News and Events

Community legal centres around Australia will no longer have their budgets slashed by $25.5 million over the next two years, federal Attorney General George Brandis announced last week in a reversal of cuts handed down in the 2014 budget.

DIRTY dishes in the sink, leaving the toilet seat up? Almost everyone has a bad flatmate story but these ones really take the cake.

In Australia, unfair and oppressive rules introduced by some apartment buildings have seen a number of tenants summarily locked out of their homes, often over trivial matters. These tenants have found that local laws offer them little in the way of meaningful protection.

Following a fire in an overcrowded property in Alexandria on July 2, the City Hub has identified a series of up to 150 unauthorised boarding houses throughout the city, all of which appear to be part of a single operation.

RLC Tenant Advocate, Tom McDonald, was on the ABC’s program, The Checkout, this month giving practical advice to tenants in relation to keeping their bond at the end of their tenancy.

Discussion about the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination legislation has been dominated by a debate on religious organisation exemptions and freedom of speech. There has been public outcry over religious organisations being exempt from the legislation and the ramifications for service provision to some of the most vulnerable people in Australia.

I sympathise with Michael Texilake's concerns (Letters, July 20), but many of his complaints can effectively be dealt with by existing legal remedies where the conduct is threatening or excessive. A more effective short-term solution to "music, burn-outs, fights and all-night public rampages" may be found in the Summary Offences Act and the Protection of the Environment Operations Act.