Done By Law

Prior to the recent interest rate increase, there was an alarming number of Victorians that were in mortgage stress. About half (44%) of Victorian households with a mortgage were in mortgage stress in late March 2022. Eight of the top 12 postcodes in Australia experiencing highest numbers of mortgage stress are in Victoria. In this episode, we are exploring what mortgage stress is and what service...

Indy and Jeremie discuss working with young people and mandatory sentencing schemes with Angus from Westjustice and Tim from YouthlawWEstjustice is a community organisation that provides free legal help to people in the Western suburbs of Melbourne. Youthlaw is Victoria’s state-wide free community legal centre for young people under 25 years of age.

On 10 May 2022, a raft of sex work specific advertising criminal laws were repealed in Victoria. This relaxation of advertising laws is the first set of sex industry law changes following the passage of the Sex Work Decriminalisation Act 2022 in February. Tonight, we are exploring what this change in the law landscape means for sex workers. Joining us here in the studio is Matthew Roberts, Policy...

In this show we looked at the Living Wonders Legal Intervention. Community legal centre Environmental Justice Australia, on behalf of their client Environment Council of Central Queensland, has submitted 19 reconsideration requests to federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, asking her to reconsider the first stage of the assessment of almost every pending coal and gas proposal and expansion...

The ASRC (Asylum Seeker Resource Centre) provides services for asylum seekers and refugees, such as access to housing, food banks, clothing drives, healthcare and social work. Jimi Muirhead, a solicitor at the ASRC, joins us tonight to share about what the ASRC does, what rights asylum seekers have and difficulties they face.

Community Legal Centres are independent community organisations that provide free legal services to the public. They exist to enable a strong collective voice for justice and equality, using the law as a tool to achieving this. We are fortunate to be joined by two deeply experienced and dedicated CLC lawyers. The first of these is Linh Cao, Managing Criminal Lawyer at the Law and Advocacy Centre f...

 In this episode we are looking at Indigenous Legal Judgments, a collection of key legal decisions affecting Indigenous Australians, which have been re-imagined so as to be inclusive of Indigenous people’s stories, historical experience, perspectives and worldviews. The collection was edited by Professor Heather Douglas and Associate Professor Nicole Watson and was published last year. Within the...

Dylan and Jeremie speak with Glenn and Ben about the Spent Convictions Act and what this means for those in the community with a criminal record.

Indy speaks with Lynda from Women's Legal Service Victoria and Estelle from the Police Accountablity Project about the misidentification of primary aggressors in family violence matters. Monitoring Victoria's Family Violence Reforms: Accurate Identification of the Predominant AggressorWomen's Legal Service VictoriaPolice Accountability Project

Do you use ‘buy now pay later’ services like Afterpay, Zip Pay, Zip Money, Humm, Bundl? Maybe you’ve gotten yourself in a little deeper than you intended. Did you know that the law does not treat these the same way as credit cards? So, you may not have as much legal protection as you imagined. Our guests this week, Tom Abourizk and Claude Von Arx from Consumer Action Law Centre tell us about how t...

Brief synopsis: Tonight we look at the new Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021 (Vic), which marks the most significant development in the sex workers’ rights movement in Victoria to date. Introduction: On 10 February 2022 the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021 was passed by Victorian Parliament. The new laws replace Victoria’s outdated licensing system, which criminalises consensual adult sex w...

For this episode of Done By Law we are joined by Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), to discuss ending Aboriginal deaths in custody and the Victorian Coroner’s recent report on Aboriginal deaths by suicide. We are also lucky to be able to feature audio from VALS' Invasion Day webinar on Friday 21 January 2022, with a star line up including Meriki Onus, Marcus Stewa...

This week Adnan Choopani speaks to us about his experiences in immigration detention. Chris Breen joins him to discuss the work of Refugee Action Collective. Adnan is an Iranian refugee who faced persecution as an Ahwazi Arab in Iran. He came by boat to Australia when he was 15, he was detained on Nauru, and is now detained in the Park Hotel after being transferred to Australia for medical treatme...

Image Source: abc.net.au 18/12/2019In this episode, we discuss bail laws in the criminal justice system and how these connect to social inequality, especially in relation to gender and race. Remember the public outcry in recent times about violent men out on bail committing even more violent crimes? The government responded by introducing tougher bail laws. But has this tough approach created the...

Our special guest is LaTrobe university law academic Dr Laura Griffin, who is researching human breast milk sharing and the law. Gemma and Su chat with Laura about how women support women by sharing breast milk, and what the legal system makes of this.

This week on Done By Law we look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021.  After being introduced into parliament on 26 October 2021, the new laws proposed by this bill have led to recent Melbourne protests and some extreme rhetoric, including threats of harm to sitting members of parliament, associated with right-wing...

Dylan and Jeremie speak with Mairead from Young Workers Centre and Liam from United Worker's Union - HospoVoice about wage theft laws which came into effect on 01 July 2021.We discuss what wage theft is, how rampant wage theft is, what these new laws change, and where to get help.https://www.youngworkers.org.au/https://www.facebook.com/youngworkerscentrehttps://www.twitter.com/youngworkersvichttps...

The amazing Akuch Anyieth gives a facinating insight into the world of interpreting in the legal system.

This week on Done By Law we chat with Sex Work Law Reform Victoria about the new Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021 (Vic), which marks the most significant development in the sex workers’ rights movement in Victoria to date. On 12 October 2021, the Victorian Government introduced a sex work decriminalisation bill into the Lower House of parliament, and this is anticipated to pass into law by the...

Dylan and Indy are joined by Ilo from PAP and Thomas from MALS to discuss militarisation of police.https://www.policeaccountability.org.au/https://melbactivistlegal.org.au/

Indy and Jeremie discuss the new Identify and Disrupt laws with guests Angus Murray and Lizzie O'Shea. More info on this topic:https://melbactivistlegal.org.au/2021/08/26/identify-and-disrupt-bill/https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2021/09/02/australias-new-mass-surveillance-mandate/https://privacy.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/110221_Submission-to-PJCIS-Identify-Disrupt-Bill.pdf

This week on Done by law, we are talking about sex work. Currently in Victoria there is a review of the sex industry laws underway. Decriminalisation is on the table. There is a really interesting history to the way sex work has been dealt with by our justice system. Tess and Su chat with Barbara Minchinton, an expert on this history. Barbara's new book, Women of Little Lon, is focussed on the sex...