Under current laws in most states and territories, the life of an unborn child is legally indistinguishable from that of the mother.
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Articles on Law reform
Displaying 1 - 20 of 143 articles
National Cabinet unveiled a $4.7 billion partnership, starting July 1 2025, to address domestic violence. It’s funding that’s sorely needed and enthusiastically welcomed, but needed immediately.
Koalas in trouble, land clearing at speed – nature in New South Wales is not well. Now the government is proposing significant changes to its ineffective biodiversity laws.
Irwin’s legal team threatened to sue Pauline Hanson’s party for defamation, but no legal proceedings have been initiated. Australia’s patchy laws in this area likely put a stop to it.
Banning political donations may sound like a good idea, but Peter Malinauskas’ plan raises political and legal risks.
Confiscating firearms from alleged abusers might seem like a good idea, but it’s unlikely to make much of a difference.
Gender violence has captured the attention of policy makers and the public. There’s many things that can be done, both in the short and long term.
Equal shared parental responsibility will no longer automatically be considered to be in a child’s best interest. That’s a good thing, particularly in domestic violence situations.
The fact that the presidency is attempting to get away with minimal regulation of bulk interception raises doubt about its commitment to ending intelligence abuse.
The judgment will also benefit spouses in Muslim marriages, which were legally recognised in a 2022 Constitutional Court judgment.
The inquiry into justice responses to sexual violence is taking a holistic approach, which is a welcome step in the right direction. But there’s still elements missing from the terms of reference.
We’re all familiar with a green ‘G’ or a red ‘MA’ on a movie poster, but those ratings don’t have any basis in what we know about child development. They’d be much more useful for parents if they did.
Australia has a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fix environmental law. A new Wentworth Group report says the cumulative impacts from multiple projects must be considered.
Nearly everyone agrees the 68-year-old Adoption Act is not fit for purpose. So where is the political will for change, and how much longer do families touched by adoption have to wait?
The Marriage Bill should strike a balance between preserving non-discriminatory cultural and religious practices and promoting liberal values.
Since Folbigg was convicted in 2003, there have been nearly 3,000 additional single genes identified, whose different mutations can cause over 6,250 different diseases.
We should celebrate that this bill is passing through parliament. But there are 2 key concerns.
There are many good proposals in Dreyfus’s reform paper. But they risk being lost once again among the voices of those whose interests are served by maintaining the status quo.
The conflation of sex work and human trafficking fuels support for the continued criminalisation of sex work.
Sam Uffindell experienced a form of forgiveness after assaulting a younger schoolboy 22 years ago. But this should be the norm under NZ’s child justice system, which is overdue for reform.
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Top contributors
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Professor (Practice), Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University, Monash University
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Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University
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Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor Monash University, Monash University
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Professor, Centre for Women's Studies & Gender Research, Sociology, Monash University
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Professor of Law; Kim Santow Chair of Law and Social Justice, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University
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Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia
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Arie Freiberg is a Friend of The Conversation.
Emeritus Professor of Law, Monash University
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Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology, University of Liverpool
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Criminal Law Researcher, Deakin University
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Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide
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Associate Professor of Leadership, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of Evidence Law, University of Sydney
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Professor of Criminology, Australian National University
