Greg Barns
Barrister and writer
Greg Barns is an Australian barrister, political commentator and WikiLeaks Party national campaign director. He is the author of several books, including “What’s wrong with the Liberal Party”.
The death today of one of Australia’s leading lawyers, Melbourne barrister Peter Hayes, is another reminder of this fact: that the legal profession is generally beastly careless about the emotional wellbeing of its own, because it places too high a premium on the skill and intellect of its practitioners.
David Hicks has more than paid a fair price for his dalliance with the wrong side in the war on terror. But that seems to be lost on opportunist politicians like the Acting South Australian Premier Kevin Foley.
Peter Faris QC defends his claim that the legal profession has a drug problem, while Greg Barns questions the media tactics of the self-styled "shock jock" of the legal profession.
Besides being a boring and predictable piece of television, Bastard Boys appears to have taken such liberties with the truth that it might prove a fertile ground for defamation.
It all began with a memo, a man with a conscience, and the decision that the public needed know. And it ended in jail. But Greg Barns writes that there is gross hypocrisy in the way the UK's Official Secrets Act and its counterparts around the globe are used.
Reading through the Attorney-General’s Budget Statements, one could be forgiven for thinking that the threat of terrorism in this country was on the march.
Should Crikey race off to the Federal Court to seek an urgent review of our exclusion from the Budget lock-up? The answer depends on the decision making process that led to the exclusion.
The victims of crime lobby are getting shriller by the day. Its reaction to the meting out of a suspended jail term to a 29-year-old woman who had consensual sex with a 15-year-old boy is a case in point.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is prepared to pass retrospective legislation if lawyers for David Hicks and his family find a way around the proceeds of crime law, which would otherwise prohibit David Hicks, or members of his family profiting from selling Mr Hicks story.
All too often judges are criticised for being pompous and out of touch with the community. While this accusation is grossly unfair, it is understandable that the image remains because of the way in which the legal profession fawns over the judiciary when writing or speaking about them.
