Media releases

Redfern Legal Centre welcomes the report on the 2024 New South Wales Drug Summit’s recommendation to halt the use of drug detection dogs and strip searches at festivals during the current trial of drug-checking services but says ensure community safety, strip searches and drug detection dogs should be banned permanently.

A significant development in the ongoing class action initiated by Slater and Gordon Lawyers and Redfern Legal Centre, the State of New South Wales has now admitted, on the eve of trial, that there was no lawful basis to strip search the representative plaintiff at a music festival.

A report by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) confirms serious problems with the deployment of Body-Worn Video (BWV) cameras by NSW Police.

People receiving refunds for paying invalid COVID fines in NSW will also be paid interest on those amounts, following a successful campaign by Maurice Blackburn and Redfern Legal Centre.

Instead of repayment of invalid fines, Revenue NSW advises on its website it will reallocate the money to any unpaid fine debt.

The NSW Government will withdraw and repay more than 23,000 COVID fines, following a successful legal campaign by Redfern Legal Centre and Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.

Since 2016, NSW Police have conducted an average of over 100 strip searches per year at train stations.

Today the NSW Supreme Court published its reasons in a test case about COVID-19 fines. The decision clarifies the requirements necessary for a fine to be valid, and calls into disrepute all the remaining 29,017 COVID-19 fines that have not been withdrawn.

Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) launches the Police Accountability Dashboard - a groundbreaking tool and the first of its kind in Australia.

The National Justice Project (NJP), Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) are hosting an expert forum, ‘Mental health call outs: who should respond?’ to consider alternatives to the current approach that sends police to be first responders to a mental health crisis.