On 16 February 2024 Greg Barnes SC delivered a keynote speech to the Queensland Branch of the Australian Lawyers Alliance Annual Conference analysing youth justice issues in Queensland, including: suspension of the Human Rights Act 2019 to allow detention of children who breach bail in the Stregthening Community Safety Act 2023 (Qld) – an Act...Read More

New Zealand’s top appellate court today ruled in favour of a very significant climate case continuing to trial. While it remains to be seen whether the case will ultimately succeed at trial, four features make it a momentous, landmark win for the climate that builds on other important wins globally in recent years. These four...Read More

Originally published in 1968 and re-published in 2022 to mark the centenary of the abolition of the death penalty in Queensland, The Penalty Is Death is an anthology concerning the capital punishment debate. The collection, divided into five parts, commences with two essays that provide comprehensive overviews of, and contemporarily contextualise, the debate for the modern...Read More

  When I started as a barrister, over 20 years ago, I typically worked late each night and weekends. A few years into my practice, I realised I hadn’t taken a holiday in over two years. There always seemed to be something urgent to prepare for, even over the long Christmas holidays. I got to...Read More

Australian citizens are at risk of being prosecuted under Australian law if they commit, or are complicit in crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.  Since the commencement of the Gaza war, when the Israeli government issued an order to 360,000 military reservists to engage in the onslaught of Gaza, multiple dual...Read More

Matthew Brady KC of Higgins Chambers hosted a lunch in chambers this week for the Chief Justices of Queensland and Nauru.  Matthew sits as a part-time judge of the Supreme Court of Nauru.Read More

While it is not a court of law where the ethical and sometimes legal obligation of expert witnesses is to declare potential or actual conflicts of interest so that their evidence can be placed in context, the Nine Newspapers use of a panel of ‘experts’ to publish an extraordinary series of articles arguing Australia must...Read More

A seminar paper available at this link aimed to answer a frequently asked question: “We don’t have the death penalty in Australia. Why is the death penalty relevant to me?” One answer to the question is that Australians travel overseas. Australians do silly things including when they are overseas. One day, someone you know may...Read More

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s report, Without Fear or Favour: Judicial Impartiality and the Law on Bias, tabled in federal parliament on 2 August makes some important recommendations on appointments of judicial officers and the importance of diversity in that process, which should be road tested in the context of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)...Read More

The paper available at this link discusses the following recent decisions on contract law: Dyco Hotels Pty Ltd & Ors v Laundy Hotels (Quarry) Pty Ltd [2021] NSWCA 332 (Dyco) Carter v Mehmet [2021] NSWCA 286 CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd [2022] HCA 1 ZG Operations Australia Pty ltd v Jamsek [2022] HCA 2...Read More