Upcoming Events

NSW Electoral Laws: A Blow For or Against Democracy? 

When he introduced the NSW Election Funding Expenditure and Disclosures Amendment Bill 2011, Premier Barry O’Farrell said:

“The measures in this Bill are designed to rid this state of the risk, reality and perception of corruption and undue influence…”

The AMWU told the 2011 Parliamentary Inquiry into the proposed Bill:

“The Bill widens and entrenches the ability of individuals of means to influence the political process, while narrowing and diminishing the ability of those who do not have sufficient excess individual capital to communicate in their interest…. [it] is nothing less than a strategic maneuver by a premier with an overwhelming majority and an overwhelming will to strike a fatal blow against his political opposition.”

Is either true?

The AMWU, in conjunction with the NSW Society of Labor Lawyers, Electoral Regulation Research Network: Department of Government & International Relations at the Univeristy of Sydney, Charles Sturt University Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security and the Union of Lawyers & Industrial Officers NSW, are pleased to present a forum with two internationally renowned guest speakers to debate this important issue.

‘NSW Electoral Laws: A Blow for or Against Democracy?’

With Prof Keith D Ewing and Dr Joo-Cheong Tham

Wednesday, 28 November 2012 at 5pm
The Darlington Centre, Forum Restaurant (University of Sydney)
174 City Road, Darlington

Registration essential. Please RSVP by Friday, 23 November 2012 to jan.primrose@amwu.asn.au

Keith D. Ewing, Professor of Public Law at King’s College London is a frequent visitor to Australia. He has held visiting appointments at UWA, Melbourne, Monash and Sydney universities and several Canadian universities. Professor Ewing is recognised as a leading scholar in public law and labour law, including the law relating to political parties and election campaigns. His most recent work relates to reforming labour law to strengthen trade union freedom, constitutional reform, relating to public participation in the political process, and the status of social and economic rights. He works closely with trade unions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere and is President of the Institute of Employment Rights and Vice President of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights. (TC Berne School of Law, UQ)

Dr Joo-Cheong Tham, Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School. One of Joo-Cheong’s research specialties concerns the funding of politics and its regulation. He has given expert evidence to various parliamentary committees and is the author of Money in Politics: The Democracy We Can’t Afford (UNSW Press, 2010). He has recently completed a comprehensive report on the New South Wales election funding and spending laws for the New South Wales Electoral Commission, Establishing a Sustainable Framework for Election Funding and Spending Laws in New South Wales. Joo-Cheong is the Director of the Electoral Regulation Research Network and also undertakes research into labour law with a focus on the regulation of precarious work.

Launch of Legal Tweaks

Join us to celebrate the launch of our latest publication: ”Legal Tweaks that would change NSW and the nation” 

Over the past few months, NSW Society of Labor Lawyers has asked people from across the legal profession this simple question: If you could change one law or regulation, what would it be, and why?