Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Author: Adam Fletcher

The ALRC’s Freedoms Inquiry – Time for a ‘War’ on Rights Encroachments?

Last week the Attorney-General tabled the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC’s) Report Traditional Rights and Freedoms – Encroachments by Commonwealth Laws. This Final Report from the ‘Freedoms Inquiry’ follows on from an Interim Report produced in August last year. You can read our full thoughts on that report here, but in summary we questioned the…

March 8, 2016
Government seeks to ramp up terror laws yet again

By Adam Fletcher Australia’s ever-expanding anti-terror laws were in the spotlight again last week when the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (JCIS) tabled its report on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2015. It recommended the Bill be passed, subject to a long list of amendments (20 in all). The report gives…

February 24, 2016
Do we need a new Human Rights Commissioner? Yes, but it’s complicated…

Adam Fletcher Tim Wilson has just announced his resignation as human rights commissioner to seek Liberal Party preselection for the federal seat of Goldstein. Wilson resigned from the party in 2013 to work at the Australian Human Rights Commission and is now heading back into the political fold. So the question now is: does Australia…

February 15, 2016
Silly Season Blog Post: Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ makes the CEDAW Shame List

By Adam Fletcher This year I spent many hours in the car commuting, so I had a lot of time to listen to the radio. The problem is I have an unfortunate habit (so my partner tells me) of actually listening to the lyrics. To the ears of a human rights lawyer, there were…

December 22, 2015
Andrew Forrest’s Healthy Welfare Card – A BasicsCard with added Human Rights?

By Adam Fletcher Last year mining magnate Andrew Forrest was commissioned by the Australian Government to conduct a review of Indigenous jobs and training. One of Forrest’s recommendations was a ‘Healthy Welfare Card,’ an idea which might be more familiar to readers in the form of the previous Government’s ‘BasicsCard’ (perhaps a new name was…

October 6, 2015
Second Time’s the Charm – 2015 Review of the Victorian Charter

By Adam Fletcher Late last month, Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula tabled the Report from the second review of the State’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Charter). Thankfully, unlike the previous scheduled review in 2011 (conducted by a parliamentary committee), this one does not recommend the Charter be gutted. On the contrary, it…

October 5, 2015