Working on the ABC Radio National program, Talking Shop, has reminded me how important it is to not just look for evidence that supports your position. Knowing that you are broadcasting to a diverse, highly intelligent, and sometimes strongly opinioned audience, is a good reminder to be confident in your arguments, and also in your opinions. Doing […]
Category Archives: Business and Law
This article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 April 2014. Following last week’s resignation of Barry O’Farrell and the appointment of Mike Baird as premier, it is now time to get back to the key criminal justice issue in NSW: the prevention of alcohol-fuelled violence. In late January, under O’Farrell’s leadership, […]
This article was first published on The Age website on 27 June 2014. Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark has called time of death for the offence of defensive homicide. The government’s bill, which was introduced in Parliament on Wednesday, represents a significant step forward in ensuring just responses to lethal violence in the Victorian criminal justice […]
This article was first published on The Conversation on 26 June 2014. Victorian attorney-general Robert Clark today introduced a bill into parliament that repeals the offence of defensive homicide. The bill signifies a significant step forward in ensuring just responses to lethal violence in the state’s criminal court system. While reforming homicide law has been a long […]
*Submitted to the British Journal of Sports Medicine June 2014 The recent article by Harcourt, Marclay and Clothier[1] is to put it in one word, problematic. Firstly, let’s take the article’s opening attempt to position itself within the paradigm of the 2015 World Anti Doping Code (WADC). Not unlike the Australian Sports Anti Doping Agency […]
Half of all Australians will experience a legal problem this year. Most won’t get legal assistance or come into contact with our courts or other legal institutions. In part, this is because Australia’s legal system is “too slow, expensive and hard to understand”. This was a key finding of the Productivity Commission’s draft report of […]
On Friday, Yassir Ibrahim Mohamed Hassan was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court to a maximum term of 12 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of nine years, for the manslaughter of his wife, Mariam Henery Yousif. Hassan’s case is a stark reminder of the injustices caused by the partial defence of provocation, which continues […]
Late on the Friday afternoon that was March the 21st, 2014 I was asked on ABC Statewide Drive ABC Victoria’s Regional Radio Drive program whether James Hird had shot himself in the foot? This was the hackneyed first question representative of “the AFL family” view that the Brownlow Medallist had somehow taken the Magnum to […]
Last week the media was awash with reports and details of the show cause letter received by the sports scientist Stephen Dank. The resultant commentary quickly regressed into a continuation of the ill-informed and unsubstantiated speculation as to what happened in 2012 at the Essendon Football Club accompanied by naive cries for the truth […]
Short of a bureaucratic snafu, which is always possible, Australian convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby will be released on parole from Indonesias Kerobokan prison within days. She’s breaking new ground. Parole is relatively uncommon in Indonesia, primarily because parolees have to be accepted back into the community in which they intend to reside. Many communities […]