The Mandarin covered our President Pauline Wright's National Press Club of Australia address, commenting that restoring faith in politicians and government agencies will require a Federal ICAC with powers akin to a royal commission. 

It quoted from Ms Wright's speech:

"It undermines confidence in all levels of government and its agencies — they’re fundamental to the delivery of citizens’ expectations and aspirations, for Australia to be a fair, prosperous and ethical society,”

It also examined Pauline's view that the bar for an investigation to begin is too high, undermining the likelihood of evidence unveiling during the investigation process. 

Our President Pauline Wright spoke to the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on the 1st of December 2021 arguing for a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, NSWCCL committee member and ex President Nicholas Cowdery QC argues that 'Nothing “done to” Berejiklian was a disgrace – she is a witness in the investigation and has been treated appropriately.' and 'The ICAC’s powers have not been abused'.

Read the full article:  Morrison's rant against ICAC needs a good fact-check

Freedom of Information laws are crucial to ensuring the transparency and accountability of policy and government decision making by giving Australians access to the information they need to participate fully in democratic processes.

However, systemic deficiencies in the federal FOI regime, including the existence of broad exceptions under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) and persistent underfunding of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), have eroded the effectiveness of the FOI regime, shielding politicians from public scrutiny and undermining public confidence in the integrity of government and public institutions.

Update - a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into the Bills has now been announced.

The third version

Last week the Government introduced the third version of its contentious Religious Discrimination Bill into Parliament. NSWCCL has always supported religious freedom and supports the protection of persons from discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs, but for the third time we are unable to support the Government’s Bill.

Despite some improvements (e.g. the removal of the Israel Folau provision) we remain strenuously opposed to core elements of the proposed legislation - which are in some cases worse than in the previous bills.

NSWCCL opposes the Government’s proposed changes to electoral legislation that would require registered voters to show ID prior to casting their vote at the polling booth on election day.

Following a three year hiatus, the Meeting of Attorneys-General (MAG) has supported a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. While the announcement was timely with Universal Children’s Day last Saturday it remains inadequate. MAG’s announcement can only be seen as an acknowledgement of the need to raise the age in order to properly respect the rights of children but does not explain the rationale for their slated proposal which will continue to see children incarcerated and punished contrary to their human rights

The ABC considered a 12-month jail sentence given to a 22-year-old climate activist over anti-coal protests in the NSW hunter region. 

Our President Pauline Wright commented that the penalty seemed harsh:

"If the law means that people participating in peaceful protest end up in jail then that law is objectionable in a liberal democracy where we have a right to peacefully protest," she said.

"When people take actions that put themselves or others into danger then that is one thing, but imposing a criminal sanction on that kind of activity isn't necessarily the way to go."

Read the full article: Prison sentence for climate activist over Newcastle anti-coal protest divides community ABC News 24 Nov '21

ABC Breakfast with Scott Levi spoke to our President Pauline Wright about legislative changes in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety's Final Report. He raised concerns over on immunity from litigation over restrictive practices (the subject of much evidence at the royal commission) given to aged care providers. 

The Green Left Weekly talks to our President Pauline Wright about the increase in mass surveillance of the Australian population since the turn of the century, noting that Australia is the only liberal democracy without a specific Federal Bill protecting citizens' rights. 

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, new terror offences have facilitated the ever-growing surveillance state.

Pauline outlines the increase from zero to 92 pieces of legislation that, together, are 'Orwellian' in their reach.

“The argument has been that those extreme powers that we do have enhance Australia’s national security, but we doubt that some of those extreme powers have been effective, even though they fundamentally impact on our rights.”

Read the full article: The Australian surveillance state is very real. But it’s no product of the ‘plandemic’ Green Left Weekly 23 Nov '21

Writing in The Guardian, our President Pauline Wright considers the impact of recent events on our civil liberties.

"if there is one thing the pandemic has done, it is to illustrate how precious and how fragile our civil liberties really are. People have seen that governments or their departments can impose severe restrictions on us at the stroke of a pen. We have been made subject to curfews, punitive fines and uneven policing. Our borders have been closed, Australians abroad have been denied the fundamental right of every citizen to return and we haven’t been able to travel interstate to see loved ones, receive medical treatment or attend to urgent business without exemptions, which have proved as hard to obtain (for most of us) as hens’ teeth."

Sydney Criminal Lawyers talked to our President Pauline Wright about the increase in draconian legislation since 9/11, as well as during the pandemic, and the need for a Bill of Rights.

"Australia has no bill of rights, and that has allowed the Australian government to bring in legislation that it would not have been able to have enacted in other nations, like the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, where they have bills of rights or human rights acts," said Pauline.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald about the ugly debate in Victoria, our Vice President Josh Pallas argues that the proposed legislation would be an improvement on the laws already in place both there and here in NSW.

"Which is the great pity of the breakdown in the debate in Victoria. Of itself, that debate about the way Victorians should be governed through the pandemic is a win for democracy. It wouldn’t happen in autocratic states. It presented an opportunity for parliamentarians, citizens and stakeholders to reconsider very powerful legislation when the issues were fresh in everyone’s mind."

Read the full article: Victoria’s supposedly autocratic pandemic laws would be better than NSW’s

On 18 November NSWCCL made a submission to the Inquiry into the Provisions of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021.

We encourage NSW residents to let the Inquiry know how you feel via its online questionnaire (closing date Monday 22 November).

NSWCCL strongly supports the Bill, which has very strong public support and is long overdue. Death may be inevitable, but it need not be cruel. 

On 1 November 2021, NSWCCL made a submission to the Inquiry into the Public Interest Disclosures Bill 2021. The Bill re-writes protection for public officials who blow the whistle on wrongdoing, following a 2017 Joint Parliamentary Committee review that recommended a complete rewrite of the existing legislation.

NSWCCL endorses the Bill, which we note adopts nearly all the recommendations from the 2017 report, while noting some shortcomings.

The recent deletion of freedom of information requests relating to Christian Porter’s ‘blind trust’ by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has highlighted important gaps in Australia's freedom of information regime.

Under long-standing freedom of information laws, pending requests can be deleted when a minister leaves their role, creating a loophole for scandal-plagued ministers to avoid scrutiny.

In response to a story on ABC news we wrote to ask the Immigration Minister Alex Hawke why the adopted son of two recognised refugees from Afghanistan had not been granted a visa, when the couple and their natural children have been.

More information: Read our letter to Alex Hawke

The Office of the Information Commissioner has ordered US company Clearview to stop collecting photos taken in Australia and remove those in its collection as they were ruled to have breached privacy rules. The company had offered a free trial to police to access its database of millions of photos - assembled by scraping facebook and other publicly available websites without consent from anyone.

The company suggests the data is governed by US, rather than Australian law, as it is stored in the US.

Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck spoke to NSWCCL Treasurer Stephen Blanks, who said:

"This is really a move towards a surveillance state. the idea that just because you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about is just a false view. The risks are real."

"There is a  real problem if it can escape the laws of any particular country by forum shopping."

"Innocent people will be subject to unfair investigations as a result of being misidentified by these databases."

Fingerprints, iris, palm and voice recognition are all more accurate than facial recognition; people who are female, black and aged 18-30 are 34% more likely to be subject to misidentification than fair skinned males. 

Stephen calls for a moratorium on the technology, commenting that it is "racing ahead of regulation" with government agencies like police forces are entering into agreements with companies such as Clearview without understanding the ethical issues. 

Listen to the full interview: Privacy concerns over face recognition AI real, says expert

In a landmark development for environmental activists, the UN recently recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. 

With 24% of global deaths linked to environmental threats according to the WHO, it is to be hoped that this right could be used at this week's COP-26 meeting in Glasgow and beyond to further climate action.