High Court challenge

People on the streets will win marriage equality

In the past fortnight, many of us thought we were right on the edge of FINALLY winning marriage equality in Australia as dissent within the ranks of Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government came to a head.

Liberal MP Dean Smith and others put up the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill and called for a free vote. Even Turnbull, a self-declared supporter of marriage equality even as he called for a plebiscite, said he supported the right of Liberal MPs to cross the floor to vote for the bill.

Doctors to challenge Border Force laws in High Court

Advocacy group Doctors for Refugees has launched a High Court challenge to the controversial Border Force Act that prevents them from speaking out about child abuse and other threats to asylum seekers in detention centres. Lawyers for the doctors will argue that the court should declare invalid laws that threaten detention centre staff with two years' jail for disclosing information about conditions they observe behind the wire.

Bob Brown protest charge dropped

Tasmanian Police have discontinued their prosecution of former Greens leader Bob Brown, who was arrested earlier this year under controversial anti-protest laws which he went on to challenge in the High Court. Brown was arrested in January for standing in the way of bulldozers primed to clear forest at Lapoinya, in north west Tasmania. He was one of the first to be charged under the Workplaces (Protection from Protestors) Act 2014. The law is part of a controversial series of legislation, which aims at deterring protests that interrupt businesses' activities.

Refugees challenge offshore detention in High Court

On May 14 a group of 10 asylum seekers and their families began a case in the High Court challenging the legality of the government’s policy of offshore detention. The Human Rights Law Centre is running the case on behalf of the asylum seekers. The Centre’s Director of Legal Advocacy Daniel Webb, who is part of the legal team representing the families, said the group has been temporarily returned to Australia but are facing imminent removal back to Nauru.