In the George Pell appeal, discrepancies and uncertainties in the evidence of Pell’s sole accuser were treated as proof of his courage and credibility under duress. But pro-Pell witnesses with their own uncertainties found the court dismissed everything they said

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At the Garma Festival, Noel Pearson lavished praise on former Chief Justice Murray Gleeson’s call for the recognition of an Aboriginal Voice in the Constitution. Pearson said the judge had demolished the conservative case put by the Institute of Public Affairs and journalist Andrew Bolt that “race has no place” in the Constitution. Keith Windschuttle disagrees

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The real goal of the Voice was always more than simply allowing indigenous people representation to the Australian parliament — which they have had, anyway, almost continuously since 1967 through successive government advisory boards. It is to further the 'unfinished business' that will never end

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Those of us who still believe the legal system's traditions help preserve us from barbarism can only hope the B-grade spectacle we have witnessed so many times in the persecution of George Pell is an aberration, not a portent of some squalid future

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Those of us who still believe the legal system's traditions help preserve us from barbarism can only hope the B-grade spectacle we have witnessed so many times in the persecution of George Pell is an aberration, not a portent of some squalid future

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Why was the second verdict by the jury in the trials of George Pell so different from the first? If the jury in both cases was a fair sample of the Australian public, and the evidence heard by both juries was identical, you would expect the outcomes to be fairly similar. Like the first, the […]

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The worst moment in Julia Gillard’s life must have come in 1996 when she was involved in a corruption scandal and forced to resign as a partner in Melbourne law firm Slater & Gordon. Her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, had been diverting funds, which employers thought they were paying to the Australian Workers Union, into […]

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How to explain the 10-2 vote for acquittal at George Pell's first trial and the 12-0 verdict to convict at the second? Look to the nation's front pages sixteen days before that second proceeding began. 'We believe you' was the meme as Morrison and Shorten apologised to the claimants. Could there have been a more effective way to taint the second jury's perceptions?

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Preceded by media slanders and abetted by leaks from police, lawyers and activists, the process that convicted George Pell set a precedent that signals his fate will be far more than a one-off misadventure. In the current climate of sexual politics, it is bound to be a model for the persecution of many others

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“Billy” was a 10-year-old student at St. Jerome School in 1998, and an altar boy just like his older brother before him. A sweet, gentle kid with boyish good looks, Billy was outgoing and well-liked. One morning, after serving Mass, Rev. Charles Engelhardt caught Billy in the church sacristy sipping leftover wine. Rather than get […]

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