Rise of the monster acts

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Daily wrap  

• ‘I did nothing wrong’: The fraudster and Slater & Gordon’s year from hell [SMH paywall]

  Two scandals and a serial fraudster have shaken one of Australia’s most prominent law firms over the past year, but who is to blame?
   

• Roberts-Smith’s rabid band of supporters has an outspoken new member – Gina Rinehart [The Age paywall]

  Australia’s richest person has asked why this “brave and patriotic man” should be “under such attack”. The answer is nearly 1000 pages of court judgments.
   

• Accused man dies after giving evidence during incest trial in Perth court [SMH paywall]

  A 76-year-old man collapsed and died of a suspected heart attack after giving evidence on Tuesday afternoon in the District Court.
   

• Mother, cook, defendant: The trial of Erin Patterson turns to her personal life - ABC News
   

• Inside the Liberals’ battle to save John Pesutto from bankruptcy | Liberal party | The Guardian
   

• Rally outside NSW parliament in fight to quash workers compensation reform | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
   

Editor’s picks

• Rise of the monster acts: growth in legislative complexity in Australia since the 1980s

  How complex should the law be? Recent efforts by legal and political institutions in Australia have sought to define and combat the issue, largely focusing on ad hoc drafting solutions and plain language law. We complement this work with a system-level measure, which considers the interdependence among separate pieces of legislation. Using data from the Australian Law Reform Commission, we show that patterns of legislation conformed to expected statistical bounds until the end of the 1970s. After which, subsequent parliaments diverged, coinciding with the emergence of large and complex ‘monster acts’ that were far more likely to receive a disproportionate number of amendments. We provide an illustrative survey of the Australian monster acts, argue their complexity creates problems for public policy at a local and systemic level, and discuss the implications of our research for managing complexity in lawmaking for democratic governance.
   

• Key changes to use of DNA evidence in courtrooms - Law Society Journal

  It’s been a vital tool in solving crimes for many years, but in some cases DNA evidence has resulted in wrongful convictions. Its ability to answer ‘who’ a DNA profile belongs to is widely accepted, less so ‘how’ the profile got wherever it was found. A new method of scientific reporting provides a framework for the data but remains controversial and is yet to be adduced at a trial in Australia. A leading scientist in the field says the mere existence of this method changes how experts will be able to give evidence.
   

• Just the beginning of trouble? The rules of labelling requirements - Law Society Journal

  The Bunnings price-beating guarantee has been the main focus of a recent news investigation, raising concerns that it is not in full compliance with regulatory requirements over home brand product marketing and consumer laws relating to anti-competitive behaviour.
   

• The Story Behind Lord Atkin of Snail - Quadrant
   

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