Men and boys, many dressed as women, attacking a turnpike gate in protest at charges at tollgates on public roads in west Wales. The Illustrated London News, 1843.
World History Archive/Alamy
Women leaving violent situations need to be able to ensure the safety of their companion animals, and a motion before the Victorian parliament is seeking changes to achieve that.
A state of disaster confers more power on the minister for police and emergency services to ensure compliance with the laws put in place to defeat the pandemic. It plays a powerful symbolic role, too.
A Victorian court decision that an Airbnb agreement had the status of a lease has profound implications for guests and hosts.
Daniel Krason/Shutterstock
In 2016, a Victorian court decided an Airbnb arrangement was a lease. ‘Guests’ could be protected by tenancy law, including against eviction. And in this case the host was evicted for subletting.
Child Protection Minister Luke Donnellan said he would prosecute the state’s most senior Catholic, Peter Comensoli, if he doesn’t report suspected child abuse.
AAP Image/Daniel Pockett
While media outlets rail against being prohibited from reporting on certain cases, it is about striking a difficult balance between open justice and a fair trial.
Victoria is set to become only the third jurisdiction to introduce industrial manslaughter laws, behind the ACT and Queensland.
AAP/Paul Miller
Police sometimes misidentify victims as perpetrators – because the real perpetrator has misled them, or because the victim is not displaying “typical” behaviour.
A swift, certain and fair approach is designed to encourage offenders to comply with the conditions of their sentence.
from shutterstock.com
Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Andrew McGee, Queensland University of Technology, and Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology
Victoria stands a chance of becoming the first Australian jurisdiction in 20 years, and the first ever Australian state, to have an assisted dying law.
Today many donor-conceived children are adults and the impacts on their sense of identity have become clear, so Victoria is set to open the records of formerly anonymous donors.
Reuters/Kacper Pempel
In a world first, Victoria plans to retrospectively open the records of formerly anonymous sperm donors to all donor-conceived people. A system of contact vetoes aims to manage the privacy concerns.
Victoria has passed legislation that establishes ‘safe access zones’ of 150 metres around clinics at which abortions are provided, such as this one.
AAP/Mal Fairclough
Victoria has had a huge victory for the rights of women to exercise their choice to access a legal medical service free of intimidation and harassment.
New research suggests that female landowners were by no means as rare as was once thought by historians.
Research has shown that when sex work is illegal, street sex workers who are victims of sexual assault are reluctant to report it to police.
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There is a non-binding precedent in Victoria that allows judges to consider the victim’s sexual experience when passing sentence on a sex offender – but only when the “victim is a prostitute”.