Just Cases

How does the law balance the rights of women to access safe and legal abortions with the right to free speech and protest? 

For over twenty years anti-abortion protesters have picketed abortion clinics around Australia. To combat this targeted harassment of women seeking safe and legal abortions, state governments have passed ‘safe access zone’ laws which create an exclusion zone around abortion clinics which protestors cannot enter. 

Anti-abortionists argue these laws limit their free speech. Supporters of safe access zones argue these laws are vital to ensure the safety of women seeking health care. 

When this law was challenged by anti-abortion protesters who had breached the exclusion zones, the High Court was faced with a major balancing act.

 Storytellers

- Dr Tania Penovic, Faculty of Law, Monash University

- Dr Caroline Henckels, Faculty of Law, Monash University

Hosts

- Dr Melissa Castan & James Pattison

Further reading

- Explainer: what are abortion clinic safe-access zones and where do they exist in Australia? (https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-abortion-clinic-safe-access-zones-and-where-do-they-exist-in-australia-98175)

- High Court delivers landmark ruling validating abortion clinic ‘safe access zones’ (https://theconversation.com/high-court-delivers-landmark-ruling-validating-abortion-clinic-safe-access-zones-115062)

Music in this episode:

- Lee Rosevere - ‘Start the Day’

- Lee Rosevere - ‘Waiting For the Moment That Never Comes’

Read the transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A fight over a new toilet block at a Catholic school in 1962 turns into a major constitutional and ideological war, the effects of which last until today. 

Australians traditionally sees themselves as pretty secular compared to the rest of the world. But how Australians choose to fund their children’s education paints a very different picture. 

For every dollar the Federal Government spends per student in a private or independent school, public schools receive only around 75 cents per student. 

In 2017, Catholic schools received $8.4 billion in government funding, despite also being funded by fee-paying families. The Catholic Church in Australia is estimated to be worth between $20 billion to $30 billion. 

How can a secular government, in a country which espouses the separation of church and state, be allowed to fund religious schools? And when it comes to school funding, is our government playing favourites with religion?

Storyteller: 

Dr Luke Beck, Associate Professor, Monash Law School.

Hosts: 

Dr Melissa Castan & James Pattison

Extra material:

Attorney-General (Vic); Ex Rel Black v Commonwealth ("DOGS case") [1981] HCA 2; (1981) 146 CLR 559 (2 February 1981) http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1981/2.html

Music in this episode:

Nathaniel Wyvern - ‘Sanctuary of the Sky Gods’

Mid-Air Machine - ‘Breathing Out’

John Bartman - ‘Pepper the Pig’

Read the transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Issues affecting transgender people are much more prominent in the public consciousness than they’ve ever been. This episode of JUST CASES explores one important legal issue: can children access hormone therapy or surgery in Australia? 

We speak to the judge who decided this important case and learn what it’s like to make such life-changing decisions. 

WARNING: This episode contains some difficult subject matter. There’s mentions of suicide, gender-identity issues, family violence and graphic content. If that’s difficult for you please find another episode of Just Cases to listen to. 

If anything in this episode brings up some difficult feelings for you please contact Lifeline or Beyond Blue, or similar support services in your community.

Lifeline 13 11 14 / www.lifeline.org.au

Beyond Blue 1300 22 46 36 / www.beyondblue.org.au

Storyteller: The Honourable Nahum Mushin AM, former Judge of the Family Court of Australia and Professor of Law at Monash University. 

Hosts: Dr Melissa Castan & James Pattison

Music in this episode:

- 'Hot Pink' by Chad Crouch

- 'Backwater' by Chad Crouch

- 'Cross Stitch' by Chad Crouch

Read the transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The corruption case against former South African president Jacob Zuma has begun. Zuma’s case lifts the lid on the influence of weapons companies on governments worldwide. 

“It’s not a story of a corrupt guy, Jacob Zuma,” says Hennie van Vuuren, the director of Open Secrets, a South African organisation that investigates economic crimes and abuses of power. 

“[Instead] it’s a story of a network of players around the globe - in corporations, arms companies, intelligence agencies - who have been working with accountants and lawyers and others who have facilitated this corruption. As we zoom out we start to see the links spread across the globe.” 

Hennie van Vuuren (www.twitter.com/hennievvuuren) is the author of 'Apartheid, Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit', which shows how a secret global network of banks, governments and big business dodged international sanctions to supply the last Apartheid regime with weapons, and how this legacy of corruption, which resulted in the gutting of democratic institutions and the murders of those who attempted to expose it, still survives to this day.

More information

- Open Secrets: www.opensecrets.org.za

- Podcast series: They Killed Dulcie www.opensecrets.org.za/they-killed-dulcie-podcast-series/

Music in this episode:

'Alum Drum Solo' by Blue Dot Sessions‘Melodramatic’ by DJ Ollie J

Read the transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's just before midnight on 10 July 1985. The Port of Auckland, New Zealand. The Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace anti-nuclear protest ship, is sitting at its dock when two massive explosions tear through its hull. 

A man is killed onboard. 

What follows is one of the most bizarre and sinister of diplomatic incidents. 

The hunt for his killers uncovers an international network of spies, and exposes a highly-coordinated attack planned from the highest echelons of world power. 

Music in this episode:

- Lobo Loco 'Fly of the Brants A'

- Blue Dot Sessions 'Boston Landing'

Read the transcript.

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A series of factory fires in Sydney in 1916 leads to a full-blown treason trial. 

The case of the ‘IWW Twelve’ sees a dozen local members of a radical worldwide movement caught in a perfect political storm.

Storyteller: Dr Stephen Gray, Monash Law School

Hosts: Dr Melissa Castan & James Pattison

Further reading:

- ‘Death Cults, Murdering a Police Officer, and the First World War' by Dr Stephen Gray (Alternative Law Journal) 

- 'Enemy Within? The Wobblies' by Nerida Campbell (Sydney Living Museums) 

- 'The Sydney Twelve — treason, conspiracy and conscription in Australia 1916' by Dr Barry York (Museum of Australian Democracy Blog)

All music in this episode by Podington Bear. 

Track listing:

- 'Elephants on Parade'

- 'Senseless'

- 'Kaleidoscope'

Find a transcript for this episode here.

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It’s the night of 2 August 1926. Five nautical miles off the coast of Lesbos. A French ship, the SS Lotus, is cruising towards its destination of Constantinople. The ship’s first officer is keeping watch, but he doesn’t know that there’s a Turkish ship dead ahead. 

What lies ahead is not only a naval disaster, but a diplomatic dispute that throws a massive colonial power on a collision course with a young nation on the rise.

Music: 

- ‘This tuning is so dramatic’ by Monplaisir

- ‘35’C’ by King Imagine

Read the transcript.

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In 1886 a sensational banking scandal hit the headlines in Great Britain. It involved the world's richest man, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, and it led to an absurd decision. 

More than a century later, the current Banking Royal Commission in Australia continues to expose stories of banks behaving badly. 

But it remains rare for the people at the helm of banks and other major corporations - the company directors - to be held legally responsible for what goes on at their company. 

When things go wrong at a company who should cop the blame? And how far has the law come since the case of the Marquess of Bute and the Cardiff Savings Bank? 

Music in this episode:

- 'Swoon' by Inaequalis

- '35 'C' by King Imagine

- '2 AM' by Kenney Floreat

Read the transcript.

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