The federal government's media reform package has failed to attract support of Australians, according to a Morgan phone survey. A small majority of Australians (52 per cent) oppose the plan to drop cross-media restrictions, while a clear majority of Australians (64 per cent) oppose the plan to relax foreign ownership restrictions.

The Federal Government's media reform package has failed to attract support among the vast majority of Australian journalists, according to a survey of Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) members conducted for Crikey!, with 82% believing the changes to the media laws will have a negative impact on the integrity of reporting and 85% saying...

This paper by Victor Stojcevski, Terese Henning and Jenny Rudolf considers the need for reforms to the law of arrest in Tasmania. It contains 17 proposals for reform that are aimed at imporoving the current framework for arrest in Tasmania. Arrest involves the involuntary deprivation of a person's liberty to go where he or she...

The NSW government has announced that it will amend the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act to enable the Department of Community Services to apply to the Children’s Court to enter into parental responsibility contracts with parents of children who are at risk of neglect. Lenny Roth outlines the planned amendments and surveys...

In this e-Brief Roy Jordan provides background on the history of sedition as a Commonwealth criminal offence. Some examples of past sedition prosecutions are given. Proposals for reform in the early 1990s are outlined as well as the controversial amendments which were made during 2005. On 2 March 2006, the attorney-general announced a review of...