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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
When refugees arrive in Australia, they face huge challenges. So, how do they access the support they need? Perhaps counterintuitively, a newly launched children’s book is designed to help refugees get legal assistance.
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Matthew D. Townsend
As a measure of how efficient the Supreme Court can be in processing applications to modify restrictive covenants, today we managed to modify a restrictive covenant within four weeks of taking instructions from a client. The modification was a simple … Continue reading →
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The Victorian government has abolished stamp duty on commercial and industrial property in favour of an annual property tax, which it hopes will raise an extra $50 billion.
The system will be phased in starting from 1 July 2024 and apply to any commercial and industrial properties as they are
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Employers generally know they could be held accountable if employees are injured on the job. But they may assume their accountability is limited to physical injuries.
However, a recent High Court judgment found an employer’s duty of care may be extended to mental or psychiatric matters.
The case dealt with
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The Victorian government has introduced a new temporary land tax surcharge from the 2024 land tax year. This tax is in addition to the existing land tax and will last for 10 years (until 30 June 2033). The proceeds will be used to repay some of the state’s Covid-19 debts
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Why did it take the justice system 20 years to work out that Kathleen Folbigg was wrongly convicted over the deaths of her four infant children? Does Australia need a better way to investigate possible miscarriages of justice?
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Why did it take the justice system 20 years to work out that Kathleen Folbigg was wrongly convicted over the deaths of her four infant children? Does Australia need a better way to investigate possible miscarriages of justice?
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A New York Judge is considering what sanctions to impose on a lawyer who spectacularly misused ChatGPT. And Australia’s only Indigenous federal judge Matthew Myers wants more First Nations people to use the family law courts to get the best outcome for their children.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A New York Judge is considering what sanctions to impose on a lawyer who spectacularly misused ChatGPT. And Australia’s only Indigenous federal judge Matthew Myers wants more First Nations people to use the family law courts to get the best outcome for their children.
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If you’re renovating or building a domestic structure, you need to hire a registered builder if the work is worth more than $10,000. You also need a written ‘major domestic building contract’.
In this context, building work includes:
Constructing a home, including the landscaping, paving, retaining structures, driveways, fencing,
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In a recent court case, Mazda was found to have breached Australian consumer law because they gave customers the run-around by refusing to refund or replace their faulty cars.
In Australia, the products we buy are required to meet these seven consumer guarantees:
1. Be of acceptable quality
The product
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If a customer leaves an unfair online review, your first step could be to ask the customer or site owner to remove the review. But if they refuse, can you take the matter further?
In NSW, a disgruntled customer left a one-star review about a painter claiming the painter “caused
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The construction of 1,700 dwellings is in limbo after builder Porter Davis Homes collapsed. Of these, about 250 homes were close to completion, according to the liquidator Grant Thornton.
Although several companies wanted to buy some of Porter Davis Homes’ assets, no buyers were willing to buy all the assets
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In April, Prestige Truck Bodies was fined $225,000 for creating unsafe working conditions after a worker was crushed to death. The workers were lifting heavy materials which slipped and crushed the floor manager.
In this case the employer should have trained the employees to recognise that a container was unsafely
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When you use a brand name or specific mark, you should register it as a trademark to prevent other Australian businesses from using it.
Before registering a trademark, IP Australia will check that there aren’t competing trademarks in Australia, but not internationally.
Registering a trademark protects it in all the
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A judge has thrown out the defamation action brought by Ben Roberts Smith one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers against three newspapers. The judge was satisfied, to the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, that allegations Mr Roberts-Smith was involved or complicit in unlawful killings in Afghanistan were substantially true. Also,
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A judge has thrown out the defamation action brought by Ben Roberts Smith one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers against three newspapers. The judge was satisfied, to the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, that allegations Mr Roberts-Smith was involved or complicit in unlawful killings in Afghanistan were substantially true. Also,
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The deepening crisis engulfing accounting giant PwC – is this a case of a few bad apples or is there a deeper structural problem? And the Victorian Law Reform Commission is proposing legislative changes to enable deaf and blind people to serve on juries.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The deepening crisis engulfing accounting giant PwC – is this a case of a few bad apples or is there a deeper structural problem? And the Victorian Law Reform Commission is proposing legislative changes to enable deaf and blind people to serve on juries.
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Matthew D. Townsend
In ROJ Property & Ors v Eventpower Property [2023] VSC 268, Derham AsJ comprehensively reviewed the factors bearing on costs determinations in applications to modify restrict covenants pursuant to section 84 of the Property Law Act 1958. In finding that … Continue reading →
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
In the race to decarbonise the economy, is there a risk of undermining the rights of Indigenous people? Mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP are proposing to develop north America’s largest copper mine on land considered sacred to the local Apache people.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
In the race to decarbonise the economy, is there a risk of undermining the rights of Indigenous people? Mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP are proposing to develop north America’s largest copper mine on land considered sacred to the local Apache people.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Can the organisers of a sporting event be held liable for a participant’s injuries? And new rules allow Centrelink staff to consider evidence of domestic abuse when assessing a person’s relationship status to determine if they’re eligible for income support payments.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Can the organisers of a sporting event be held liable for a participant’s injuries? And new rules allow Centrelink staff to consider evidence of domestic abuse when assessing a person’s relationship status to determine if they’re eligible for income support payments.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Is there a connection between the Fox News defamation settlement with US voting technology company Dominion and Lachlan Murdoch’s withdrawal of legal action against the publisher of Crikey? And what do the sentencing remarks reveal about the secret trial of ‘Witness J’?
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Is there a connection between the Fox News defamation settlement with US voting technology company Dominion and Lachlan Murdoch’s withdrawal of legal action against the publisher of Crikey? And what do the sentencing remarks reveal about the secret trial of ‘Witness J’?
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The ACT Legislative Assembly is considering a draft law to protect intersex children from undergoing deferrable and non-urgent medical treatments. And is the use of cryptocurrency really the marker of a sophisticated legal mind? A warning that this episode contains descriptions of surgical procedures.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The ACT Legislative Assembly is considering a draft law to protect intersex children from undergoing deferrable and non-urgent medical treatments. And is the use of cryptocurrency really the marker of a sophisticated legal mind? A warning that this episode contains descriptions of surgical procedures.
This post was originally published on this site
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The ACT Legislative Assembly is considering a draft law to protect intersex children from undergoing deferrable and non-urgent medical treatments. And is the use of cryptocurrency really the marker of a sophisticated legal mind? A warning that this episode contains descriptions of surgical procedures.
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Currently, buy-now-pay-layer services like Afterpay, Zip and Klarna are exempt from laws designed to protect consumers from taking out credit they can’t afford.
That’s because BNPL providers don’t charge customers interest so, technically, the product they provide isn’t credit.
However, following concerns consumers are racking up unaffordable debts, the sector
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The federal government’s Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act became law in December 2022.
The act amends several existing workplace rules and introduces new ones with the aim of boosting wage growth and job security, tackling gender inequality and modernising the workplace bargaining system.
By far the
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Australia has the tightest industrial and logistics property market in the world after vacancy rates fell to just 0.6% in the second half of 2022, according to CBRE figures.
It’s set to stay that way too, given that a supply crunch means vacancies are likely to remain tight even if
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Unprecedented construction activity is being seen across all sectors and in all Australian states and territories, according to a new report from Rider Levett Bucknall.
The September 2022 quarter report from the global construction, property and management consultancy said the Australian construction industry is at a “pivotal point” with decade
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From 1 July 2023, if you own land in Victoria, and it’s rezoned and subsequently goes up in value, you may have to pay a windfall gains tax of up to 50% on the total value uplift.
The Victorian government says this will return a share of the profits from
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The federal government has released its ‘Nature Positive Plan: Better for the Environment, Better for Business’ in response to Professor Graeme Samuel’s independent review of Australia’s 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The response commits the federal government to establishing a new environmental protection agency (EPA) with the power
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Melbourne-based Hallbury Homes entered administration in January, with 50 projects on its books, according to The Property Tribune.
While Hallbury Homes is the latest casualty in Australia’s embattled building industry, challenging trading conditions aren’t limited to the construction sector – with nearly 4,000 corporate insolvencies occurring over the 2021-22 financial
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Victoria’s upper house of parliament recently voted to look into whether stamp duty should be scrapped after Liberal Democrats minister David Limbrick moved the motion to establish an inquiry into the ‘worst tax’.
The wide-ranging inquiry will look into the impact of stamp duty on housing supply, labour mobility and
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The federal government has announced that the Modernising Business Register program will be independently reviewed after Treasury estimated it would cost $1 billion more than originally budgeted for under the previous government.
The Modernising Business Register project will see more than 30 ASIC business registers consolidated into a single platform
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ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its release in November 2022, with the chatbot signing up 1 million users in just five days (a milestone it took Netflix 41 months to pass).
And while some have delighted with ChatGPT’s ability to generate eloquent responses to prompts by users,
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In Konebada Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [2023] FCA 257 the Federal Court has affirmed the decision of the Commissioner to deny the taxpayer’s claim for input tax credits with respect to invoices paid for legal and other services provided with respect to legal proceedings concerning third parties.
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A property settlement can be delayed for many reasons, such as finance issues, problems with the property or the buyer being unable to sell their existing home.
In Victoria, if the buyer is unable to settle on the settlement date, the seller can charge penalty interest. The exact amount will
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Commercial rent collection in Victoria has tumbled, falling from 88% at the beginning of the year to 70% in May, according to data property management platform Re-Leased.
The industrial sector has been hit particularly hard, as rising petrol prices have taken their toll on companies’ bottom lines. As a result,