brisk

Mutual obligation is one of the last great shibboleths of Australian politics. Now the entire system is under scrutiny with potentially big implications for our welfare system.

Snippets

People are not “placed” on the floor – that is what you do with bags, boxes and rubbish. But that was the word used by the Northern Territory police to describe the sequence of events to the media. Tragically, painfully, I think it says a lot.

Almost a million more people voted yes in the referendum than voted for the Labor party in the recent election. The combined Liberal National party vote was about half the no vote. While the majority rejected the voice proposal because they didn’t know, didn’t care or thought it was unfair, this cannot be mapped on to the political snapshot that the election provided. The referendum was not a proxy election. The door to meaningful, symbolic and practical recognition can and must be opened again.

Key parts:

In 2017, Richard blew the whistle on the ATO for inappropriately, indiscriminately, and carelessly issuing garnishee notices that brutally emptied businesses’ bank accounts of money to settle ATO debts.

During the Court of Appeal proceedings, the prosecutors conceded that Richard was a whistleblower as that term is commonly understood. He had disclosed information to an authorised person pursuant to the terms of the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

It was also accepted that his disclosure was not dealt with properly by the ATO. The ATO botched the investigation into his claims and did nothing.

That is, they did nothing until their inappropriate activity was the subject of an ABC Four Corners program (Note that there is no allegation that Richard disclosed taxpayer information to the ABC). In an act of revenge, the ATO charged Richard, not for blowing the whistle, but for what he did in preparing his disclosure, namely using his mobile phone to take photographs of taxpayer information, covertly recording conversations with ATO colleagues; and uploading photographs of taxpayer information to his lawyer’s encrypted email account.

The Court of Appeal found that those preparatory acts were not covered by protections in the Public Interest Disclosure Act and,

Some snippets:

The Senate has a number of tools available to force transparency and accountability of the Government.

One measure is the ability to initiate an inquiry into an issue. This requires a majority vote of the Senate. The LNP and Greens would have to join forces (38 votes), with at least one independent (39+ votes), to get an inquiry up in the face of Labor opposition. Getting the LNP and Greens to agree might be challenging, but if that occurs, it won’t be hard to get at least one independent onboard.

The reader can easily imagine the difficulties of getting the LNP and Greens to align on an inquiry. There will certainly be no inquiries on “drill baby drill” or “LGBTQI rights in the community” while such an inquiry requires right-and-left support.

Arguably related: https://aussie.zone/post/20645968

Key paragraphs:

The Australian government is refusing freedom of information requests at a rate not seen for a decade, data shows, prompting concerns for transparency and accountability.

Data held by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the watchdog overseeing the FoI system, revealed the proportion of FoI requests being completely refused has shot up to 27% in the December 2024 quarter.

That is the highest level since at least 2014-15, historical records show.

Arguably related: https://aussie.zone/post/20646025

The judge said she was concerned that the police defence suggested officers had formed a reasonable suspicion to strip-search Meredith based on “things like her demeanour, what was said outside the tent, and [the officers] recalling it was said outside the tent and not inside”.

“There is absolutely no evidence, unless you can take me to it and I’ve missed something,” Yehia said to Sexton.

“All I have is the officers’ statements that say either they don’t remember the search, or both that they don’t remember the search nor remember the lead plaintiff. In those circumstances, I’m just not sure how this could ever have proceeded in the way that it did with the initial pleadings.”