Two of the undercurrents lurking in the Fingelton saga are the increasing politicisation of court appointments and the increasing willingness of judicial officers to go public. We published a piece yesterday by Senator Joe Ludwig, who was is Federal ALP Justice Spokesman, suggesting alternative, transparent approaches to the essentially political ones we use now for […]

In all the Wagnerian sound and fury as Di Fingleton swoops on the Queensland legal and political establishment blaming everyone but herself for her conviction and incarceration I have yet to hear anyone ask one of the more basic questions. If the High Court’s intepretation of the relevant section in the Magistrate’s Act is so […]

I’m not about to undertake any deep analysis of the Northern Territory result because I haven’t done any research on what NT voters thought and so would just be retailing chattering class gossip and my own prejudices. But that doesn’t stop me wondering? The result does seem to confirm that second election wins are frequently […]

The inquiry into the Child Support Scheme headed by Professor Parkinson has some intriguing recommendations in its report, and I will be devoting a series of blog posts to them, starting with the most intriguing. And the most intriguing recommendation, one with potentially far-reaching and good consequences,I have read is Recommendation 23: The Government should […]

It isn’t true, it’s not smart politics, it’s authorised by the Queensland Nationals and it is on a billboard just metres away from where Campbell Newman started his billboard campaign to rid Brisbane of gridlock. I know people from National Party Headquarters read these posts, so here is my free advice – get that billboard […]

There are a couple of assumptions underlying the unfair dismissal debate which deserve to be challenged. The first is that “unfair” is the appropriate adjective – this is always taken for granted by opponents and interviewers, and never explored by the government. The second is that in small business in Australia the balance of bargaining […]

When John Howard criticised the proposed Georgiou private member’s bills in the party room he is reported to have asked “Don’t you know how we won the last election.” This isn’t just a reference to so-called “dog whistling” but a tacit recognition that a key demographic – the “Howard Battlers” – keeps the government in […]

It’s good news for the homeless and their advocates, but bad news for homelessness statistics, making it even better news for the advocates. According to The Courier Mail the Queensland Government plans to spend $50 million upgrading “run-down hostels” and building “extra boarding houses”. The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows 105,000 people to be homeless, […]

Schapelle Corby has been found guilty under a system of law which is very similar to many other systems which draw their provenance from France – an indirect legacy of the Napoleonic Empire. It should be a basic human right that in criminal matters one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. This is not the […]

I’m generally a bit of a fan of Peter Beattie’s but his most recent foray suggests he’s losing more than his hair. Beattie has chosen to celebrate his life by releasing his autobiography. This at a time when a Commission of Inquiry is hearing allegations that patients were murdered in one of the state’s hospitals […]