Liberty Victoria congratulates Flemington Kensington Legal Service, Arnold Bloch Leibler Law Firm and the barristers and legal team who worked on a pro-bono basis to take anti-discrimination proceedings in the Federal Court.

A strategic chasm lies at the heart of the Expert Panel’s report on asylum seekers.

By deciding to ship asylum seekers elsewhere, Australia is repudiating its responsibilities under the International Refugee Convention. That is, we are refusing to determine whether people who arrive here irregularly are nevertheless genuine refugees fleeing persecution in their own countries and therefore entitled to protection.

The President of Liberty Victoria, Professor Spencer Zifcak, said today that he was deeply disturbed by the resignation of all but one of the members of the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
 
“The Commission has been plunged into crisis because of the Attorney-General Robert Clark’s political veto of the appointment a new Human Rights Commissioner for Victoria”, he said. “The most important agency ensuring that the human rights of all Victorians are effectively protected is now in a state of disarray”.
 

Liberty Victoria today welcomed the Baillieu Government’s response to a parliamentary committee review of the Victorian Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.
 
Liberty’s President, Professor Spencer Zifcak, said that “the Government has issued a reasoned and sensible response to a committee report that was far from that. It deserves considerable commendation”.
 
“This is not to say that Liberty agrees with every one of the government’s proposals for the reform of the Charter”.
 

There are currently over 50 people in immigration detention in Australia who have been found to be refugees but have received adverse security assessments from the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). These are people who the Minister for Immigration accepts are entitled to our protection, but they face the prospect of remaining in detention for life because of the ASIO assessments. The number of people who have received adverse ASIO assessments has increased dramatically in recent years.

Liberty Victoria today condemned police interference with Occupy Melbourne demonstrators in the Flagstaff Gardens this morning, 6 December 2011.
 
At approximately 8.30 am, several police officers approached a female demonstrator who was wearing a small tent. This appeared to be the demonstrator’s way of protesting against an instruction by Melbourne City Council that no tents should be permitted in the Gardens.
 

The President of Liberty Victoria, Professor Spencer Zifcak, today condemned the Victorian Parliament’s report on the review of the Victorian Charter of Rights.

The report was prepared by the Parliament’s Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) The Committee has made a wide ranging series of recommendations almost all of which will reduce the existing legal protection of rights and freedoms in Victoria.