Last Friday, the High Court handed down its decision in a constitutional challenge to Queensland’s controversial suite of anti-bikie laws. This decision is as interesting for what it does not decide as…
The Abbott government’s Emissions Reduction Fund could be vulnerable to a future constitutional challenge in the wake of recent High Court decisions.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Late last week, the Senate passed the Abbott government’s controversial A$2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund, the centrepiece of its Direct Action Plan to combat climate change. Its passage has been…
Spain has unfinished business thanks to an ambiguous settlement.
Ivan McClellan
As the UK heads towards its next phase of devolution, it should look to Spain for an example of how to do it badly. In its attempt to please everyone as it drew up its 1978 constitution, Spain ended up…
Bundilla elder Aunty Barbara Raymond with schoolchildren in Darwin last year, supporting the cause of Indigenous constitutional recognition.
AAP Image/Supplied by Richard Oppusunggu
Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australia has been on the national agenda for a long time, but is back in the headlines with the news that the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader hope to release…
Andrew Wilkie argues that parliamentary debate and authorisation should be necessary for Australia to go to war.
AAP/Gary Schafer
With the announcement of Australia’s involvement in dropping aid to Kurdish fighters engaged against Islamic State extremists in northern Iraq, questions have again arisen about who should control Australia’s…
If Senator Richard di Natale were to win the federal parliament’s support for his bill to legalise euthanasia, it would probably override state bans.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Greens senator Richard Di Natale is circulating a bill to legalise euthanasia throughout Australia, the Medical Services (Dying with Dignity) Exposure Draft Bill. The key provision permits – subject to…
Shinzo Abe: victim of the times?
Franck Robichon/EPA
There has never been anything quite like Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. It formally renounces war and the sovereign right of belligerency, prohibiting the use of land, sea and air forces to settle…
Services can now be expanded to include drug and relationship counselling, sports coaching, as well as stress reduction and meditation.
Flickr/US Department of Education
The High Court of Australia has declared federal funding of the school chaplains program unconstitutional, largely because it doesn’t meet the legal criteria for authorising such payments. But this lack…
The first legal challenge to Queensland’s hardline anti-bikie laws is set to hit the High Court. But what are its chances of success?
AAP/Dan Peled
Hells Angel Stefan Kuczborski has launched a constitutional challenge to more than a dozen sections of the Newman government’s notorious anti-bikie laws in Queensland. These include the Vicious Lawless…
Jolly good. Now, about that small matter…
Paul Rogers/PA Wire
Philip Murphy, School of Advanced Study, University of London
A matter concerning Prince Charles, letters written to government ministers and a bid by the Guardian to make them public has been playing out in British courts and the media for the past few years. It…
Universities could soon become a Commonwealth responsibility – so why would the states give up the power?
University image from www.shutterstock.com
State and federal relations are almost always a bumpy ride – you only have to look at the recent stoush over schools funding to see that. So when relations go well and we see a glimpse of that perfect…
The High Court has ruled the ACT’s same-sex marriage law invalid, citing its inconsistency with the federal Marriage Act.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The ACT’s Marriage Equality (Same Sex Act) 2013 produced neither a marriage nor equality. Instead it produced inconsistency, leaving the law completely inoperative. Those who exchanged marriage vows last…
The High Court will this week begin deliberating on whether or not the ACT’s same-sex marriage bill is consistent with the Constitution.
AAP/Alan Porritt
This week, the High Court will begin hearing the Commonwealth’s challenge to the ACT’s Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013. But don’t expect lofty rhetoric about equality; the case is really about the…
The legislation prohibits protests within 150 metres of an abortion clinic that are able to be seen or heard by a person accessing the clinic.
AAP/Mariza O'Keefe
Tasmania’s abortion law reform bill, which passed late last week, decriminalises abortion and obligates medical practitioners with a conscientious objection to abortion to provide information about access…
Should it be the role of the Constitution to protect individual rights from being trampled on, such as by Queensland’s newly-introduced anti-bikie legislation?
AAP/Dan Peled
Last week, Queensland’s state government introduced a number of tough new law and order measures targeting serious sexual offenders and bikies. Under the new laws, bikie gang members in Queensland face…
What are the constitutional and political issues for Tony Abbott to consider around double dissolution elections?
AAP/Alan Porritt
Prime minister Tony Abbott has indicated (again) that he is willing to set in motion the procedures necessary to call a double dissolution election, in order to force the repeal of the carbon tax through…
It all comes down to matters of interpretation, and the interpretation that counts is that of the High Court.
Image from shutterstock.com
The ACT’s Marriage Equality Bill, which is expected to pass parliament later this month, has revived the controversy about who can legislate for same-sex marriage, with the Commonwealth proposing to challenge…
Opposition leader Tony Abbott plans to move a motion of no confidence in the government - but he faces constitutional and conventional hurdles in his attempts to hold an early election.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has confirmed he plans to move a motion of no confidence against Julia Gillard’s government in the next two parliamentary sitting weeks. But in the event a no confidence motion…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek during Question Time at Parliament House in 2012.
Penny Bradfield/AAP
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek have announced they will return health payments to Victoria that had previously been cut from its allocation under the National Health Reform…
Embattled federal MP Craig Thomson has been granted bail after being charged with fraud.
AAP Image/Quentin Jones
The Craig Thomson case will take over a year to work its way through the Victorian courts and is unlikely to result in the fall of the Gillard government before the September election, experts said today…