Category Archives: Law (Australia)

Prosecutors seek suppression orders in case against tax office whistleblower Richard Boyle

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Adelaide-based public servant blew the whistle on the use of garnishee notices to claw back debts from taxpayers

Commonwealth prosecutors are seeking suppression orders in the case of former tax office worker Richard Boyle.

Boyle blew the whistle in 2018 on the Australian Taxation Office’s aggressive use of garnishee notices to claw back debts from taxpayers and businesses.

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Evidence of Afghan witnesses against Ben Roberts-Smith ‘hardly neutral’, lawyer tells court

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Lawyers for Ben Roberts-Smith urge court to disregard evidence of Afghan witnesses, saying the men were prejudiced against Australian soldiers

Lawyers for Ben Roberts-Smith have urged the court hearing a defamation trial to reject the testimony of three Afghan men who gave evidence against the Australian soldier in his defamation trial, saying they regarded foreign troops as “infidels” and gave “inconsistent and contradictory” evidence.

“To say they are credible is incredible,” Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, told the federal court in closing submissions in the former soldier’s long-running defamation action.

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ClubsNSW warned Friendlyjordies that whistleblower interview was in contempt of court

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Club lobby said refusal to delete YouTube video would make ‘matters worse’ for former employee Troy Stolz

New South Wales’ powerful club lobby sent a legal letter telling YouTuber Friendlyjordies to immediately remove an interview with whistleblower and cancer sufferer Troy Stolz, warning of the potential for “imprisonment and fines” and saying any refusal to delete the video would only make “matters worse for Mr Stolz”.

Earlier this month, Friendlyjordies published a video featuring an interview between the channel’s producer Kristo Langker and Stolz, who blew the whistle in 2020 on what he alleged was the widespread failure of the clubs sector to comply with laws designed to stop money laundering through the state’s pokies.

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Unions warn Tony Burke against potential debate on the better-off-overall test

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Workplace relations minister opens door to considering industrial relations changes as he announces gutting of building watchdog

Workplace relations minister Tony Burke has confirmed the current better-off-overall test that ensures workers do not go backwards will be on the table for discussion at the Albanese government’s jobs summit in September.

Burke said on Sunday he had been “sceptical” about having a conversation with employers and unions about the test, known as the Boot, at the September summit because he wanted Australian workers to have higher wages and conditions. The minister told the ABC he would “take some convincing” to overhaul the test.

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Rushed consultation for NSW coercive control laws could result in flawed legislation, experts say

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Domestic violence advocates warn drafted laws could be discriminatory if pushed through by government

Domestic violence and legal experts say the New South Wales government’s attempt to push through new coercive control laws before the end of the year could result in flawed legislation that unwittingly discriminates against migrant and First Nations communities.

The state’s attorney general, Mark Speakman, released a draft of the new laws on Wednesday with consultation open for six weeks.

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Redbubble ordered to pay Hells Angels more than $78,000 for using logo without permission

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Motorcycle club wins second copyright infringement case against online merchandise company in three years

Online merchandise store Redbubble has been ordered to pay the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club more than $78,000 for selling items depicting the club’s logo without permission, in the second ruling against the company in three years.

Redbubble is an online marketplace that allows users to upload images to be printed on merchandise such as stickers, mugs, T-shirts, masks and other items, which are then offered for sale.

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Calls for employers to allow working from home as 75 Covid deaths recorded – as it happened

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Victorian students aged eight and over are being urged to wear masks when indoors to help counter the Covid-19 surge.

The request comes in a joint letter from the state education department and independent and Catholic schools.

I respect the fact that people on the crossbench were elected to deliver action on climate change and our government wants to work with them to do just that.

That’s why one of the very first acts of the new government will be to legislate that higher ambition. They want more than the 43% that Labor is offering though.

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Police prosecutor claimed case over Black Lives Matter rally was ‘fatally flawed’, Melbourne court told

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Officer who allegedly flagged the dropping of charges was not authorised to make that decision, Victoria police tell court

A Victoria police prosecutor had told lawyers for two women charged over a 2020 Black Lives Matter rally held in Melbourne that the case against them was “fatally flawed” and said charges would be withdrawn immediately, the organisers’ lawyer has told a court.

Crystal McKinnon, 41, and Meriki Onus, 34 were charged with breaching directions of Victoria’s chief health officer by planning the protest against Indigenous deaths in custody during a Covid lockdown.

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‘Instruments of injustice’: Victoria’s highest court denounces state’s mandatory sentencing

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Justices Chris Maxwell and Terence Forrest said the ‘oppressive sentencing regime’ ignored evidence and was contrary to public interest

Victoria’s highest court has delivered a withering assessment of the state’s mandatory sentencing regime, saying it required “judges to be instruments of injustice” and showed a “profound misunderstanding” of the community’s best interests.

In a judgment published on Thursday, court of appeal president, Justice Chris Maxwell, and Justice Terence Forrest said introducing mandatory sentencing for a range of offences over the past decade showed that state governments appeared to have “ignored the incontestable evidence about the adverse impact of adult gaol on young offenders”.

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Victoria’s move to restrict ‘silencing’ sexual harassment victims welcomed by unions and lawyers

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State government proposes reforms to use of nondisclosure agreements by employers in Australian first

The use of nondisclosure agreements will be restricted in sexual harassment cases to prevent victim-survivors being silenced, under reforms proposed by the Victorian government that are backed by employment lawyers and industry groups.

The move – an Australian first – was announced on Monday by Victoria’s workplace safety minister, Ingrid Stitt, who said the proposed reforms were a direct response to a ministerial taskforce investigating workplace sexual harassment, which made 26 recommendations. Most have already been accepted by the government.

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José Ramos-Horta pleased ‘fairness prevailed’ in Bernard Collaery case

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Exclusive: Timor-Leste president welcomes decision to end prosecution of ‘good man’ who helped expose Australian bugging operation

Timor-Leste’s president, José Ramos-Horta, has welcomed the “wisdom and fairness” of the decision to end the prosecution of Bernard Collaery, saying the lawyer is a “good man” who represented the best of Australian ideals.

Collaery and his client, intelligence officer Witness K, are viewed as heroes in Timor-Leste for their role in exposing Australia’s 2004 operation to bug the nation’s government offices to gain the upper hand in oil and gas negotiations.

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NSW police accused of ‘oppressive’ tactics against subjects on secretive blacklist

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Lawyers say the ‘preventive policing’ suspect target management plan, which disproportionately focuses on Indigenous youth, uses potentially unlawful tactics

The New South Wales police have been accused of using “oppressive” and potentially unlawful tactics on subjects of a secretive blacklist disproportionately used to target young Indigenous people.

Documents released under a parliamentary order have for the first time revealed how police in the state are instructed to use the suspect target management plan, or STMP, an opaque tool previously found to have utilised “unreasonable” and “unjust” tactics against its targets.

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Coalition government spent $6m prosecuting Bernard Collaery and three other whistleblowers

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Exclusive: Figures provided to the Guardian reveal exorbitant legal bill for pursuing cases against Collaery, Witness K, Richard Boyle and David McBride

The former Coalition government spent almost $6m prosecuting Bernard Collaery, Witness K, Richard Boyle and David McBride over their actions in exposing wrongdoing and misconduct, new data shows.

Figures provided to the Guardian show the costs of the prosecutions has almost doubled in two years, leaving taxpayers with an exorbitant legal bill well before the cases have reached trial.

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Peter Dutton asks high court for permission to appeal against defamation case loss to Shane Bazzi

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Liberal leader says refugee advocate’s May win in full federal court was a ‘miscarriage of justice’ and applies for special leave to appeal

Peter Dutton has sought leave to appeal in the high court against his loss in the defamation case he brought against Shane Bazzi, questioning whether there had been a “miscarriage of justice”.

The Liberal party leader has filed an application for special leave to appeal against his loss in the full federal court, arguing that the appeal court erred by finding Bazzi’s tweet “Peter Dutton is a rape apologist” did not convey the defamatory meaning that he “excused rape”.

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Federal court strikes down key part of Coalition’s crackdown on class action funding

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Labor says decision called into question the legal basis for former government’s ‘absurd attempt to regulate funded class actions out of existence’

The federal court has removed a barrier to class actions imposed by the former Coalition government, a decision the new attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has welcomed as a “victory for ordinary Australians” seeking to pursue justice against big corporations or governments.

In 2020, the former government imposed a costly regulatory burden on litigation funders – entities that bankroll notoriously expensive class actions – to define them as managed investment schemes.

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Chris Dawson asked if teammate knew anyone who could ‘get rid of’ his wife, court hears

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Defence raises questions about credibility of witness who claims Dawson meant getting rid of his wife Lynette Dawson ‘for good’

On a crowded flight from the Gold Coast in 1975, Christopher Michael Dawson asked one of his fellow rugby league players whether he knew someone who could get rid of his wife, a court has heard.

Giving evidence at Dawson’s murder trial on Thursday, Robert Charles Silkman said the conversation occurred after the Newtown Jets team had been on a short holiday on the Gold Coast.

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Court hears claims Lynette Dawson was seen alive in months after her 1982 disappearance

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Chris Dawson’s murder trial hears audio recordings of Ross Hutcheon telling police of alleged Sydney sighting

Lynette Dawson’s brother-in-law claimed he saw her alive in Sydney after she disappeared in 1982, the New South Wales supreme court has heard.

In the murder trial of Chris Dawson on Tuesday, audio recordings were played of an interview Ross Hutcheon, Dawson’s brother-in-law, gave to police in March 2019 and evidence he gave to the local court in February 2020.

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Lincoln Crowley sworn in as nation’s first Indigenous supreme court judge

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Warramunga man’s elevation to bench hailed as ‘important step in a much longer process’ in Queensland

Lincoln Crowley didn’t take any classes in legal studies at high school in Charters Towers, Queensland in the 1980s. Nor did he spend much time thinking about the state’s supreme court. In fact, he doesn’t think he even knew it existed.

“But I knew what was fair and what was not,” Crowley, the state’s newest supreme court judge, said at his swearing-in ceremony in Brisbane.

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Australian defamation law never needed Morrison’s ‘anti-trolling’ legislation

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Experts say rulings in actions involving John Barilaro and PRGuy17 demonstrate existing law already achieves aims of former government’s proposed changes

Two rulings in separate defamation cases – one involving John Barilaro, and the other targeting a pro-Labor Twitter account – show how Australia’s current laws already allow victims of online abuse to take their fight to court and win.

Google last week was ordered to pay Barilaro, the former New South Wales deputy premier, more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

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Albanese vows to reconsider Australia’s deportations rules in olive branch to New Zealand

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Jacinda Ardern welcomes ‘reset’ in trans-Tasman relationship after years of tension over visa cancellations on character grounds

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has vowed to consider changing how the government handles visa cancellations in an olive branch to ease longstanding tensions with New Zealand.

The pledge to look at tweaking the scheme prompted the visiting New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to declare the talks in Sydney on Friday allowed for “a reset” in the trans-Tasman relationship.

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