The Constitutional Validity of Declarations of Incompatibility in Australian Charters of Rights

New Australian human rights legislation has created novel ‘dialogues’ between different arms of government. In Victoria and the ACT courts have been empowered to make declarations of incompatibility to the Attorney-General regarding the human rights acts and other legislation. This article examines the Constitutional implications for a similar mechanism in a proposed Commonwealth Human Rights Ac

Submission to the Acting Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Re: Offences Relating to Entering and Remaining in 'Declared Areas' Under Division 119 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (CTH)

This report was commisioned by ANU College of La

The Australian approach to enacting counter-terrorism laws

This thesis examines the way the Australian Federal Parliament approached the task of enacting counter-terrorism laws over the five year period from 11 September 2001 to 11 September 2006. It is observed that it was common for members of Parliament to describe what they were trying to achieve in this type of legislation as striking a ‘balance’ between national security and individual rights. This supports an assertion that the content of counter-terrorism legislative proposals put forward by the Federal Government should have been subjected to some deliberation as part of the process by which Parliament enacted them into law. This also justifies drawing thestandards against which the counter-terrorism law-making process is assessed from the literature on deliberative democracy; in particular the understanding of deliberative democracy propounded by John Uhr.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to analyse the counter-terrorism law-making process adopted by the Australian Parliament. The quantitative data that has been collected allows the broad contours of the process by which all the counter-terrorism laws which were passed in the five years after 11 September 2001 to be delineated and assessed. The data presented relates to the amount of time Parliament spent enacting each piece of counter-terrorism law, and to the activities of certain parliamentary committees as they scrutinised counter-terrorism bills before they were enacted. The qualitative analysis is contained in two case studies focusing on two individual Australian counter- terrorism laws. These case studies provide a more detailed analysis of the factors that engaged or stymied Parliament’s ability toadopt a law-making process that could be classed as deliberative.The results of both the quantitative and qualitative assessments suggest that the Australian Parliament’s adherence to the democratic process of deliberation as they enacted these counter-terrorism laws was sporadic. It seems that while parliamentarians found it relatively easy to emphasise the importance of adhering to democratic traditions in their rhetoric, it was more difficult for them to ensure that the counter-terrorism law-making process conformed to deliberative democratic standards. Accordingly, this thesis casts doubt on the quality of the consideration given to these important laws

ATM germ line pathogenic variants affect outcomes in children with ataxia-telangiectasia and hematological malignancies

Abstract Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) is an autosomal-recessive disorder caused by pathogenic variants (PVs) of the ATM gene, predisposing children to hematological malignancies. We investigated their characteristics and outcomes to generate data-based treatment recommendations. In this multinational, observational study we report 202 patients aged ≤25 years with A-T and hematological malignancies from 25 countries. Ninety-one patients (45%) presented with mature B-cell lymphomas, 82 (41%) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma, 21 (10%) with Hodgkin lymphoma and 8 (4%) with other hematological malignancies. Four-year overall survival and event-free survival (EFS) were 50.8% (95% confidence interval [CI], 43.6-59.1) and 47.9% (95% CI 40.8-56.2), respectively. Cure rates have not significantly improved over the last four decades (P = .76). The major cause of treatment failure was treatment-related mortality (TRM) with a four-year cumulative incidence of 25.9% (95% CI, 19.5-32.4). Germ line ATM PVs were categorized as null or hypomorphic and patients with available genetic data (n = 110) were classified as having absent (n = 81) or residual (n = 29) ATM kinase activity. Four-year EFS was 39.4% (95% CI, 29-53.3) vs 78.7% (95% CI, 63.7-97.2), (P < .001), and TRM rates were 37.6% (95% CI, 26.4-48.7) vs 4.0% (95% CI, 0-11.8), (P = .017), for those with absent and residual ATM kinase activity, respectively. Absence of ATM kinase activity was independently associated with decreased EFS (HR = 0.362, 95% CI, 0.16-0.82; P = .009) and increased TRM (hazard ratio [HR] = 14.11, 95% CI, 1.36-146.31; P = .029). Patients with A-T and leukemia/lymphoma may benefit from deescalated therapy for patients with absent ATM kinase activity and near-standard therapy regimens for those with residual kinase activity