A Commonwealth Human Rights Act must do more than help courts identify breaches of human rights; it must enable them to strike down offending laws and give relief to wronged litigants. The groundwork for an act with teeth is still to be done. 

 

Frank Brennan

Is the renewed push for a Human Rights Act worth the effort?

 

Last week, Hugh de Kretser, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, told the National Press Club that I had been a fence sitter on a Commonwealth Human Rights Act and that I got off the fence, coming out in favour, when I chaired the 2009 National Human Rights Consultation for the Rudd Government. He was right on both counts.

 

Does it seem people are unhappy at work?

It should. Not only is employee engagement down, things such as anger and stress are up.

And those are things you want to reduce because happy employees are critical to business success. 

Proof: Happy employees achieve their goals nearly a third more often than their not-so-happy colleagues – and for good reason. The happy people are 36% more motivated than their colleagues, according to research from the iOpener Institute and The Wall Street Journal.

 

cc. With a view to the upcoming referendum on the Swiss popular initiative “Preserving Swiss Neutrality”, a “pacifist and internationalist committee for neutrality” was formed in Ticino two years ago. As the initiators themselves state, it is “composed of political organisations, associations, collectives and activists who oppose Switzerland’s rapprochement with NATO and campaign for peace and international solidarity”.
    

Ticino Association for Neutrality and Work: No to the EU – No to NATO

 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has hit back at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after he criticized Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico for attending Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.

Merz said he “deeply regretted” Fico’s trip and claimed it did not reflect the EU’s “common view,” speaking at a press conference in Stockholm on Saturday.

“We will talk with him about this day in Moscow today,” he said. “We are celebrating Europe Day here in Stockholm today. And this is something completely different.”

Asked to comment on Merz’s remarks, Zakharova argued that modern Europe would not exist without the Soviet sacrifice that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Following One Nation's extraordinary victory at the Farrer by-election last night, the party's leader Pauline Hanson has taunted critics who said she could never break into the mainstream.

One Nation has won Farrer in a landslide victory, decimating the Liberal and National vote, and claiming the first lower house win for the conservative party since Senator Hanson first entered parliament in 1996.

Victory Day celebrations across Russia and the world concluded on May 9, while President Vladimir Putin wrapped up a series of meetings with foreign leaders who came to Moscow and spoke to journalists about the Ukraine conflict, Russia-China ties, and other international issues. 

“I think the matter is heading towards the completion of the Ukrainian conflict,” the Russian leader observed while answering questions from the press. He also did not rule out a possible meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in a third country once final agreements on a settlement are reached. 

Here are some further highlights from Putin’s remarks:

Ukraine yet to respond to Trump’s POW exchange initiative

On May 5, Moscow sent Kiev a list of 500 Ukrainian prisoners of war and proposed an exchange, Putin said. 

 

The newly revealed $40B blowout on Snowy 2.0 is shocking, but not surprising. Former senator Rex Patrick on management and oversight failures.

Originally announced in 2017, Snowy 2.0 is a mega pumped-hydro renewable energy project, acting as a massive “giant battery” for the national grid. The basic concept behind Snowy 2.0 is simple, albeit flawed, on account of its scale; off-peak electricity will be used to pump water ‘uphill’ from the Talbingo Reservoir, 27 km east to the Tantangara Reservoir, and during peak demand periods, allow the water to flow back ‘downhill’ through 2.2 gigawatt turbines to contribute power to the national electricity grid.

It can be likened to a 350 gigawatt-hour battery.

A cluster fiasco

The project is a taxpayer-funded financial disaster.

Peskov stated that the Kremlin had seen Bonya's video and emphasized that it had indeed attracted attention and become popular.

Kremlin Acknowledges Resonant Issues

The presidential spokesperson also added that the blogger touched on highly resonant topics in her video.

"But, in fairness, a great deal of work is being carried out on those issues, a large number of people are involved, and none of this has been left without attention,” the Kremlin representative concluded.

 

by ANDREY MIHAYLOFF

Russian Influencer Records Emotional Video Address to Putin. Kremlin Responds

Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov commented on the appeal of blogger Victoria Bonya to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Compared with the same period last year, revenues from oil and gas exports dropped by more than one-third — down 38.3% to 2.298 trillion rubles. The ministry attributed the decline primarily to lower global oil prices. At the same time, non-oil-and-gas revenues increased by 10.2% to 9.423 trillion rubles.

The Finance Ministry expects the federal budget to receive 8.919 trillion rubles in oil-and-gas revenues and 31.365 trillion rubles in non-energy revenues over the course of 2026.

The ministry also announced that beginning in May it plans to resume operations involving the purchase and sale of foreign currency and gold on the domestic market under the budget rule mechanism.

The Administrative Review Tribunal has rebuked the Government over the lead lining it’s wrapping around plans for AUKUS Nuclear Waste Storage and Disposal. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick reports.

The Administrative Review Tribunal has slapped the Government on the wrist as it ordered it to hand over documents related to how and where AUKUS Nuclear Waste will be stored and disposed of.

As Deputy President Britten-Jones wrote in his decision reasoning, “With respect to building social licence and trust with the public, there is some force in the applicant’s submission in response that

the best way to achieve social licence and trust is through transparency and not secrecy.

 

In the past, the United States was very sensitive to oil shocks. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would have been a catastrophe, as the US couldn't produce enough oil to meet demand.

But today, it is the world's largest producers of oil, gas, and refined products, and the planet's top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

How the US Pulled off an Armed Robbery of the World's Energy Supply and Created the Petrogas-Dollar

BY Richard Medhurst

 

Today, the deliberate inversion of historical fact by Western media and officials is so widespread that it is subverting the very foundation of historical reasoning. The principal aim of these distortions of public perception is the conquest of our minds, and corruption of our ability to separate truth from lies, all for the purpose of deluding people into accepting servitude and atrocities.

Restoration of Historical Truth: Russia Won World War II

BY Irene Martinez

 

In a superbly researched, meticulously crafted, and remarkably respectful article — in short, a brilliantly intelligent analysis of Venezuela's governance under Trump — Maurice Lemoine laments Delcy Rodriguez's confrontation with the far right and with "NGOs" like Amnesty International, which "has long been at the service of extremists seeking to destabilize Venezuela and which congratulated the far-right leader [Maria Corina Machado] on her improbable 'Nobel Peace Prize.'"

I would add that in the global Uyghur uproar, Amnesty has similarly placed itself on the wrong side of history. According to them, by not recognizing (after an investigation) the "genocide," Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was a traitor, a coward, and unprincipled (1).