• Judge • QC • DPP •
D.P.P. “Lost the Plot” Say Police When a relatively senior police officer accuses the DPP of having “lost the plot”, you have to wonder exactly what "plot" he is talking about. For the age-old prosecutorial system of the police investigating and charging while the prosecutors prosecute, seems to have slipped the mind of this detective. He must surely ...
It is said that freedom of speech doesn’t protect speech you like; it protects speech you don’t like. The freedom includes the freedom to hold opinions and ideas without interference by public authority. Without free speech, no other rights can prosper: if it is silenced, one cannot claim, assert or defend any other right. However that doesn’t ...
Fun and Games in State Parliament Some of you might know that Australia recently competed in and won, the World T20 cricket championship. They fielded a team who could play by the rules and, of course, obey the umpire’s decisions. Not so with team SA Liberals. They not only refuse to walk when given out by the ...
A huge thank you to all who recently answered the call to get behind Real Change SA. We easily passed the number of signatures required by the Electoral Commission to register our party and we are now waiting their approval. The form that was provided unfortunately did not have provision for you to include your email ...
ESCAPING JUSTICE So we’ve had the Respect@Work: Sexual Harrassment National Inquiry Report (2020) and for over a year, Attorney General Porter has done absolutely nothing to implement any of the recommendations. We’ve had thousands of women (and a few men) march in our streets in anger, frustration and desperation in the earnest hope that those same streets ...
There is some dispute as to whether Emperor Nero was actually fiddling while Rome burned down around him.What is far more certain is that our health department is on fire and not a single politician has run for the hoses. The unspeakable tragedy of the recent death of four infants in government care, is the latest ...
So what have we learned? Has justice been served or, in other words was the trial fair? Fairness and legal procedure are not always coterminous. The loudest voices concern themselves exclusively with fairness for an accused – perhaps properly so. But does anyone ask is it fair for the victim? While an accused can sit comfortably behind his well ...
Once again the grandiose banner of “Your Right To Know” has been trotted out to justify a newspaper’s dishonourable exercise of self-interest. Under the populist guise of doing a public service, the press repeats the fallacious argument that the fact that an individual has been charged with a sexual offence is “hidden” from the public. The ...
Interesting to contemplate what the election outcome might have been if all parties had been required by law to tell the truth while campaigning. And at last we can now dispense with the fiction that Australian elections are about national policies and simply search for a Mr or Mrs Popularity to run for PM. Morrison fills ...
John Howard’s disgraceful comments that Pell’s convictions for raping and molesting children doesn’t change his opinion of Pell at all, are clearly the ramblings of an individual who is struggling for relevance and has lost touch with reality. For Tony Abbott to express similar support, once again confirms that he has lost the capacity, if he ...