Human Rights Lawyer Alice Drury Explains Recently Passed Laws That Threaten Our Democracy

Press, protesting & facial recognition


Article heading image for Human Rights Lawyer Alice Drury Explains Recently Passed Laws That Threaten Our Democracy

Whether you're aware of it or not, laws are being passed by the Australian Government that will affect your everyday life, including new protesting, media, and facial recognition laws. 

This morning Pacey & Mak spoke to Lawyer Alice Drury from the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) to find out more about these laws and how they could affect you. 

Alice works on systemic and emerging threats to Australian democracy, such as getting big money out of politics and putting an end to mass surveillance.

First the trio addressed the laws criminalising peaceful protesting tactics, giving police expanded powers to search suspected activists. 

The Greens MP, Michael Berkman, was the only MP to vote against the laws.

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He said the parliamentary debate underscored a key concern about Labor’s laws; that any moves to restrict protests would legitimise a more extreme approach from a future conservative government.

“(Labor) has invited just this kind of more egregious political overreach by the LNP... The LNP’s amendments were even worse than Labor’s bill, and this kind of slippery slope is exactly what we’ve been trying to warn them about.”

- Michael Berkman

Additional laws have been passed restricting freedom of press, causing a massive push for Australia's Right To Know

Alice commented that the HRLC are working to make sure that any new protections that come through for press freedom are "not just cosmetic", but rather that they go to the root of the issues we're facing in press freedom at the moment, including the protection of whistle blowers.

Find out more at charterofrights.org.au.

Pacey & Mak also asked Alice about the impact of facial recognition in the current - and potentially future - ways it is used by the government. 

"Facial recognition is incredible powerful technology, and it hands over an enormous amount of power to the government. And our concern is that Australia is effectively sleepwalking into a very un-democratic and dangerous situation."

- Alice Drury

She continued that the HRLC is waiting to hear whether the government will redraft the laws following strong public criticism, adding that it's an intrusive law, and that we need to stop and have "a big public discussion about the kind of society that we want to live in. Do we want our government to pass laws that allow it to watch its citizens in real time, all the time?"

Find out more from Alice in the catch up below, then let us know what you think of these laws in the Facebook comments. 

Ebony Reeves

5 November 2019

Article by:

Ebony Reeves




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