10 March 2023
Australia’s Incarceration Crisis Is Worker Shortage Solution
“As Australia faces simultaneous incarceration and worker shortage crises, many low-risk non-violent offenders could be gainfully employed in the community right now without risk,” said Professor Mirko Bagaric, Dean of the Swinburne University of Technology Law School. Today, the Institute of Public Affairs released a new research report, Let Them Work: How Criminal Justice Reform Can Help Address Australia’s Worker
11 November 2022
Australia’s Emerging Incarceration Crisis: Proposed Reforms Of The Australian Sentencing System
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has taken a lead role in providing empirically-grounded reform proposals for the criminal justice system, with a strong focus on reducing incarceration numbers. The report released in 2017, titled Australia’s Criminal Justice Costs: An International Comparison noted that ‘despite spending more than most countries [on prisons] and more and more each year, our results
25 November 2020
Coronavirus: Shift To Virtual Courtrooms Leaves Justice System Ailing
The coronavirus restrictions passed in 2020 requiring courts to go virtual is an under-appreciated but serious threat to the traditions that have been built up over centuries to protect our freedoms and the rule of law. The first and most striking change from ordinary court process came with the announcements, beginning in March, that jury trials in all states and
30 June 2020
Bypassing Democracy: A Report On The Exemption Of Delegated Legislation From Parliamentary Oversight
Questioning and challenging the policies and actions of ministers and senior bureaucrats is fundamental to parliament’s role in holding the government to account. While the Commonwealth parliament can practice oversight of the government in numerous ways, the power to veto laws made by ministers and agencies is a powerful mechanism for parliamentarians to ensure legislation is consistent with the rule
10 March 2020
Left’s Control Of Higher Courts Under Threat
The progressive reaction to calls for capital-C legal conservatives to be appointed to the High Court — that it would politicise the judiciary — is an insincere attempt to retain its power over the legal establishment. The High Court’s decision in February that indigenous Australians should be treated differently in the Constitution because of their racial identity was the most
19 October 2018
IPA submission to the University of Tasmania’s Draft University Behaviour Policy and Procedure
This submission responds to the University of Tasmania’s Draft University Behaviour Policy and Procedure. This submission raises concern that the proposed policy seriously threatens freedom of expression and infringes legal rights. The University of Tasmania is currently one of Australia’s highest ranked universities on freedom of speech in the IPA’s Free Speech on Campus Audit 2017. The University is one of few
3 January 2018
Public Safety Must Always Be The Priority
Under pressure, Victoria Police have now finally admitted that gangs of young people from African backgrounds are causing fear and havoc in Melbourne’s streets. But despite that, Victoria’s police chief seems to think arresting people is somehow unfair. Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton appears to spend more time fretting about the “human rights” of juvenile rioters than he does about
28 July 2017
Four Reasons To Reject The Referendum Council Recommendations
Our new research brief is on the Four Reasons why the Referendum Council’s recommendations for Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples should be rejected. The proposal to entrench an indigenous ‘voice to parliament’ is a radical idea. Race should not be used as a qualification for participation in democracy. The creation of a constitutional body to exclusively
