The NSW Council for Civil Liberties calls on the Federal Government to provide compensation to victims of institutional child sexual abuse, whether or not they have subsequently been convicted of serious crimes. 

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs has recently published its report on the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. The report notes that the Attorney General has indicated that a final position has not yet been determined on the proposed exclusion of criminal offendors, and that a discretionary approach to exclusions could be considered.

Although a discretionary approach is an improvement on the original exclusionary approach, we do not consider it to be the preferred option. 

Punishments for crimes are determined by the courts after carefully considering all the circumstances.  It is not appropriate for politicians to add to those penalties, especially when they do not consider the individual circumstances that may mitigate a victim’s guilt. 

The Council considers that the Government’s actions in excluding those who have been convicted of serious crimes from compensation serve no good purpose and fail to take into account the compelling evidence before the Senate inquiry that a history of childhood abuse is a significant causative factor for offending later in life. 

NSWCCL is looking for a person with legal qualifications to work with its executive and committee on priority civil liberties and human rights issues. Closing date for applications is Wednesday 25th April 2018.

This is a new position created to strengthen our capacity to respond to an increasing volume of challenges to civil liberties and rights in Australia. It will be an exciting and challenging position.

Join us in protest against the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees by Australia, both in the offshore detention centres of Nauru and Manus Island and on the Australian mainland. The NSWCCL Committee is formally endorsing this rally and will be showing our solidarity marching behind the NSWCCL banner. 

Conditions for the refugees and asylum seekers dumped on Manus Island and Nauru remain intolerable. Though some refugees have been resettled in third countries, others remain in limbo not knowing when or if they will be resettled.

There are around 30,000 refugees within Australia seeking asylum. At present, most will at best receive temporary protection visas, leaving them in fear of forced return to danger, and unable to reunite with their families.  

Find us gathered near the eastern stone wall, on the Elizabeth St side of Belmore Park, at 1:45 pm, Sunday 25 March. Look for the white banner of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.

We look forward to marching together.

NSWCCL worked with other councils for civil liberties through January and February to respond to the large, complex and alarming Espionage and Foreign Intervention Bill 2017 and the related Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill 2017.

These Bills are part of a major package of proposed legislation relating to national security and foreign intervention which also included three other bills: the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Bill 2017 and the Home Affairs and Integrity Agencies Legislation Amendment Bill 2017.

These Bills encompassed much beyond foreign intervention and national security. They also encompass an extraordinary multi-faceted attack on civil society’s right to participate in public political discourse.

This attack included a massive expansion of national secrecy laws capturing not just public officials but also any person who makes an unauthorized disclosure of information covered by these laws. Journalists rightly protested that the secrecy laws effectively criminalised every phase of journalists work.    Charities and independent advocacy bodies like GetUp were targeted so as to undermine their participation in public political discourse.  Many of the offences carry very serious penalties – in the case of general secrecy offences more than doubling current penalties.

The PM rightly described this package as ‘the most important overhaul of our counterintelligence legislative framework since the 1970s’. It was therefore a disgrace that we were only given a few weeks to comment on them. Strong protests from civil society groups eventually gained an extension into mid/late February.  

Few organisations were able to respond to all the Bills in this timeframe. NSWCCL in conjunction with the Joint CCLs prepared submissions on the large and important Espionage and Foreign Intervention Bill 2017 and the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill. We failed to get in a submission on the equally alarming Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017.

The reaction from civil society and the media – and the Law Council of Australia (LCA) - has been ferocious. The Attorney-General Christian Porter responded with a package of amendments to alleviate the impact of the secrecy offences on journalists.

This was a smart and positive move by the AG. His proposed amendments to his own Bill were in line with recommendations made by civil society and the LCA – however they are a long way from solving the very problems with these Bills.

The Parliamentary Committee on intelligence and security will report on the most significant of these Bills in April.  In the interim NSWCCL will do what it can to persuade  Parliament not to pass these Bills - and certainly not in their current form.  

Dr Lesley Lynch

Vice-President NSWCCL 

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is concerned by the heavy handed response of the NSW Police to a peaceful protest on Saturday 17th March 2018 by people on bikes calling for reform to mandatory helmet laws.

While coordinated action in other cities across Australia and New Zealand passed without incident, in Sydney the police dispatched seven police cars to intercept and stop a planned "helmet optional" bike ride along the Grand Drive cycle lane in Centennial Park, threatening participants with $330 fines.

This action by police was grossly disproportionate to any conceivable safety concerns, a waste of public resources, and fails to respect the fundamental right to peaceful protest in a democratic society. Any fines issued during the protest should be immediately withdrawn.

NSWCCL recently joined with other CCLs to oppose the deeply disturbing Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill 2017.

This Bill will not deliver the reform to electoral funding that is urgently needed in Australia. It will however, deliver a devastating blow to civil society’s capacity to participate in political advocacy and to the broad freedom of political communication.  

In addition, it proposes a clumsy, heavy handed, costly and overly burdensome approach to regulation of the charity and political advocacy sectors. 

President Stephen Blanks has called for greater transparency in the use of Tasers in NSW. No updated statistics on Taser use have been released by the NSW Police for 6 years. A mentally ill man died during a police arrest on Sunday during which a Taser was used. In a NSW Ombudsman report in 2012 it was noted that approximately one third of people Tasered by police were suffering from mental illness and three quarters were unarmed. NSW CCL calls on NSW Police to release updated statistics immediately. The current Taser procedures are scheduled for review on 1 July 2018. See today's report in the Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/21/call-to-lift-secrecy-around-police-taser-use-after-mentally-ill-mans-death

On Thursday (25/1/18) the Australian Fair Work Commission found the planned 24 hour strike and a ban on overtime by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union to be 'unlawful'. The decision to take strike action came after a lengthy period of negotiation with the employer in support of a pay and conditions claim, had failed to deliver an acceptable outcome.

Given the disturbing stagnation in workers’ wages in recent years, NSWCCL accepts that the Union's claim is justified and that this dispute will continue until satisfactorily resolved.  Our main civil liberties concern is, however, the apparent broader implication of the judgement. 

On face value-noting that more detailed reasons for the decision are yet to come from the Commission – the terms of the judgement appear to render future lawful strike action relating to major service delivery almost impossible.

The Commission found that the overtime ban and the proposed strike, separately and together, ‘threatens to endanger the welfare of a part of the population’ and ‘the industrial action threatens to cause significant damage to the economy of Sydney – the largest and most economically important city in Australia.’

The Commission’s ban is in force for 6 weeks. Hopefully in that period the Government might be more open to responding fairly to the Union’s claims. Otherwise, it is difficult to see – given the wording of the decision – that any future proposed strike by the union at a later date could be deemed lawful.  (Or overtime ban, given that the actions were deemed separately certain to cause the specified harms).

The right to strike is a fundamental civil liberty and human right. This decision imposes unacceptable restrictions on the right of workers to withhold their labour to negotiate terms and conditions of their employment, without an agreement of just terms between the parties.

If the Fair Work Act allows this finding it should be amended. 

NSWCCL has issued a public statement expressing its concern in relation to this decision.

This week, Aboriginal man, Eric Whittaker died in a Sydney hospital while in police custody. As he lay bedridden, he was placed in leg chains by police. This was the scene that greeted Mr Whittaker’s grieving relatives who came to visit their loved one during his final hours. The family were understandably appalled and insulted by this final indignity. The NSW CCL stands united with the family of the deceased in its condemnation of this corporal treatment which is vividly reminiscent of 19^th Century colonial policing practice in this country.

The incident follows recent revelations that Aboriginal children were regularly restrained in the Northern Territory’s notorious, Don Dale Juvenile Centre, by the use of chemical injections. Referred to by prison authorities as, the ‘settlement needle’, the use of these restraints against children has been linked to developmental difficulties in children, including poor cognitive and neurological functioning and hormonal imbalances. A further side effect is suicidal ideation. Given existing rates of youth suicide in Aboriginal communities, the use of these chemicals against Aboriginal people, (against their will) is alarming to say the least. The NSW CCL condemns this practice.

Accordingly, the NSWCCL calls on both the NSW Police and the Northern Territory Department of Correctional Services to cease these damaging practices of corporal restraint against Aboriginal people immediately.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties

4 December 2017

Contact:

Stephen Blanks – 0414 448 654 - President

NSWCCL Media Release

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) welcomes the findings of the Coroner into historic and ongoing police attitudes to LGBTIQ hate crimes and calls upon the NSW Police to implement the coronial recommendations wholly and completely. The Coroner today delivered findings from the third inquest into the death of Scott Johnson. 

NSWCCL President Stephan Blanks said "this is a momentous occasion which provides closure for the families and communities that were affected by these poorly investigated crimes".

NSWCCL Vice President Josh Pallas said "recently there have been findings made by this Coronial Inquest and the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse which show that the NSW Police fails specific groups of society which require protection from targeted abuse and violence.”

NSWCCL Vice President Josh Pallas says that he “acknowledges the improvements made by NSW Police on LGBTIQ issues, especially with the establishments of the GLLOs, but these findings show that there is still much more to be done to ensure that LGBTIQ persons feel safe and trust the NSW Police to investigate hate crimes against them.

Contacts:

Josh Pallas - 0458 605 281 – Vice President

Stephen Blanks – 0414 448 654 - President

NSWCCL Media Release

Coronial Findings - Inquest into the death of Scott Johnson