George Brandis

Defeat of bid to weaken Racial Discrimination Act a win against racists

All around Australia, racially oppressed minority communities are celebrating the late night defeat of the federal government鈥檚 attempt to weaken section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The bill, which sought to remove the words 鈥渙ffend鈥, 鈥渋nsult鈥 and 鈥渉umiliate鈥 from the section against racial vilification and replace it with 鈥渉arass and intimidate鈥 was defeated 31-28 with the support of Labor, the Greens and other small party and independent Senators.

The fight against Adani steps up a notch聽

The federal Labor Party decided on March 21 to tip the scales dramatically in favour of Adani鈥檚 $22 billion coalmine in Queensland when it agreed to support the Coalition鈥檚 bid to in favour of the corporations.

Brandis moves to give Adani mine certainty after federal court ruling on native title

Attorney-General George Brandis has moved fast to neutralise a recent Federal Court finding that all, not just some, native title claimants must agree for an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) to be valid. The February 2 ruling overturned a ruling in 2010 that had decided the opposite.

Rob Stary: 'Indefinite detention is dangerous, wrong'

Human rights lawyers are opposed to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's plan to introduce laws that would allow people who have been convicted on terrorism charges to be held in prison indefinitely.

Police target teens with secret 'evidence'

Heavily armed 鈥渁nti-terrorist鈥 police raided homes in Melbourne and arrested a teenager in Sydney on May 17. This foiled two unrelated terror plots, according to saturation media coverage based on information from police and security agencies that is too secret to be heard in court. In Sydney, 18-year-old Tamim Khaja was arrested in Parramatta and charged with planning a terrorist attack and preparing for 鈥渇oreign incursions鈥.