NSWCCL is asking its members, as a matter of urgency, to contact the Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews, and/or the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alex Hawke, asking for more time for members of the legacy caseload to submit updated applications for asylum, before their cases are heard.  

The Sydney Morning Heral's Michael Koziol looks back at a year during which civil liberties became an 'acceptable casualty' of efforts to counter the pandemic. He asks: "But what of the civil libertarians and rights organisations whose job – whose raison d’etre – is to fight for individual freedoms against state power? Did they abandon the field? Or have they been fruitlessly shouting into the void?"

NSW President Pauline Wright says that activists were very active, but rarely heard.

Read the full article here: ‘Missing in action’: What happened to the civil liberties movement?

MEDIA RELEASE

NSWCCL is gravely concerned by a recent Report¹ from the Commonwealth Ombudsman, which identified that many of the authorisations made by ACT Policing for access to telecommunications data between 13 October 2015 and 2019 were not properly authorised. Of the 1,713 individual accesses to location-based services (LBS) by ACT Policing for that period, only nine were fully compliant with the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA Act).

Statement from President of NSW Council for Civil Liberties on Legal Challenges to Travel Bans

NSW Council for Civil Liberties welcomes the significant separate legal challenges commenced today to the travel bans.

Both the harsh criminal penalties facing returning Australians and the authoritarian exit bans are causing great distress for tens of thousands of people.

Black Lives Matter - an Australian perspective

NSWCCL hosted Australia's contribition to the International Rule Of Law Webathon on Weds 5 May 2021. You can view our session with others from around the world on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmsQriH1wcIYhwON5ncdUuQ

PUBLIC STATEMENT BY PAULINE WRIGHT

The federal Government’s move to criminalise Australians travelling home from India, including massive fines and penalties of up to 5 years’ imprisonment is an extraordinary move and likely to infringe international human rights law. This will abandon Australian citizens to their fate in an utterly overburdened health care system in India. It is inhumane and unconscionable.

It is certainly not the only suitable way of dealing with the threat to public health. A less restrictive and intrusive way of protecting Australians would be to improve quarantine systems instead of criminalising our citizens who are doing nothing more than wishing to come home.

The Government’s move also looks discriminatory. While there can be no denying that the situation in India is critical, no such measures were taken for Australians returning from the United States, the United Kingdom or Europe during the height of their dire pandemic crises.

Facing the Senate committee, probing the Data Availability and Transparency Bill 2020, was Jonathan Gadir from the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, who highlighted the discrepancy between the goals of the Bill and what it actually allows to occur.

Media coverage: ITNews

'Federal, state and territory leaders have agreed to create an intergovernmental agreement to facilitate greater data sharing between all levels of government.

The plan for the high-level agreement, which is still to be developed, was endorsed at a meeting of national cabinet.

“National cabinet agreed that jurisdictions will work together to capitalise on the value of public data to achieve better outcomes for Australians,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

While details remain scarce, the pact will likely make it easier for federal, state and territory government to share data, building on efforts with health and travel data during Covid-19.

The planned agreement would likely work alongside the Data Availability and Transparency Bill, which is currently before federal parliament.

The legislation aims to streamline data sharing between governments and the private sector, overriding some 500 provisions in 175 pieces of existing legislation.

But it faces calls for amendments from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Australian Medical Association and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.'

Read more

Media coverage: Sydney Morning Herald

'Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello has promised mandatory venue check-ins will be lifted “as soon as we get the green light from health experts”, as privacy experts warn the COVID-19 check-in tool lacks safeguards.

Mr Dominello said the QR code system was only intended for contact tracing during “pandemic conditions” but those might continue for some time....

Read more

The Sydney Morning Herald examines a promise from Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello that mandatory venue check-ins will be lifted “as soon as we get the green light from health experts”.

But Michelle Falstein, secretary of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, warned personal data collected by the check-in tool could be used for purposes other than contact tracing.

“Such broad purpose could enable the sharing of health information with police or for any other number of additional, loosely linked purposes not anticipated by the public,” Ms Falstein said.

For more, read the full article: ‘This must not be permanent’: Privacy experts sound alarm over QR codes SMH 10 April '21

Media coverage: Spectator Australia

'On Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined his ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown. An important aspect of this plan is vaccine ‘passports’, even though, as Fraser Nelson wrote on The Spectator’s Coffee House website the next day, Johnson didn’t want to admit to them. He referred to his plans as ‘Covid status certification’. 

Such a plan is fraught with several legal and ethical questions, leading to many MPs voicing strong opposition to vaccine ‘passports’. Last weekend a group of 72 MPs signed a pledge against them. This ‘cross-party coalition’ includes Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who has stated vaccine ‘passports’ would be against the “British instinct”. Another signatory is Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. One of the Conservative signatories, Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, said: “COVID-status certification would be divisive and discriminatory.” He added: “With high levels of vaccination protecting the vulnerable and making transmission less likely, we should aim to return to normal life, not to put permanent restrictions in place.”

Therein lies the problem...

With regard to vaccine ‘passports’ for travel, NSW Council for Civil Liberties spokesperson Stephen Blanks said last November that the Federal Government would need to ensure that appropriate allowances are made for people who have legitimate reasons for not getting vaccinated. Those reasons could be health, religious or conscientious based. Such reasons would be protected in accordance with articles 18 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Australia has ratified. Those articles guarantee freedom of speech, conscience and religion.'

Read more

A year after the Federal Government imposed restrictions on Australians leaving or entering the country because of COVID-19, tens of thousands of Australians remain stranded overseas.

Our President Pauline Wright was a guest on RN Breakfast to discuss calls for an overhaul of travel bans.

29 MARCH 2021                                    

PUBLIC STATEMENT

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties calls on the Federal Government to end the ban on leaving Australia and introduce clear and transparent rules for who gets to enter Australia.

This week marks a year since the imposition of both inward and outward travel bans. The government has adopted an authoritarian approach to the issue of incoming and outgoing travellers rather than improving the hotel quarantine system. This approach must now end.

Media coverage: Sky News

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has spearheaded the push to introduce sexual consent technology via an app, in a bid to cut sexual violence against women.

The app would allow users to send and receive requests for sexual encounters.

Read more

Media coverage: InnovationAus

Civil society has been “completely sidelined and ignored” in the inquiry into the government’s proposed new hacking powers, after no civil or digital rights groups were invited to the only public hearing, Deakin University senior lecturer Dr Monique Mann says.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is conducting an inquiry into the Identify and Disrupt Bill, which hands sweeping powers to the Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to hack into the devices and networks of suspected criminals to ‘disrupt’ their data and covertly take over their accounts.

The PJCIS held its only public hearing as part of its inquiry last week, but no civil or digital rights organisations were invited to appear before the committee.

The NSW Council of Civil Liberties labelled the proposed laws a “catch-all formula for abuse” and “next in an accelerating wave, strengthening the powers of the state without any humility about the cumulative erosion of democratic freedoms they entail”.

Read more

NSWCCL has sent an open letter from Nicholas Cowdery AO QC, President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties to the Prime Minister urging the Australian Government to intervene to support Julian Assange and do all that can be done to stop his extradition to the USA and enable him to return to Australia. 

The Council urges Senators and Members of Parliament to consider supporting Julian Assange by ensuring he receives appropriate and effective support from the Government to end the politically motivated attempt to extradite him to the USA.

More information: read the full letter.

Media coverage: The Saturday Paper

Read more