• Judge • QC • DPP •
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 ...
The appalling Ristevski sentence highlights a real problem in our criminal justice system and serious consideration should be given to amending aspects of our criminal procedure. A person accused of a crime who pleads guilty, is often given the benefit of a reduction in sentence as consideration for his guilty plea. It is dependent upon ...
It’s a task akin to herding cats. Getting all State and Territory governments to agree on an Australian energy policy while aligning climate change sceptics with those demanding higher emission reduction targets, seems to be beyond the capacity of our current crop of decision makers. While the “no sniping, no undermining” Tony Abbott and his disciples ...
For better or worse the involvement of the British Empire in the settling of Australia has left us with many of the trappings of British, and particularly English, life. We have benefited as a nation from a heritage of parliamentary democracy, our legal system and, of course, cricket. However we have had good cause to question the ...
For the increasingly diminishing number of citizens who still can manage any interest in the poor excuse we have for politics in this State, the looming elections arouse some disconcerting questions. Should we vote for a party where the best that can be said for it is that it has experience in government? It’s dismal record ...