Law
Another Round of the Circus
Reproduced with permission from The BFD https://thebfd.co.nz/2024/04/16/another-round-of-the-circus/ Another day, another court case, and the scandal that just keeps on giving… keeps on giving. Justice Michael Lee has handed down his verdict in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation suit against Channel Ten and Lisa Wilkinson — and what a curious judgement it is. On the one hand, Lee states what has been obvious from...
Reassessing Australian Judges’ Role in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (Part 2)
IntroductionIn the previous part, I discussed the historical background and recent political developments in Hong Kong that have raised concerns about the role of Australian judges in Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal. This part will examine specific cases involving Australian judges to assess their contributions and the extent to which they have challenged the infringement of human rights...
The Coming Populist Revolt
Populism occurs when the masses revolt against the elites’ view of the world. Elite opinion does not often deal directly with popular opinion, that is, with the people who have to pay for elite opinion. When elites get it wrong, the masses revolt through the ballot; the Voice referendum being a good example. The question is, when is the...
A Digital Dark Age (part 3)
‘We will continue to be your single source of truth. Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth’. So said former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Covid When Covid hit in 2020, people had no reason to doubt what they were being told by their political leaders. However, the pandemic very quickly exposed the incompetence of many in the medical...
Mind Your Language
Everyone knows a suit is comprised of a jacket and a pair of pants. Two jackets are not a suit. Neither can two pairs of pants be called a suit. This was an argument I often made during the marriage debate. Marriage, I argued, was the joining of a man and woman in a special relationship. If two men or two...
Raw Deal
A local rag (The Geelong Advertiser) reported* last month that some sort of strange secretive trade was taking place in the quiet backstreets of affluent Highton. The article heavily implied that this was an illegal distribution of ‘raw’ (unpasteurized) milk - a product that is banned for human consumption in Australia and banned entirely for sale in Victoria. I found...
UAE Facilitating Australian Crime?
A recent article in the Age (https://www.theage.com.au/national/australian-drug-smuggling-suspects-right-at-home-as-dubai-makes-world-s-worst-welcome-20240514-p5jdg7.html) argues that authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are immoral for not preventing Australia’s most revered mega criminals from visiting and buying property there. According to the Age, we should all be outraged that the UAE is not doing the job Australian law enforcement is failing to do. But apparently it is...
A Digital Dark Age
Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,'Tis the prettiest little parlour, that ever you did spy,Oh no, no! then said the fly, to ask me is in vain,For who goes up to your winding stair, Can ne'er come down again. Mary Howitt’s old poem could well be describing another web, the one that ensnares us all – the...
The Best Lack All Conviction
Anti-Semitism is on the march because no-one in authority will stand up to it. It’s common for historians to portray the Sturmabteilung, the SA or “Brownshirts” as they were known, as a motley crew of rowdy young thugs looking to brawl. The reality, as detailed in Daniel Siemens’ Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts, was far more concerning. In...
Why You Should Oppose the Government’s Attempt to Censor the Sydney Church Stabbing Video
If you have been following the issue of freedom of expression in Australia, you will be aware of the efforts of the government to censor the Sydney church stabbing video on X (but not mainstream media websites) via a court order. The court order has since been overturned although what will happen next is still uncertain. It is not unusual...
