So what’s all the fuss with marriage equality? In Australia, the “gay marriage” issue has continued to saturate media and political debate. For some, marriage serves an inherent religious or procreative purpose, for others it is a basic human right that should be open to all couples. Since 2008, de facto recognition has operated to […]
Last month, the first Sudanese refugee to be drafted to play in the Australian Football League, was subjected to racial abuse by a spectator during a VFL game between the Werribee Tigers and Port Melbourne. Majak Daw is currently being groomed for professional football by the North Melbourne Kangaroos and plays regularly for their feeder […]
Read Part I of this article here. WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? There are no easy solutions to the challenges that HIV/AIDS presents today to organised religion. Pessimists would say there are no solutions at all. The patriarchal organisation of religion, the vested interests, the ignorant literalism of scriptural interpretation, the anti-scientific attitude towards new knowledge, […]
In 2010 Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa declared that the time had come, particularly for Africans, to stop the “wave of hate” and to stand up “against wrong”. He was referring to the wrong to “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people” who are “part of […]
Mental illness is increasingly recognised as one of the most prevalent health issues in the Australian community. The human rights of people with a mental illness in Australia has received greater attention in recent years, prompted in part by new obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘Disabilities Convention’), […]
Each week, teams of lawyers around the country visit soup kitchens, crisis shelters and other welfare agencies to provide advice and assistance to some of the 105,000 Australians who experience homelessness every night. While we can’t always find them a roof, we can help them address some of the other barriers they face. The reality […]
The launch of Twiggy Forrest Generation One last year has sparked much media noise around Indigenous Employment. Aspirational targets were set, stats produced, ministers brought out, and questions were asked in estimate committees. The wheels were well and truly set in motion. And whilst all this attention is more than welcome, there remain large areas […]
NAVIGATING THE GREY AREA BETWEEN LEGITIMACY AND LEGALITY The crisis in Libya is getting intense media coverage in Australia. This is primarily because of the scale, pace and brutality of the events unfolding there. After last week’s Security Council Resolution 1973 though, the Libyan crisis has become more relevant to us for another reason: Australia’s […]
Welcome to Right Now’s new website! We’ve been in hibernation for over a year, working hard with Beyond the Pixels and Shaking Paper to bring you this latest incarnation of Right Now. Why the move from print to online? Because we believe that as a concept human rights is fluid, vibrant and exciting – not […]
In October last year, Queensland put a woman and her partner on trial for a crime that should not be on the statute books. Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan were charged under sections 225 and 226 of the Queensland Criminal Code 1899 because Brennan asked his sister overseas to import misoprostol, a drug used for […]
It’s 8.20 on a Monday evening and a small man with nothing much to distinguish him, except perhaps his lack of shoes, is sprawled in the middle of the footpath on Mitchell Street, the main drag in Darwin. It’s the end of the dry season so the nights are unforgivably hot and sweaty. The town […]
That Australia is the only democracy in the world without a law to protect human rights is not a situation that can persist forever. So thinks most of the community. As far as our parliament is concerned, it has been very slow to respond to the need to legislate better protection of rights, in particular […]