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.

Watch the story of Melissa Dunn and her treatment by the NSW Police Force on the ABC website. March 2015 - ABC 7:30 Report

Not all renters are treated equally under NSW tenancy laws. There are many tenants in fairly conventional renting situations who would be surprised to learn that NSW state tenancy laws don’t apply to them.

The RLC Police Powers Clinic is an educational program run in conjunction with the University of New South Wales. UNSW students spend one day a week at RLC over a semester, putting their legal knowledge into practice working on police issues.

Employees should be wary of potential recriminations for after-hours social media misconduct, warned Kathryn Dent, an employment and industrial law specialist, in a recent interview with Australasian Lawyer.

The new consorting provisions, introduced into the Crimes Act in 2012, allow police to label otherwise lawful associations a crime and to prosecute on that simple basis. The consorting provisions lack appropriate definitions, restrictions, and standards.

Tek sought advice from RLC after he sustained injuries when being ejected from a local police station.

On 8th September, the NSW Parliament’s Select Committee on Social, Public and Affordable Housing tabled its final report after a wide-reaching inquiry. A number of submissions made by RLC during the inquiry were drawn upon in the final report.

The NSW Ombudsman released a report in August 2014, on the effect of expanded police powers introduced in 2011 to assist police responses to alcohol-fuelled violence, predominantly intended for behaviour in entertainment districts at night.

In inner-city Sydney, a man in his 50s answers an unexpected knock at the front door. It’s the police, carrying a DNA sample kit and some paperwork. A document explains to the man that he has been classified as an untested former offender, empowering the police to collect his DNA.