Abstract Religious liberty is central to the Australian way of life. It is enshrined in the Australian Constitution. But it is not the only freedom that matters. There is a rising tension between accommodating differing freedoms in 21st century Australia. The changing face of Australia continues to raise challenges about the limits of secularism while...

George Brandis’s backdown is only the first step in clarifying and protecting the role of this key legal officer LATE last week, six months after George Brandis quietly issued his Legal Services Direction tightening control over the work of the Commonwealth solicitor-general, the attorney-general abandoned the plan. He and the government no doubt hope that...

On Wednesday, a Senate committee took evidence in an inquiry investigating the issue of a direction from Attorney-General, George Brandis, to the solicitor-general, Justin Gleeson. By the end of the day, the shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, was calling on Brandis to resign for misleading parliament and lying to the Australian people, or for the prime...

Local Goverment New Zealand (LGNZ) commissioned this paper which takes a high-level look at the interrelationships between the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA), the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and the Land Transport Management Act 2003 (LTMA). It comments on the coherence of the statutory framework for local government and on how this statutory framework...

Talk of reforming the Family Court and family law system is back in the headlines, but agitation about the family law system has a long history. Since the introduction of the Family Law Act and the establishment of the Family Court of Australia in 1976, there have been many parliamentary inquiries and numerous reforms. However...