Brenda Tronson

In Australia, we can generally display our political opinions in public without fear of penalty, government persecution or violence. The High Court confirmed in the mid 1990s that our constitution contains an implied freedom of political communication, which is central to our representative democracy. The freedom is not absolute, and some regulation of protests is permitted.

But in 2022 and 2023, two Australian states (NSW and South Australia) passed laws which banned certain forms of protest. Do those laws go too far?

Jane Hall

Henry Palmerlee

This post first briefly summarises the case for a federal judicial commission, a proposal which has been mooted for decades but has only recently gathered broad support from the legal sector. It then argues that, to perform its role of maintaining public confidence in the judiciary, the commission should include lay-people as members. (In this post, the term ‘lay-person’ refers to someone disconnected from the three branches of government – for example, a legal practitioner, an eminent community figure, or simply a member of the public. The operative aspect of lay-personhood is that a person does not hold a role within the legislature, executive or judiciary, and has not held one in the past.) Finally, constitutional concerns regarding the inclusion of non-judicial members are addressed.

The post concludes that, while the inclusion of lay-members in a commission may raise unique constitutional concerns, these concerns are unlikely to pose an insurmountable obstacle so long as suitable qualification requirements are implemented for lay-members.

Narelle Bedford

Darren O’Donovan

The Final Report of the Robodebt Royal Commission was released on 7 July 2023, in a landmark moment for Australian public administration. The report makes searing findings against senior public servants and politicians. In this post I discuss how, in her report, Commissioner Catherine Holmes AC SC effectively inverts a generation of public service thinking about cabinet confidentiality and the duty to give frank and fearless advice. I argue that the Report’s final two recommendations – suggesting reform to cabinet confidentiality and record creation – are the lynchpins for successful public service reform after Robodebt.