The UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT) will be visiting Australia for 12 days from 16 Oct 2022 – 27 Oct 2022.

Last month, NSWCCL, Josh Pallas spoke to regional radio in Coffs Harbour and Dubbo about the Perrottet Government's response to the 2020 ice inquiry.

NSWCCL has long called for stronger legislation in relation to the collection, use and retention of the personal information of Australians. We welcome the comments of the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, referring to the Optus data breach, that every corporation should only be collecting the minimum amount of data necessary for the relevant purpose.[1]

Announcing our incredible shortlisted journalists for the 2022 Excellence in Civil Liberties Journalism Awards!

NSWCCL recently made a submission to the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage (Culture is Identity) Bill 2022 Inquiry. In our submission we acknowledge that this Bill is designed to better protect and support Aboriginal Cultural Heritage (ACH) and that it presents an opportunity for long overdue and meaningful changes to cultural heritage legislation. If passed, it would also effect a tangible step forward for First Nations’ justice in NSW.

Clinton Austin, a Gunditjmara and Wiradjuri man has recently passed aged 38 in Loddon Prison. He is the second Indigenous man to die in custody in the state of Victoria in five weeks. 

According to the count kept by NSWCCL, he is also the 500th Indigenous death in custody since the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were handed down in 1991. 

For more information, read the full article.

Last week the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee handed down its report on the inquiry into the Climate Change Bill 2022 and Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022.

A legislative solution is the only way to prevent secret ministerial appointments says the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty Victoria and South Australian Council for Civil Liberties. 

NSWCCL recently made a submission to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee regarding the Climate Change Bill 2022 and the Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022.

After a decade of inaction on climate change, the Climate Change Bill 2022 (Bill) represents welcome
progress. While we support the Bill as an improvement on business as usual, it is our view that:

• the target it enshrines in law is woefully inadequate; and
• beyond setting a target, the Bill fails to do any work towards achieving that target.

This said, through a few amendments the Bill has potential to provide a proper bedrock for Australia’s
ability to respond to the climate emergency and contribute towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Australian state governments are tightening the laws surrounding sexual assault, introducing affirmative consent and the criminalisation of stealthing across the nation.

Over the course of the last two years, Australian laws pertaining to consent have been consistently debated and reformed, and the act of stealthing ­– the removal of a condom during sex without obtaining consent – has been at the forefront.

Stealthing is not a new concept, particularly to women, as the current research shows one in three Australian women have been victim to stealthing at least once in their lives.