En Passant

I lodged my FoI request with the AFP to find details of any advice they had about the legality and constitutionality of the recent raids on the press. This is their acknowledgement of my FoI request. stripslashes(”) . clean_pre(‘Dear Mr Passant YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST I refer to your application dated 10 June 2019, […]

Australia does not have a right to free speech. However the High Court has ruled that there is implied in the Constitution a right to political communication. Like all things constitutional, written or implied, this is subject to the Court’s interpretation.  I think it fair to say it is a fairly narrow right, and one […]

To me the Australian police raids on Senator Conroy and his staff look very much like a gross abuse of process and an attempt to undermine democracy and one of its outlets, parliamentary privilege. They are also I suspect an attempt to silence any future whistleblowers who might reveal inconvenient truths about this or other governments. We are losing our freedoms over time and the NBN police raids on Conroy and his staff are just another striking example of that loss.

How then can we improve safety on building sites? Give the CFMEU and other building unions the power to police safety standards. Police could also prosecute company directors for deaths and serious injuries at work instead of conducting political with hunts against unions. Deaths and serious injuries would fall. This of course won’t happen because we live in a society which puts profit before people, which prioritises loot over lives.

Khodr Moustafa Taha allegedly tweeted Victoria Police and said: ‘I’m going to hurt your officers.’ Police raided his property, investigated all his online accounts and charged him with among other things ‘using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.’ Yet when two people post on my blog ‘They should put a bullet in you, for the good of everyone else’ and ‘I hope you drown next time you go and do one of your little aquarobics classes friend’ there are no raids, no investigations, no charges, by either Victoria Police or, because I live in the A.C.T., the Australian Federal Police. What explains the difference?

Why are the Australian Federal Police not prosecuting the illegals, the rorters, on Abbott’s frontbench, including Abbott himself?

We truly live in an upside down world. Poor, powerless asylum seekers who have committed no crime are called illegals while those in power who have rorted the parliamentary expenses system are exempt from prosecution.

It is an offence under Australian law – section 70.2 of the Criminal Code to be precise – to bribe a foreign official. How are the investigations into Australian mining companies coming along Mr Keelty?