[From this Sydney Morning Herald article]: ‘A senior NSW judge has warned there are ”worrying signs” the Abbott government is winding back measures to promote greater gender diversity on the bench and called for vigilance to ensure hard-won advancements for female lawyers are not lost.
Ruth McColl, who has served on the Court of Appeal for more than a decade, said changes introduced by the former Labor government to improve the transparency of the appointment process for federal judges appeared to have been scrapped by the Coalition.
”The aim of the process was to ensure the evolution of the federal judiciary into one that better reflected the diversity of the Australian community,” Justice McColl said in a speech in Sydney on Thursday night.
”That position has now changed. According to the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department website as at 22 February, 2014: ‘There are no current judicial appointment processes’ for any of the federal courts. Read what you like into that rather Delphic statement.”’
[From an article at the ABC’s Drum] “While Treasurer Joe Hockey is complaining that Australia is running out of money to fund the health system, the Coalition Government has buried a report with recommendations for large-scale savings on drug costs.
Not long before the Gonski Review website vanished in late 2013, a less well known but potentially equally important review also quietly disappeared from view. Unlike the Gonski Review, this particular disappearing act barely made a ripple on the public’s consciousness. But the burial of the findings and recommendations of the Review of Pharmaceutical Patents has huge economic, social and health implications for Australia.
The review began in 2012 and released a highly controversial draft report in April 2013. The final report was delivered in May to the previous government, but still has not been released.
The Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane recently indicated in Parliament that the current Government was not planning to release the final report, and was not even considering the recommendations in the draft report. And some time in the second half of 2013 the website for the review was taken offline along with all of the submissions. The draft report and background paper are still available through the IP Australia website.“
No Morals Morrison [Image Credit: smh.com.au]
You don’t want a wimp running border protection, you want someone who is strong, who is decent and Scott Morrison is both strong and decent.” – One Term Tony
Mr Morrison also did not explain why it took until Saturday night to confirm conclusively that Mr Berati had died inside the centre.
“As time goes on the picture becomes clearer,” he said.
He declined to comment on whether he believed that Mr Berati was necessarily behaving in a “riotous” manner, or the behaviour of G4S staff at the time of the incident.
“I’m not going to speculate,” he said.
Mr Morrison said these questions would be determined by an independent review and police investigation.
Mr Morrison said Mr Berati’s body was in the process of being sent to Port Moresby and would undergo an autopsy.
Mr Morrison said he had faith in the PNG justice system and would not comment on whether it was appropriate to have allowed G4S guards to watch over Mr Berati’s body despite also potentially being subjects of an investigation.
“These centres by definition will always be tense places because people don’t want to be there,” he said.Mr Morrison said the government was in control of the Manus Island centre.
“The centre is under control as we speak right now,” he said. “Within hours of this incident taking place, the centre resumed operations.”
Mr Morrison also quashed reports the government was considering closing the PNG detention centre.
“The Manus Island processing centre will remain under this government,” he said.”
