As employees return to the workplace following the Covid-19 pandemic, it is timely to consider how the increased employee monitoring and surveillance often put in place for remote working environments now impacts monitoring employee’s conduct in the workplace. How much surveillance is too much? Are you getting the balance right? Installing cameras and other surveillance […]
Convicted murderer Keli Lane has been denied parole after serving more than 13 years in prison in a test of the so-called “no body, no parole” laws introduced in 2022. Lane was convicted in 2010 of murdering her newborn daughter Tegan in September 1996. She was sentenced to a maximum of 18 years imprisonment with […]
The High Court has upheld an appeal by Google finding it is not liable for defamatory content accessed by clicking on hyperlinks generated by its search results. Google had appealed against a Victorian Supreme Court decision that found it was liable as a publisher of a 2004 newspaper article about Melbourne criminal lawyer George Defteros. […]
Trader Pleads Guilty to Pump & Dump in Historic Case A share trader who ran an illegal pump and dump scheme has pleaded guilty to market manipulation following an investigation by ASIC. The guilty pleas were entered by 40- year-old Gabriel Govinda at Melbourne Magistrate’s Court in June. The term pump and dump refers to […]
New sexual consent laws came into force in NSW on 1 June. Consent in relation to sexual offences is now governed by Part 3, Division 10, Subdivision 1A of the Crimes Act 1900. The new subdivision applies to the offences of ‘sexual act’, ‘sexual touching’ and ‘sexual assault’ (and their aggravated versions). The subdivision sets […]
The NSW Government has announced reforms designed to better protect frontline workers. People who assault frontline health workers, correctional and youth justice officers and emergency services staff and volunteers will face tougher penalties under new offences the government intends to legislate by the middle of this year. The government will implement all of the recommendations […]
New South Wales has become the first state in Australia to create a standalone criminal offence for causing the death of an unborn child. Previously, the loss of an unborn child was considered part of the grievous bodily harm caused to the pregnant woman. There was no separate offence relating to the loss of a […]
On 9 February 2022, the High Court handed down two important decisions regarding the distinction between employees and contractors which represent a significant shift in the law. The cases were ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek and Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd. In the case of […]
One woman every 9 days and 1 man every 29 days is killed in Australia by a current or formerpartner. It is because of alarming statistics like this that the NSW Government has announced it will makecoercive control a criminal offence as part of the response to recommendations from the Joint SelectCommittee on Coercive Control. […]
On 10 November 2021, the High Court handed down an interesting decision in the case of Park v The Queen [2021] HCA 37 where it rejected the argument that a jurisdictional limit is a matter required to be taken into account in determining the appropriate sentence for an offence. The appeal concerned the correct interpretation […]
