Law council calls for limits on money laundering reforms

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Daily wrap  

• Money laundering crackdown targets real estate agents, lawyers and accountants | SBS News
   

  • AML/CTF reforms must be balanced and proportionate - Law Council of Australia

    “Any reforms must not require lawyers to breach client legal privilege. This is the client’s privilege, not the lawyer’s. We have therefore called for legal practitioners to be exempt from any suspicious matter reporting obligation where that ‘suspicion’ is based upon information or documents the subject of client legal privilege; and for anti-tipping off provisions to be amended to allow legal practitioners to take instructions from clients in relation to the client’s legal privilege.”
     

  • Can the government beat the real estate industry in its money laundering crackdown? - ABC News
     

• South Australia's anti-corruption commissioner Ann Vanstone KC resigns - ABC News
   

  • Public Statement – Resignation | Independent Commission Against Corruption SA

    “…the public interest is not served by narrowing the definition of corruption, or by isolating the Commission from the intelligence sources constituted by all complaints and reports, or by completely divorcing us from the prosecution process so that we are unable to assist a prosecution. Absurdly, we are not even allowed to speak to the prosecutor, meaning they are denied access to the expertise and knowledge of Commission investigators who best know the matter.”
     

• Brittany Higgins breaks silence on defamation dispute with Senator Linda Reynolds | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
   

• Unions hail return of $35m Industrial Court [AFR paywall]

  Unions NSW boss Mark Morey says the court will “help moderate the excesses” of the federal system.
   

• Former senior NT police officer Neil Mellon jailed for destroying evidence after chopper crash that killed Chris 'Willow' Wilson - ABC News
   

Editor’s picks

• The latest edition of the QLD Bar Association Hearsay publication has been released here. Highlights include:
   

  • Fast and Slow Thinking by Judges and other Human Beings - The Hon. Justice Peter Applegarth AM
     

  • Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions or Targeting Judicial Independence? - Philip O’Higgins KC and Seraphina Noble
     

• The Callover: Keep the Fire Burning this NAIDOC Week, with Justice Crowley on Apple Podcasts

  In celebration of NAIDOC Week, we have the pleasure of speaking with the Honourable Justice Lincoln Crowley. His Honour grew up in Charters Towers and is a proud descendant of the Warramunga peoples. Since joining the legal profession in 1996, Justice Crowley has had a varied and impressive career. He has worked at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service in Townsville, for the Queensland and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, within the New South Wales’ Crown Solicitors’ Office, at the private bar and as the senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.

  In 2018, Justice Crowley became the first Indigenous person to be appointed as Queen's Counsel in Queensland, and on 13 June 2022, became Australia’s first Indigenous judge of a superior court when he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland. On this episode of The Callover, we discuss his life in the law and why representation and diversity are important within the legal profession.

   

• 2023 Annual Profile of Solicitors in NSW
   

• Event (online and in person) - 1 August 2024 - Australian Academy of Law - The Role and Running of Commissions of Inquiry - the panel comprises the Hon Catherine Holmes AC SC, the Hon Margaret White AO and Emeritus Professor Peter Coaldrake AO
   

• Law Report: Children and medical consent on Apple Podcasts

  In a dispute over the medical treatment of a gravely sick child, who gets the ultimate say? Three recent court rulings in New South Wales deal with this profoundly difficult issue.

   

• NSWSC Decisions of Interest 11 June 2024 - 25 June 2024
    

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