As the health crisis stretches into months, governments are becoming more authoritarian by the week. Police and military enforcement squads are on the streets. The open air freedom of beaches is denied citizens. People are copping large fines for walking together and talking to each other. From full support for emergency crackdown measures, governments risk alienating the citizenry if their exercise of power becomes unbalanced and out-of-kilter with people’s sense of a fair go. Whatever occurs over the next few months, it is obviously time for a total overhaul of the rights and liberties, the personal freedoms, of Australians. Covid-19 is showing how much we need a national Human Rights Act.
Other items in this issue:
- Members: please write to us about the National Cabinet, what the future looks like
- Are we Freaking Out and Running Around?
- Bashing the ABC is facilitated by skewed Q+As
- Govt delays report on religious freedom
- Prisoner emergency: governments must act to protect prisoners
- Man fined for being hungry and homeless
- ODD SPOT: Australia – the country that can’t, says Michael Kirby
- Kiwis get new justice ’safety valve’; what about Oz?
- Forensic science labs ‘on brink of collapse’: regulator
- ODD SPOT: If you apply, you become ineligible!
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