October 2019
Dealing with sea-level rise when private property is at stake
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Rising Tide
Filed under Climate change, Environment, People and Places, Uncategorized
‘Not equal before the law’: Why regional drug addicts are often sent to jail, not rehab
ABC Online
15th June 2018
A retired judge has backed calls for more drug rehabilitation centres in the bush, warning addicts in regional areas are too often thrown behind bars.
John Nicholson SC served as a New South Wales District Court judge for more than a decade and regularly presided over sittings in Dubbo, where drug-related crime is high.
When sentencing offenders, Mr Nicholson told Background Briefing there were times he had no choice but to impose a jail term.
”I had to take an option that was much less pleasant, but still within the appropriate boundaries of sentencing, and that might be custody,” he said.
Filed under Uncategorized
Changing habits: Regional city calls for drug and crime rethink
ABC Radio National Background Briefing
Sunday 17th June
A community in regional NSW is pushing for a different approach to how it handles drug-related crime.
While politicians have promised a drug court to divert offenders into rehabilitation, very little has been done.
In this Background Briefing investigation reporter Bronwyn Adcock speaks to community leaders in the city of Dubbo who are fed up with drug addicts having no other option than to be sent to jail.
Filed under Uncategorized
Rush to judgement
Inside Story, August 2017
Originally published in the Griffith Review
Nowra showground is a ten-minute walk from the centre of town: past Best & Less, Jolly Olly’s Discount Variety Store, the Postman’s Tavern and the Bowling Club, along a wide, tree-lined residential street. The gateway is a towering, seven-metre-high sandstone structure with four entrance archways, topped by parapets and crenellated towers, built just after the second world war. A life-sized bronze statue of a soldier, added after the war, stands in front of the gate. He’s depicted without rifle or helmet; as local historical material explains, “His country’s freedom secured, but forever on alert to safeguard the future.”
Filed under Uncategorized
Shadows of the Sheikh: how an Adelaide Imam with a mysterious past became a media star
ABC Radio National Background Briefing
25th June 2017
He warns we’re facing an infestation of radical clerics, and he’s called for Islamic schools to be shut down. But Mohammed Tawhidi has a mysterious history that sits awkwardly alongside his new image as reformer-in-chief of Islam in Australia.
Filed under Uncategorized
Housing affordability squeeze pushed down coast as city dwellers flee Sydney
ABC Online
28th February 2017
It’s often prescribed as a solution for those struggling with the lack of affordable housing in cities like Sydney: just move to the country.
However, those people living on low incomes in coastal regions of NSW are faring just as badly as city dwellers as they hunt for an affordable roof over their head.
Filed under Uncategorized
No shelter at the showground
ABC Radio National ‘Background Briefing’
26 February 2017
An Australian town rises up against homeless people who set up a tent shantytown at the local showground. Bronwyn Adcock reports on a big city problem that’s come to Nowra on the NSW south coast.
Filed under Uncategorized
Sex workers fight against stigma for equal justice
The Saturday Paper
November 26, 2016
It starts out like any other booking. A woman advertises her services as a sex worker – usually online – and a man either calls or texts. She tells him what she’s offering and for how much, and, after agreement, they meet in a small apartment or studio close to Canberra’s central business district.
Filed under Uncategorized
