Mental health services are being ignored in the health reform debate in favour of sexy, headline-grabbing issues like aged care, hospital beds and surgery waiting times.
Articles by Greg Barns 
Health reform debate ignores non-vote winning mental health issues
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Arbiter of asylum claims casts doubt on Rudd’s application freeze
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Foreign minister Stephen Smith’s claim over the weekend that conditions are improving in Sri Lanka is a sweeping generalisation that ignores the reality for each person. The Tamil Tigers are still a threat.
Porous borders would save millions in terms of people smuggling
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Making people smuggling legal and properly regulated would be a winner for the Australian economy and save billions on silly games such as Christmas Island.
‘Stop and search’ is racial profiling by any other name
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Stop and search powers given to police — now in use in Victoria, and coming soon to South Australia and Western Australia — lead to racial discrimination. The evidence can be found overseas.
Give jurors background, Rann says, despite all the evidence against
Crikey / Greg Barns / Monday, 8 March 2010
Electioneering politicians in South Australia back a proposal to allow jurors to hear about “relevant” prior convictions of the accused. Yet overseas examples show it leads to unsafe verdicts.
Letter from...: Vancouver: where the party is over, to all in tents and …
Crikey / Greg Barns / Thursday, 4 March 2010
The Olympics tent has packed up and gone home, but another tent city remains in Vancouver as a symbol of abject poverty and disadvantage. Will they get the dividend of the past two weeks of celebration?
Human rights not on the Rudd Team Jellyback’s agenda
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 17 February 2010
In those jurisdictions where a human rights law exists, each day thousands of citizens are able to ensure they get better treatment from government. Perhaps this is why the Rudd government is so scared of a Human Rights Act?
At a loss to understand prophet Barnaby? Read this
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 10 February 2010
There is nothing new in Barnaby Joyce’s rhetoric and any idea that he is simply loose mouthed and doesn’t mean what he is saying, should be scotched immediately. He knows exactly what he is on about.
iiNet decision: time for film industry to face the music
Crikey / Greg Barns / Friday, 5 February 2010
The film industry has not woken up to the fact that their business model is no longer valid, despite the latest iiNet legal win.
Secrecy in SA: one law for MPs and another for the punters
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 3 February 2010
The Labor government of Mike Rann in South Australia has a long track record of curtailing freedoms and rights. It seems, when it comes to secrecy there is one law for MPs in South Australia, and another for the punters.
Productivity Commission report reveals chronic overcrowding in our jails
Crikey / Greg Barns / Friday, 29 January 2010
The Productivity Commission’s annual Report on Government Services was released today, finding that Australia’s prisons are overcrowded, warehouses for Indigenous Australians, and ineffective in tackling the causes of crime.
The minister for the respect agenda is anything but
Crikey / Greg Barns / Thursday, 21 January 2010
Victorian Premier John Brumby is making his planning minister Justin Madden the minister for the “respect agenda” — a well-meaning plan unlikely to have any real impact.
Australia lags behind new Czech stance on drugs
Crikey / Greg Barns / Monday, 21 December 2009
The police don’t arrest people with an addiction to alcohol, gambling or sex, so why do we make criminals of people who just happen to be addicted to drugs?
Allies suspected of war crimes should not be above the law
Crikey / Greg Barns / Thursday, 17 December 2009
Australian authorities, even when armed with the Goldstone Report, will not lift a finger to take action against someone who is suspected of committing war crimes.
Australia has form on deporting the sick and mentally ill
Crikey / Greg Barns / Friday, 11 December 2009
Australia’s immoral migration system is at odds with the nation’s liberal democratic values — and yet we allow our government to get away with this cruelty.
Australia needs criminal case review committees
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The criminal justice system in Australia is fallible and innocent people go to jail, as shown in the latest case with Farah Jama finally having his rape conviction overturned after 16 months in jail.
Feeling anti-social in WA? Go directly to jail
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Is heavy-handed Anti-Social Behaviours Orders (ASBO) legislation really needed in Western Australia? Particularly since they don’t work and mainly just force vulnerable people with mental illness into the prison system.
New law gives police the right to frisk anyone, anywhere
Crikey / Greg Barns / Monday, 30 November 2009
Under a New law in Victoria, police can search anyone without having to show reasonable cause. The use of a similar power in the UK has been abandoned this year because it has been found to undermine relations between the police and communities.
No party lasts forever: split happens
Crikey / Greg Barns / Friday, 27 November 2009
There is no socially and economically liberal political force in Australia like the Free Democrats in Germany or Liberal Democrats in the UK. But with the Liberal Party’s fault lines widening this week, is now the time for such a party to emerge?
How Turnbull became the trifecta in the victim stakes
Crikey / Greg Barns / Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Today, Malcolm Turnbull joins John Major and John McCain in becoming the latest victim of the intolerant and spiteful political conservative movement.
WA chief justice tells it like it is
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Western Australian Chief Justice Wayne Martin’s refreshingly honest view of the world, delivered to a criminology conference in Perth yesterday will fortify his growing reputation as perhaps the most progressive leader of a court in the nation, writes Greg Barns.
News Limited, the police and Operation Unite
Crikey / Greg Barns / Thursday, 19 November 2009
Almost every major News Limited masthead has all given over their front pages today to what is essentially an unpaid advertisement for the police forces.
Prisoners take drugs and have sex. Shock.
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 17 November 2009
To those familiar with the criminal justice system, the revelations in today’s Age about drug abuse and sex in Victoria’’s womens’ prison will come as no surprise.
Why Karadzic is not getting a fair trial
Crikey / Greg Barns / Friday, 6 November 2009
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s plea to be allowed more time to prepare his defence against serious of charges, including two counts of genocide, is in fact an entirely legitimate one.
Drugs expert shown the door for disagreeing with government
Crikey / Greg Barns / Tuesday, 3 November 2009
The UK’s most prominent drugs expert has been kicked off a drugs advisory board for disagreeing with the government’s view that cannabis should be classified as a lethal drug.
