perspectives on stuff from an angry feminist
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 15th, 2008
I’ve noticed in the years I’ve been out that incidents of transphobic violence seem to be relatively less common in Australia compared to North America. I can think of a few cases that I’ve heard about, none of them fatal. Given this, though, I’ve always been curious as to how our courts would react to […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 30th, 2008
I was celebrating the news earlier this week that the Rudd government had decided to end the racist policy of mandatorily detaining asylum seekers, often for years on end and without proper access to legal representation. In one fell swoop, Rudd quietly signaled an end to one of the worst eras in our recent history, […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 27th, 2008
Earlier this week, the ACT finally had its first female Senior Counsel appointed, in Canberra barrister Louise Donohue. It’s an appointment that is drastically overdue. I’m not exactly celebrating, however. We’ve got a very long way to go, and a disgraceful miscarriage of justice of a rape case that went down this week illustrates that […]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 7th, 2008
It’s been a bad week for LGBT stuff, but I’ve just gotten an email that suggests that the Rudd government might be starting to move on trans issues.
A transwoman who’d stayed married to her former partner but had had SAS has just been notified by Centrelink that the guidelines have changed and they are now […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 11th, 2008
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that our means of appointing judges -whereby the say-so of a state Attorney-General is enough to put someone on a Supreme Court - is just not good enough. In the last day, I’ve come across two cases of men being appointed to high judicial office who shouldn’t be getting anywhere near […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 5th, 2008
I wrote a couple of months ago about the bizarre and controversial appointment of Hilary Penfold, a right-wing idealogue with no judicial experience, to the ACT Supreme Court over the strong protests of the Bar Assocation and much of the legal community.
The ACT government, for reasons evident to no one but themselves, went ahead and […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2008
Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade - and as such, Blog for Choice Day. This year’s theme is “why it’s important to vote pro-choice, but rather than join in on the many excellent posts about the worsening situation in the States, I’m going to write […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 18th, 2008
From today’s Age comes the latest example of male members of the judiciary who can simply not be trusted to hear sexual assault cases:
Victorian County Court Judge Michael Kelly was accused of making insensitive comments during a case against Dean Woodbridge, whom he sentenced last December to two years and nine months’ jail, wholly suspended […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 13th, 2008
The fallout is still ongoing from the Stanhope Labor government’s bizarre decision last month to appoint Hilary Penfold, Q.C. to the ACT Supreme Court. Penfold is currently the Secretary of the federal Department of Parliamentary Services, and a Howard government appointee whose reign there has been very controversial to say the least, where she was […]