When I started as a barrister, over 20 years ago, I typically worked late each night and weekends. A few years into my practice, I realised I hadn’t taken a holiday in over two years. There always seemed to be something urgent to prepare for, even over the long Christmas holidays. I got to...Read More

Australian citizens are at risk of being prosecuted under Australian law if they commit, or are complicit in crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.  Since the commencement of the Gaza war, when the Israeli government issued an order to 360,000 military reservists to engage in the onslaught of Gaza, multiple dual...Read More

  On 21 November 2023 Lawyers for Climate Justice Australia (L4CJA) held  a webinar on Senator David Pocock’s Bill, the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023. Senator Pocock was joined by Anjali (Anj) Sharma, who was the lead litigant in the groundbreaking case of Sharma v Minister for the...Read More

Matthew Brady KC of Higgins Chambers hosted a lunch in chambers this week for the Chief Justices of Queensland and Nauru.  Matthew sits as a part-time judge of the Supreme Court of Nauru.Read More

Everything You Need to Know about the Voice takes the need to know at face value and, without cynicism, has done an excellent job of answering everyone’s questions in a work that is a genuinely interesting piece of political science and history.Read More

Outline This workshop by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) examined strategic climate litigation opportunities focusing on the Pacific, using a potential claim for damages by customary landowners in the Carteret Islands east of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, against Australia’s largest climate polluter, the operator of the Loy Yang A Power Station, as a practical case...Read More

The Lawyer X scandal is one of the most outrageous examples of the undermining of the rule of law in Australian legal history. What is at stake here is nothing short of confidence in the legal system in Victoria. The Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes must step up and ensure the integrity of justice in her...Read More

While it is not a court of law where the ethical and sometimes legal obligation of expert witnesses is to declare potential or actual conflicts of interest so that their evidence can be placed in context, the Nine Newspapers use of a panel of ‘experts’ to publish an extraordinary series of articles arguing Australia must...Read More

A seminar paper available at this link aimed to answer a frequently asked question: “We don’t have the death penalty in Australia. Why is the death penalty relevant to me?” One answer to the question is that Australians travel overseas. Australians do silly things including when they are overseas. One day, someone you know may...Read More

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s report, Without Fear or Favour: Judicial Impartiality and the Law on Bias, tabled in federal parliament on 2 August makes some important recommendations on appointments of judicial officers and the importance of diversity in that process, which should be road tested in the context of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)...Read More