The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties joins our community in mourning the intolerable rates of women being murdered in Australia. Eleven women have been murdered in the month of April alone. In 2024, the rate of murdered women has doubled compared to this time last year. 

The Council supports the rallies occurring across the country over the weekend demanding an end to gendered violence.

We are also aware of the most recent alleged murder of a young mother in Forbes and support the recently announced inquiry into the alleged murder. 

The rising rate of domestic violence has not abated in NSW, even after new laws and tougher penalties were introduced over the past six years. This scourge will not be solved by kneejerk legislative responses (including expanding police powers and restricting bail) under the guise of making women safer. 

We have written to the NSW Attorney General with respect to the structural and cultural changes that need to be made as a matter of urgency. Importantly, we echo the sentiments expressed by the former NSW Magistrate, David Heilpern. 

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties is aware that there is a freedom flotilla that will shortly be departing Turkiye with 5,500 tonnes of humanitarian aid including food and medical supplies for the citizens of Palestine.

We are aware that international human rights observers will be accompanying the volunteers aboard the Freedom Flotilla, including Australian citizens.

The Council recognises the Freedom Flotilla as both a form of protest and as a humanitarian relief campaign with the focus on abating the extreme conditions being experienced by the innocent civilians in Palestine. We note that this includes starvation, mass displacement, lack of access to medical assistance, psychological trauma and death.

We are calling on the Australian Government to ensure that they do everything within their power to safeguard the Freedom Flotilla. This includes ensuring, to the fullest extent possible, that it is not intercepted by any foreign States and that their safe passage as a humanitarian convey is respected.

We have witnessed aid workers and those delivering humanitarian assistance in Palestine dying in the most tragic of circumstances, including Australian citizens. It is concerning that the death of aid workers, including Australian citizens, has not resulted in any meaningful action being undertaken on behalf of the Australian Government.

We call upon the Australian Government to do all that they can, both publicly and through diplomatic means, to ensure that the Freedom Flotilla is provided safe passage to Palestine and that the humanitarian assistance is permitted to be supplied to Palestinian civilians.

Police could be able to stop and search people for a weapon without reasonable suspicion or a warrant under laws being considered by the NSW government.

NSWCCL does not support giving police more powers. We believe this would amount to nothing more than a "knee-jerk response to a series of violent and distressing but isolated incidents".

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties is concerned about media reporting alleging that NSW Police are lobbying the State Government to introduce new laws that would create criminal offences for the parents of minors found with weapons, including knives.

BOSCAR data indicates that knife crime has declined in New South Wales over recent consecutive years. The position of NSW police does not reflect the current research on the prevention of crime. We strongly urge the State Government to resist populist calls for legislative change that will not make our communities safer.

The Council urges all levels of Government to invest in our public mental health care system, public mental health supports and resources (including in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities). This includes committing to a date for the proposed ‘whole of government’ Drug Summit, which remains one of the unfulfilled election promises to the people in New South Wales that could meaningfully impact weapons related crime.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in regard to the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023 [Provisions] and related bills.

The NSWCCL endorses the sentiment and recommendations made by many of the other civil society and advocacy organisations who submitted to the Inquiry into the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023 (ART Bill) and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No.1) Bill 2023 (Consequential and Transitional Bill), including the Centre for Public Integrity, the Refugee Council of Australia, Liberty Victoria and The Australia Institute.

Currently, individuals incarcerated in NSW serving sentences of 12 months or more are ineligible to vote in state elections. However, federally, these restrictions only apply to those sentenced to at least three years of imprisonment. This discrepancy has prompted questions from civil rights groups in NSW, who are now urging the government to address this disparity and advocate for equal voting rights for all incarcerated individuals, regardless of the length of their sentence.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is among these groups. NSWCCL holds the position that inmates should not be denied the right to participate in this fundamental democratic process. Not only is this denial contrary to any potential rehabilitative outcomes that detention might serve for an inmate, but it also harms society as a whole.

Our president talks to The Project about search laws in NSW in the wake of the recent tragic attacks in Sydney involving knives.

We recommend that the Government bins this repugnant bill and we urge all of our members to take a vocal, immediate stand against it. It attempts to legitimate the exclusion, detention, and criminalisation of people based on where they are born. The NSWCCL recommends that the Government reconsider its approach to legislating on this issue and engage in a more transparent and consultative process reflective of the importance of the fundamental principles of democracy including the separation of powers and rule of law.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) strongly condemns the recent remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, linking a pro-Palestine protest to the tragic events of the Port Arthur massacre. Such statements not only lack factual basis but also dangerously conflate unrelated issues, leading to misinformation and unwarranted associations.

Today, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties is appearing before the NSW Electoral Matters committee to call on the Committee to recommend that the current restrictions on prisoners right to vote in the NSW Electoral Act be removed.

The Council strongly believes that any exclusion of a person’s right to vote is a grave curtailing of the right to participate in a healthy democracy. This has a de-facto consequence of creating “tiers of citizenship” and does little to assist in the rehabilitation of incarcerated people when they have served their time.

The Council is also concerned about the disproportionate impact that the current restrictions on prisoners’ right to vote has on First Nations communities.