Alternative Law Journal

This article provides an insight into the author’s lived experience of the postal survey on same-sex marriage and the passing of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 (Cth). It is a reflection on the emotional and intellectual tensions the journey provoked – for a member of the queer community, a mother, daughter, feminist and scholar.

This article considers the Australian Public Service guidelines on public comment on social media in terms of the constitutionally protected freedom of political communication. It argues the guidelines are excessively broad, and go beyond legitimate government interests, significantly affecting the speech of government employees. Such employees have a significant contribution to make to the kind of political debates that are necessary in a functional democracy. It argues there is a real question regarding the compatibility of the guidelines with the constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

In this article, we show that how we name, label, define, categorise, and speak (or not) about a social issue may be critical to how we do (or do not) organise, understand, and describe what we deal with as individuals and as a community. We focus on workplace bullying to highlight how definitions and synonyms may interfere with our comprehension of the problem and avenues of redress.

This article examines the systemic exploitation of foreign workers on temporary visas at 7-Eleven stores. The first section outlines Australia's temporary visa apparatus and the restrictions it imposes on visa workers’ residency and work rights. The second section reviews the ‘7-Eleven cases’, from 2011 to 2016, and draw three themes from those cases. The final section considers the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 (Cth). Ultimately, I contend that parliament's failure to address temporary migrant workers’ fear of visa cancellation may blunt the impact of these otherwise significant reforms.

Roadside drug testing regimes being implemented around Australia have been presented as essential for road safety but are compromised by significant policy incoherence. Prosecution based upon driving impairment has been replaced with prosecution based upon mere detection of a specified substance. The conflation of road safety and prohibition as the jurisprudential rationale for penalty by legislators is producing significant negative side effects for the criminal justice system and for the social legitimacy of the roadside testing process generally. Genuine impairment testing for drivers is important but it is not being achieved by the current procedures in place around Australia.

This article explores the strengths and limitations of the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2014 (Vic). The author evaluates the capacity of the legislation to balance substantive access to justice with efficiency and effectiveness, highlighting the extra-legal needs of vexatious litigants, and exploring the operation of the Act on vulnerable populations and intervention order litigants. This article argues there is a need to re-visit the broader aims of the Inquiry into Vexatious Litigants Report (2008) beyond implementation of what is otherwise model legislation.

This article examines the recent decision in Wotton v Queensland (No 5) through the lens of epistemic injustice. In Wotton, the Federal Court found that police contravened the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 in their response to the death of an Aboriginal man in custody on Palm Island in 2004. The decision is a landmark for police accountability, but it also provides a striking example of an Australian court confronting and condemning epistemic injustice: the distinctive wrongs that may be done to a person as a knower.

Violence risk assessment instruments are widely utilised in Australian medico-legal settings to help estimate an individual’s level of risk for future violence or offending. This introductory Brief discusses the extant cross-cultural research on risk instruments and the current applicability of the instruments to Australian Indigenous people.

Self-represented litigants face significant challenges, and pose difficulties to both other parties and the judicial system as a whole. This article briefly sets out the background of challenges posed by self-represented litigants, before turning to discussion of common suggestions to tackle these challenges. This discussion is with reference to a ‘case study’ of a recent SA District Court civil matter, wherein all parties were self-represented.

This article examines some of the underlying contextual issues – architectural, cultural and spatial – inherent in such a significant civic infrastructure project and draws comparisons to other major buildings of similar design or purpose.

The sustainable management of fishery resources in the Pacific region will greatly influence the long-term development of many Melanesian nations. This article will demonstrate that the incorporation of a rights-based approach to fisheries governance would facilitate the achievement of conservation objectives by encouraging sustainable behaviour amongst fishing communities. The significant role of legal stewardship will be highlighted thus emphasising the importance of robust law for both sustainability and human rights.