Done By Law

40 Years Tent Embassy and Your Rights at Festivals

On 26 January 1974 the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established under an umbrella on the grounds in front of Parliament House. This Survival Day marked the 40th anniversary of the Embassy. A gathering in Canberra celebrated the activists who have fought for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and its historical and ongoing fight for justice. We talk to Meghan Fitzgerald who attended the Tent Embassy 40th anniversary commemorations about the gathering, the media misrepresentations of the protests and the ongoing struggle for survival and justice.

Summer is music festival and rave season. We discuss issues surrounding the policing of festivals and raves, especially the use of sniffer dogs, drug test and searches by security guards and police and how these tactics risk undermining harm reduction approaches to drug use. Listen in to find out more about your rights at festivals!

DBL 27 September 2011 - Reverse Presumptions & Decarceration

Natasha Wholan is a Drug Outreach Lawyer with Fitzroy Legal Service. On the show she talks about her experience as a newly admitted lawyer involved in the Momcilovic case which raised human rights arguments in criminal matters and was heard in the High Court of Australia.

Terri Silvertree is an advocate with the Decarceration Network which is working to promote decarceration and abolitionist messages through a poster that outlines the real impacts of imprisonment and criminalisation in terms of violence, recividism and community safety. The poster was recently launched by the Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People.

DBL: Parents Drug Testing Children: 8 September 2009

In July 2009, a US-based bioscience company launched online sales of their drug testing kit, Hair Confirm, in Australia. Parents can now take samples of their children’s hair and have them tested for cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy use in the last three months.

There are concerns parents will do this without their children’s consent, which has resulted in criticism of the testing kit from civil liberties groups and drug counsellors.

However – the proposed testing kit also raises a number of legal issues about the rights of children to consent to, and know about, medical testing on themselves, their access to medical records and what happens to children if they test positive to drugs via this testing method.

Tonight we are joined by Professor Loane Skene, a specialist in health and medical law, and Annie Davis from Youth Law to discuss these issues.