]
March 21, 2013
Refugee tribunal a check against the culture of no
By Adam McBeth The Australian, on March 18, 2013, reported (paywall) on Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) figures that showed a remarkable 74 per cent success rate in the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) since July 2012 among people who arrived by boat. That figure is inflated somewhat by omitting cases that were withdrawn before a hearing […]
May 17, 2013
0 Comments