The Law
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In simpler times the government ran the country, parliament made the laws, and the courts decided what was illegal. What’s happened over recent decades is a tendency for unelected judges to insert themselves into political decision-making on the assumption that their decisions are superior to those of elected and accountable ministers
August 25, 2024
14 mins
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It is more than a cliche to say that it is better for the guilty to go free than for an innocent person to be convicted. The failure of a prosecution, particularly a difficult prosecution, is not, therefore, necessarily a criticism of those represented the Crown. That is not, however, the way elements of the press saw the sensational acquittal of the original Doctor Death
August 25, 2024
23 mins
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If, like me, you detest as patronising and condescending the ritualistic 'acknowledgements of country', you simply cannot get a senior administrative position in an Australian university—though an unwillingness to sing the national anthem or celebrate Australia Day would probably not hurt you one iota
August 25, 2024
18 mins
The latest
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A population with a large proportion of people dependent on welfare payments, easily cowed by forceful authority, heavily influenced by social media, insufficiently sceptical of the 24-hour news cycle and partly fuddled by alcohol and drugs will not suddenly express prudent values. Those who seek to shape and control know this
August 25, 2024
21 mins
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“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards,” wrote Kierkegaard. Though I don’t agree with him, I understand what he means.
August 24, 2024
11 mins
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Two recent cases ultimately contributed to the decision by the Crown Prosecution office to hold an audit into whether sexual assault cases are being supported by unsatisfactory evidence. These are important decisions, which should help clarify an issue causing endless strife
July 5, 2024
13 mins
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Freedom from unjust incarceration hangs on the character of jurors who decide. Clearly, this was wanting in George Pell’s trial, as has been no less the case in the burlesque of judicial probity that has just pinned a conviction on Donald Trump. Be worried when common sense is banished from the courtroom, very worried indeed
June 9, 2024
6 mins
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We can only speculate, as did Mr Justice Lee, about the state of two young colleagues'minds in the office of their boss after a night of drinks and public 'pashing'. For my money, the judge called it right. The pity is that he didn't address the grey areas of consent, a change of mind and the entire concept of 'date rape'
April 28, 2024
8 mins
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There are compelling reasons to believe that, once enacted, the sort of legislation being pushed by the Australian Human Rights would profoundly erode the rule of law by providing an unaccountable elite with a mechanism to undermine the democratic process. In other words, to force 'woke' biases and those of activist judges on a reluctant or simply disinterested majority
April 17, 2024
11 mins
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If the High Court were to conjure up indigenous sovereignty, would not this be succumbing to the same phenomenon which European peoples struggled to exclude from operation within a civilised state: laws arising from religious belief and imposed upon the general population by priests or, in this case, indigenous elders and activists
March 27, 2024
23 mins