Law & Crime

The Catholic Church is at it again. The decision in Bird v DP has the privileged, affluent and braggadocious church publicly thanking the High Court for a ruling that pierced the hearts of thousands of survivors who were, as children, raped or sexually assaulted by Catholic clergy.

With the establishment of the NACC, Australians were promised a new era of transparency and accountability. That work is not done and we must continue the work to deliver that promise. The first step is removing the overreach of the exceptional circumstances test.

The world watched as Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s oldest and most prominent political prisoner, finally took the stand last week to give evidence in his trial under the controversial and far-reaching National Security Law.

Canberra is a small city. Forget six degrees of separation. If you’re not actually living across the road from the prime minister, you could well be next door to his chief of staff, married to his press sec, playing golf with his departmental head, sitting next to his driver at the footy, passing him and his partner walking up and down Red Hill at the weekend.

If there’s any silver lining at all to be found in the Labor Party’s confusing position ... it’s that the rather niche question of the importance of accurate population-level information about sexuality, gender identity and intersex status has made it squarely into the national political conversation.

In no way do I discount people’s genuine concerns about youth offending. But safe, cohesive communities will only be achieved when we ensure that every child’s basic needs are met … Protecting children’s rights and fostering community safety are not conflicting goals.

At the best of times, Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles can look like the proverbial rabbit caught in the spotlight. Mild-mannered, quietly spoken and very earnest, Giles was in the opposition’s crosshairs all week with increasingly strident demands that he be sacked.

On April 11, the fifth anniversary of his imprisonment, I lined up outside Belmarsh prison to visit Julian Assange. The process of entering the vile brick buildings, even as a visitor, is designed to humiliate and degrade.

I have seen the worst our world can do. I have covered war and misery in more than 50 countries. I have seen the Hobbesian world: a war of all against all. Sometimes killers praised God – sometimes God was at the head of the armies. But that wasn’t God … Suffering did not drive me from God, it drew me to God.

Without fanfare, the prime minister attended early mass at St Christopher’s Cathedral in Canberra last Sunday, where he joined other worshippers in praying for the victims and survivors of the Bondi Junction shopping centre knife attack. The prayers were also for the nation and its leaders in times that had suddenly become dramatically less certain.