This article is part of our December theme, which focuses on one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. Relative to international standards, Australia’s economic and political freedoms rank highly. Our standard of living is generally satisfactory. A nation of just 22 million […]
This article is part of our December theme, which focuses on one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. The idea of “home” hosts many metaphors. Home is our “haven”, “sanctuary”, “nest”, “refuge” and “escape”. Home is our “domain”, “habitat”, “kingdom” and “abode”. […]
This article is part of our December theme, which focuses on one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold […]
This article is part of our December theme, which focuses on one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. The problem of elder abuse has come to be more clearly known through the efforts of many over the last 10 to 15 years. […]
Our December 2011 content focuses one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Henrietta Zeffert sets the scene by illuminating the meaning of a right to housing in the legal sense and the integral place of the home in lived experience, in The Home in Human Rights. Ellena Savage continues the […]
[Editor’s note: For those interested in writing letters to asylum seekers in offshore processing, Julian Burnside has set up a new campaign. For instructions on how to take part, follow this link:http://www.julianburnside.com.au/letters2.htm] It was not so long ago that it was common to have a pen-pal. Remember receiving an envelope via snail mail stamped from a […]
Mark Holcroft’s fatal heart attack in a prisoner transport van on 27 August, 2009 highlights the widespread flaws and reluctance for reform in the Australian correctional system. The results of an inquest by NSW State Coroner Paul McMahon were released in August of this year, identifying multiple failures by NSW Correctional Services and making a […]
This article was first published on the Castan Centre’s blog. You can access the blog here for more great articles on human rights law. A shorter form of this article was also published in The Conversation. You can also read Blink, a short story inspired by the Occupy Melbourne eviction. I received a text message […]
A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report alleges that Australia’s aid agency AusAID partly funds drug rehabilitation centres in Vietnam that have committed human rights violations. The report claims drug users admitted voluntarily by family members, or involuntarily after being detained by police or authorities, are subjected to forced labour, inhumane and degrading treatment, and […]
A recent survey by the Sentencing Advisory Council has found that two thirds of respondents felt that judges are out of touch with society. In response, the Victorian Attorney-General has claimed that the survey is “further evidence that many Victorians are dissatisfied with the sentences that offenders receive”. The Victorian Government has conducted its own survey on sentencing […]
Tomorrow, the challenge to the Malaysia Solution will be heard before the Full Bench of the High Court amidst claims that asylum seekers registered with the United Nations in Kuala Lumpur are in danger of being refouled to China. Take a moment to read this thoughtful piece by Julian Burnside on Australia’s culture of forgetting. […]
Australia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, the same day it was open for signature. The treaty, which was drafted in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon war, seeks to “put at end for all time to the suffering and casualties caused by cluster munitions”. Australia is one of 109 countries […]