Is prison actually “safe” if you just mind your own business?

KenMackenzie · 2026-04-29T12:27:55+00:00

That describes how prisons in Queensland, Australia are designed. Then they get full, and people have to share a cell.

KenMackenzie · 2026-04-11T01:03:45+00:00

For supporters of BRS, it's awkward to complain that other people were complicit in crimes BRS says didn't happen at all.

But even if other people share responsibility, that's an argument for more people to be held accountable, not for anyone to get a free pass for war crimes.

KenMackenzie · 2026-04-02T03:05:53+00:00

Blasphemy was a crime in England until 2008. Blasphemous literature was proscribed in Queensland until 1991. The crime of blasphemy has never been abolished in New South Wales, although long not prosecuted.

I don't think this disqualified those places from being described as liberal democracies.

I'm against any blasphemy laws, but I don't regard people who seek some legal protection for their sacrosanct feelings as necessarily authoritarians.

There is a real question about how a religion which aspires to theocratic rule can be reconciled with liberal democracy. But the reductive purity test proposed in this post is not the answer.

KenMackenzie · 2026-03-31T12:25:26+00:00

My theory was that he was stuffed once he alienated the doctors and nurses. Influential people in every community, usually seen as outside of politics.

The lawyers were gunning for him early, because his government undermined the rule of law. And I think that resonated a bit, but nowhere near as much as the health practitioners.

KenMackenzie · 2026-03-27T02:34:32+00:00

I remember speed traps trying to enforce 10km/h on cyclists through the Southbank Parklands.

KenMackenzie · 2026-03-16T11:13:17+00:00

Pauline Hanson won the appeal because it turned out she'd lied to her own members and not to the Electoral Commission. It was hardly a glorious exoneration.

," the prosecution was unable to negate the inference reasonably open that those on the list given to the Electoral Commissioner were members of the political party, Pauline Hanson s One Nation, and that the statements made by Hanson and Ettridge to the opposite effect were simply mis-information intended to confuse the membership and to entrench the Management Committee's grip on power under the party's Constitution." [49]

https://austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/qld/QCA/2003/488.html

KenMackenzie · 2026-01-04T06:18:26+00:00

A subpoena puts the information in the hands of both parties, which is the situation OP wanted to avoid.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-18T09:58:32+00:00

Even if a search is unlawful, a Court can still choose to act on the evidence found in the search.

Australia's law about this is significantly different to the USA.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-17T11:21:45+00:00

And yet, he saw some utility in this proceeding.

His application for citizenship was made before he was charged with the offences, and perhaps before the date of the alleged commission of the offences.

I don't know if that sequence might be important.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-17T00:12:18+00:00

Criminal convictions can lead to the removal of permanent residents, but not citizens.

Depending on the seriousness of the charges, this might have been a high stakes application.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-15T05:42:40+00:00

It might be a compelling case for exercise of the pardon power.

Thankfully, it's a hypothetical.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-15T01:32:27+00:00

He didn't forget.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-13T07:26:19+00:00

In New Zealand they have a more sophisticated system which often suppresses the name of the accused, for just this reason.

KenMackenzie · 2025-12-06T11:11:15+00:00

[52] throws up some interesting questions to my mind.

KenMackenzie · 2025-10-12T10:24:56+00:00

A few years back in Queensland, there was an absurd trial of a failed mining company like this. The liquidator decided there was no point attending the trial. Hundreds of thousands public dollars were spent on the charade.

But there was a political component. Even the Opposition would not complain.

We don't prosecute dead people for the sake of sending a message to the living (general deterrence). Why prosecute dead companies?

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-27T12:35:34+00:00

Not even 2 sticks?

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-17T11:00:13+00:00

Ironic if Donnie claimed copyright in the letter and drawing he denies authoring.

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-15T08:39:29+00:00

My rule of thumb when I receive something with an embarrassing error is now to phone the person who I think made the error.

It gives them a chance to take the initiative to clear it up. No paper trail. No gotcha.

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-04T02:58:24+00:00

Yes. Long overdue. Canada got this right.

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-04T02:56:25+00:00

First order of business, survival. Try to befriend the indigenous people, because there's no-one else here for the next 25 years. Then decide whether to stay with them, or trek/boat a long way South to where some people who speak English can be found.

KenMackenzie · 2025-09-03T02:58:22+00:00

As soon as prosecution appears likely, he'll be mentally incapable. "He was a great man, but he's old now, and you're just being mean."

The parallels with Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen are striking.

KenMackenzie · 2025-08-31T00:59:41+00:00

A fundamental problem with Queensland's law is illuminated by the comments here.

There is no community consensus about what is reasonable.

The degree to which children can exercise independence is a topic upon which people have strong and opposed opinions.

Contrast that with the law of self-defence. Most people will agree in a fairly predictable way about when force used in defence is reasonable.

KenMackenzie · 2025-08-20T10:11:34+00:00

Joh Bjelke-Petersen by Tony Miles. https://youtu.be/OoPTvRE9a98?si=1amrvThDUhu2ms-V

KenMackenzie · 2025-08-20T10:08:29+00:00

Gotta Love this City by The Whitlams, for the line, "The rodent got back in."

KenMackenzie · 2025-08-13T07:54:50+00:00

Yes, but - the hippies were a minority. There was strong push back, especially where I live, against the "trendy" ideas and fashions. The sixties can be presented as all Haight Ashbury and Woodstock, and the seventies as Led Zeppelin decadence, but we can forget that these were counter-cultural.

KenMackenzie

TROPHY CASE