Tag Archives: enforcement

Why police should not be responsible for enforcing COVID vaccine certificates

Posted on by

Vincent Hurley, Macquarie UniversityWith states and territories beginning to plan their reopening strategies, questions have been raised about whether vaccination passports or certificates will be required to enter public venues – and who will be checking these documents.

The National Retail Association has said the “onus cannot be on the retailer” to enforce vaccine certificate compliance due to the potential for customer abuse. The group is calling on the police to do this.

In New South Wales, the health minister initially insisted police would be enforcing vaccine certificates. The NSW police commissioner, however, said police will not be doing so unless asked by venue owners.

The police commissioner has reason to be hesitant. The policing of vaccinations is not a criminal justice issue, it is a health issue. So why should we expect the police to enforce vaccine certificates?

If police are asked to take on this role, they would have to navigate their way through a “non-crime issue” being watched and critiqued by politicians, the retail sector, the health sector and the community at large.

This would place unfair expectations and undue pressure on our officers to handle a sensitive – not to mention time-consuming – task they should not be asked to do.



Read more:
COVID has changed policing — but now policing needs to change to respond better to COVID

How other countries are enforcing vaccine passports

Similar questions of enforcement are being raised in other countries that are rolling out COVID vaccine passports.

In the United States and United Kingdom, police have largely resisted taking on the responsibility for checking vaccine certificates, although this may change with the proliferation of fake vaccination cards being sold online and through the health sector.

In Switzerland, police will be responsible for ensuring compliance of the vaccine checks at public establishments, but due to lack of resources, this will only amount to spot checks or responding to businesses that ask for help. One canton said it will take a soft approach, with a spokeswoman saying

it is very important for us to proceed in a proportionate manner and with common sense.

In Israel, police will be stepping up enforcement of the country’s “green passes” at public venues. But officers will not be checking people at entrances; rather, they will focus on ensuring venue owners are enforcing the rules.

The constant checking of people’s vaccination status by authorities could be construed as one of the hallmarks of a police state; indeed, this is how China’s digital health code system operates.



Read more:
China’s ‘surveillance creep’: how big data COVID monitoring could be used to control people post-pandemic

If the police universally apply harsh or zero-tolerance policing at the behest of the state without the consent of population, we would in essence be living in a police state. Or worse, a place where police use excessive force under the guise of pandemic social control, such as in the Philippines.

Thankfully, our police have not had to take such a heavy-handed approach to enforce public health restrictions as the vast majority of people have put their trust in institutions and followed the rules.

The problem with using police in this way

But using the police to enforce vaccine certificates for entry into public venues would further shift what is essentially a public health issue into a law-enforcement issue.

The focus will increasingly turn to the police’s ability or inability to manage compliance with public health orders, and police will be on the receiving end of any societal backlash should this enforcement meet with resistance.

Public trust in the police was much higher than that of the government, political parties and the media at the start of the pandemic.

But changing the role of police could erode public confidence in the institution, as police officials have previously warned during the pandemic.



Read more:
Police access to COVID check-in data is an affront to our privacy. We need stronger and more consistent rules in place

Enforcing vaccine certificates is also not the best use of police resources. This would take away from the ability of police to respond to other crimes that are of concern during the pandemic, such as domestic violence and cyber crime.

Police resources are already stretched thin in both Australia and overseas. In the UK, for instance, police officers have been retrained to become temporary ambulance drivers to make up for staffing shortfalls, taking them away from their daily policing roles.

The police is the only domestic agency that has the social mandate to enforce the law, maintain public order and protect life and, if necessary, use force in this process. (Not even the military can do this.) It is because of this far-reaching mandate that police have been called upon to enforce public health orders.

The ease with which governments can ask or demand police to serve certain roles gives forces little – and in some cases no – room to question these decisions. In this case, officers are being asked to police a disease, not a crime, and we should think twice about putting them in this position.The Conversation

Vincent Hurley, Lecturer in Criminology. Police and policing., Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COVID has changed policing — but now policing needs to change to respond better to COVID

Posted on by

Vicki Sentas, UNSW; Leanne Weber, University of Canberra, and Louise Boon-Kuo, University of SydneyWith rolling lockdowns now part of how Australians live in the pandemic age, important questions arise about corresponding changes in policing. Constantly changing public health orders bring not only confusion but expansive police authority to enforce many new criminal offences.

On one view, using the police to protect public health by stopping the spread of the virus appears a logical step. But, in practice, do public health objectives always take precedence over existing enforcement approaches?

The recent deployment of 100 additional officers and mounted police to south-west Sydney call to mind the same concerns expressed by the Victorian Ombudsman that the policing and lockdown of public housing tower blocks in 2020 were partly informed by “incorrect and potentially stereotypical assumptions” about residents.

Reports of unfair police actions revise age-old questions about the role and function of the police in enforcing social inequalities and its punitive effects.



Read more:
Beyond the police state to COVID-safe: life after lockdown will need a novel approach

How is COVID being policed?

Fines have been a key method of policing COVID restrictions. Yet our exploratory research suggests fines are merely one way in which police are using their powers during the pandemic.

Select data we obtained from New South Wales Police indicate that from March 15 to June 15 2020, the most common police action was to search those stopped. Although the public health relevance of conducting a search is unclear, police searched 45% of all people stopped for a COVID-related incident.

We also know COVID policing has affected some communities more than others. In Victoria, a parliamentary inquiry found people in lower socioeconomic areas were twice as likely to be fined as those in higher socioeconomic areas.

Our research in NSW found Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples comprised 9% of the stop incidents in which Indigenous or non-Indigenous status was recorded. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were even more disproportionately subject to coercive police powers following a stop, making up 15% of arrests and 10% of people searched.

Whatever the precise level of over-representation, these findings are consistent with the broader, long-standing experience of the over-policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise around 3% of the population, these data alone show disproportionate use of search and arrest powers. They also support concerns that the pandemic has intensified the policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

COVID policing appears to rely on longstanding criminalisation strategies at odds with public health. An old-school public order approach of stop and search, and fines, undermines public health because of the social harms of criminal justice contact.

Most obviously, increased police contact through personal searches could increase the risk of transmission. And, as we explain elsewhere, questions remain about their lawful basis.

Police have recently been deployed to patrol parts of western Sydney under lockdown.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

How could COVID be policed?

The social and economic costs of the pandemic have greater impacts on precarious and low-wage workers and marginalised people. It is even more critical that policing does not amplify those inequalities by prioritising punishment over keeping people safe.

The Australian approach isn’t the only possibility. Heavy reliance on enforcement contrasts, for example, with the United Kingdom, where the policing of COVID-19 measures early in the pandemic was independently assessed by policing experts as “taking place at the margins”. These experts pointed out that people are more likely to comply with rules where they regard them as morally right and reflecting social norms, rather than because they fear fines and other sanctions.

Instead of prosecuting individuals for non-compliance with frequently changing laws, a better approach would be to provide financial assistance and accessible information, particularly for disadvantaged groups.



Read more:
Pandemic policing needs to be done with the public’s trust, not confusion

A community-focused, public health approach would move away from coercive policing and emphasise co-developed community resources on COVID restrictions and their purpose.

A small group of NSW Police officers recently joined forces with a community organisation to hand out free masks and hand sanitiser to residents in hard-hit areas of western Sydney. But this has not been a system-wide approach, and is unlikely to erase the memory of mounted police patrols enforcing the lockdown in the same area.

It is too early to say what the lasting changes in policing may be. Will additional powers granted to police persist beyond the emergency in some other form? Will states continue to revert to border control to protect against future, non-biological risks? Will technology-driven population surveillance become more prominent?

This all remains to be seen. But it is certain that mass vaccination would shrink the need for state policing of COVID altogether.The Conversation

Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW; Leanne Weber, Professor of Criminology, University of Canberra, and Louise Boon-Kuo, Senior Lecturer, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Pandemic drones’: useful for enforcing social distancing, or for creating a police state?

Posted on by


BAGUS INDAHONO/EPA

Michael Richardson, UNSW

People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.

As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.

Since the outbreak began, China has used drones to deliver medical supplies and food, disinfect villages, and even provide lighting to build a hospital in Wuhan in nine days. Drone medical deliveries have cut transit times, reduced the strain on health personnel and enabled contactless handovers, reducing the risk of infection.

It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.

But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.



Read more:
Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Drone use: clever, quirky and sometimes concerning

With cities on lockdown, drones have shown uncanny images of emptied urban landscapes from Wuhan and metros across the globe.

Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.

But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.

One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.

Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.

A defence for the ‘good drone’?

There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.



Read more:
Drones help track wildfires, count wildlife and map plants

But while “good drones” can be valuable in disaster, they have been criticised for giving drone warfare an ethical veneer by association with humanitarian work. Some have even argued that using drones at all risks tainting relief work, because militaries have played a major role in developing drone technologies that are also responsible for humanitarian tragedies.

Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.

Normalising surveillance

With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.



Read more:
Hundreds of Chinese citizens told me what they thought about the controversial social credit system

This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.

Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used drones to capture scenes from the 2017 Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore.
FBI / ACLU

Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.

Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.

The impact would hit home

Police in the west are already deploying drones for various purposes, including at sporting events in Australia. Our defence force is buying Reaper MQ-9B drones because they are cleared for use in civilian airspace.

We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?

A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.

It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.

They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.The Conversation

Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Explainer: what are the laws mandating self-isolation and how will they be enforced?

Posted on by


isolate.

Caroline Henckels, Monash University and Maria O’Sullivan, Monash University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that anyone entering Australia must enter a 14-day self-quarantine period.

Some questions have been raised as to how this new mandate would be administered and enforced. The answer to these questions relies on a somewhat complex patchwork of state and federal laws and whether relevant federal and state government emergency powers have been activated.

At this time, the enforceability of the 14-day self-isolation rule is a matter for state and territory governments – although this might change.

What Commonwealth law says

The main federal law in this area is the Biosecurity Act 2015. As others have written, this law aims to manage biosecurity threats to human, animal and plant health, which include viruses such as COVID-19.

There are two types of powers under the act that could apply here:

The first is the “human biosecurity control orders” under chapter 2, part 3 of the act. Individuals who have symptoms of, or who have been exposed to, a disease or who have failed to follow any mandatory procedures on arrival into Australia could be placed on a control order.

A control order could, among other things, direct a person to stay home, or remain at a particular place. It is decided on an individual-by-individual basis following an assessment of whether the preconditions were met. As such, it cannot be placed on all arrivals.



Read more:
Can I take the dog for a walk? Can I put the kids to bed? What you should and shouldn’t do if you’re in coronavirus self-isolation

The second option under the law is the declaration of a “human biosecurity emergency”.

If such an emergency was declared, Health Minister Greg Hunt would have a range of options at his disposal to control the spread of disease. These include sweeping powers to direct people’s movements and require the closure of premises. People could be imprisoned for up to five years and/or fined up to approximately A$60,000 for failure to comply.

However, until such an emergency is declared, it will be up to the states and territories to implement the 14-day self-isolation rule under their own laws.

What state and territory laws say

There are many similarities in the ways in which state and territory authorities can order and enforce isolation measures. These come from public health laws and often depend on the declaration of a state of emergency.

Several states and territories have already declared a state of emergency in the current crisis. Victoria’s state of emergency declaration gives the state certain powers under its Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.

Victorian authorities may now detain or restrict the movement of people (for example, by requiring them to stay in their home), with a penalty of up to 120 penalty units (approximately $20,000).

Premier Daniel Andrews said authorities were hopeful fines would not needed as people understand compliance is in their best interest.



Read more:
Coronavirus weekly: expert analysis from The Conversation global network

In NSW, the government already has broad powers under the Public Health Act 2010 to take actions and give directions to deal with risks to health.

These powers would extend to enforcing self-isolation, provided the relevant areas of NSW were declared to be “public health risk areas”. A person who did not comply with such a direction would be liable for up to 100 penalty units (approximately $11,000), or imprisonment for up to six months.

The NSW government could, if necessary, declare an emergency under the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act, which would more clearly set out the powers that can be used, such as using force to enter premises.

While Premier Gladys Berejiklian also said it would be difficult to monitor every person to ensure compliance, the law will permit the 14-day self-isolation mandate to be enforced. She urged people to do the

right thing by the community, by their own family and by their circle.

The other states and territories have similar powers under states of emergency. All require a declaration of an emergency to activate these powers. The laws permit governments to order people to isolate themselves and detain or fine those who don’t comply.

Punishments vary from 50 penalty units in Tasmania and the ACT (approximately $8,000) to 400 units (approximately $60,000) in the Northern Territory.

States and territories have also issued bans on mass gatherings of more then 500 people, with hefty fines for corporations that don’t comply. There are exceptions for a number of institutions, such as schools and universities, workplaces, public transport, markets and courts.

Limits on powers to isolate and detain

As this is the first time these laws have been used in this context in Australia, how they will implemented and enforced is not yet clear.

Importantly, there are safeguards in these laws to ensure that coercive powers, such as the power to detain people, are used only when necessary.

Governments must regularly review the need for emergency powers. For example, in the ACT, a state of emergency lasts for up to five days, then must be reviewed every two days after that. Queensland recently amended its law to permit a state of emergency to be extended for up to 90 days.



Read more:
Explainer: what are the Australian government’s powers to quarantine people in a coronavirus outbreak?

There are also a variety of controls on issuing orders and declarations in relation to individuals.

For instance, under Tasmanian law, the state director of health must review whether it is necessary for a person to be subject to an isolation or quarantine order every seven days. Under the Victorian act, authorities must review a decision to detain a person every 24 hours.

In some instances, state laws also give people the right to seek review in court.

When it comes to enforcement, the states have said they would use regular police checks to make sure people are complying with isolation orders.

Queensland police have reportedly already begun spot checks on people entering the country, while Victoria police is preparing for similar measures.

Some leaders, like Berejiklian, have urged people to “dob each other in” if isolation orders are being broken.

Like most leaders, she’s hoping people understand the importance of compliance, saying it is a matter of “life and death”.The Conversation

Caroline Henckels, Senior Lecturer, Monash University and Maria O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, and Deputy Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ACCC wants to curb digital platform power – but enforcement is tricky

Posted on by

Katharine Kemp, UNSW

We need new laws to monitor and curb the power wielded by Google, Facebook and other powerful digital platforms, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The Preliminary Report on the Digital Platforms Inquiry found major changes to privacy and consumer protection laws are needed, along with alterations to merger law, and a regulator to investigate the operation of the companies’ algorithms.

Getting the enforcement right will be key to the success of these proposed changes.



Read more:
Digital platforms. Why the ACCC’s proposals for Google and Facebook matter big time

Scrutinising accumulation of market power

The report says Google and Facebook each possess substantial power in markets such as online search and social media services in Australia.

It’s not against the law to possess substantial market power alone. But these companies would breach our November 2017 misuse of market power law if they engaged in any conduct with the effect, likely effect or purpose of substantially lessening competition – essentially, blocking rivalry in a market.

Moving forwards, the ACCC has indicated it will scrutinise the accumulation of market power by these platforms more proactively. Noting that “strategic acquisitions by both Google and Facebook have contributed to the market power they currently hold”, the ACCC says it intends to ask large digital platforms to provide advance notice of any planned acquisitions.

While such pre-notification of certain mergers is required in jurisdictions such as the US, it is not currently a requirement in other sectors under the Australian law.

At the moment the ACCC is just asking the platforms to do this voluntarily – but has indicated it may seek to make this a formal requirement if the platforms don’t cooperate with the request. It’s not currently clear how this would be enforced.

The ACCC has also recommended the standard for assessing mergers should be amended to expressly clarify the relevance of data acquired in the transaction as well as the removal of potential competitors.

The law doesn’t explicitly refer to potential competitors in addition to existing competitors at present, and some argue platforms are buying up nascent competitors before the competitive threat becomes apparent.



Read more:
Explainer: what is public interest journalism?

A regulator to monitor algorithms

According to the ACCC, there is a “lack of transparency” in Google’s and Facebook’s arrangements concerning online advertising and content, which are largely governed by algorithms developed and owned by the companies. These algorithms – essentially a complex set of instructions in the software – determine what ads, search results and news we see, and in what order.

The problem is nobody outside these companies knows how they work or whether they’re producing results that are fair to online advertisers, content producers and consumers.

The report recommends a regulatory authority be given power to monitor, investigate and publish reports on the operation of these algorithms, among other things, to determine whether they are producing unfair or discriminatory results. This would only apply to companies that generate more than A$100 million per annum from digital advertising in Australia.



Read more:
Attention economy: Facebook delivers traffic but no money for news media

These algorithms have come under scrutiny elsewhere. The European Commission has previously fined Google €2.42 billion for giving unfair preference to its own shopping comparison services in its search results, relative to rival comparison services, thereby contravening the EU law against abuse of dominance. This decision has been criticised though, for failing to provide Google with a clear way of complying with the law.

The important questions following the ACCC’s recommendation are:

  • what will the regulator do with the results of its investigations?
  • if it determines that the algorithm is producing discriminatory results, will it tell the platform what kind of results it should achieve instead, or will it require direct changes to the algorithm?

The ACCC has not recommended the regulator have the power to make such orders. It seems the most the regulator would do is introduce some “sunshine” to the impacts of these algorithms which are currently hidden from view, and potentially refer the matter to the ACCC for investigation if this was perceived to amount to a misuse of market power.

If a digital platform discriminates against competitive businesses that rely on its platform – say, app developers or comparison services – so that rivalry is stymied, this could be an important test case under our misuse of market power law. This law was amended in 2017 to address longstanding weaknesses but has not yet been tested in the courts.



Read more:
We should levy Facebook and Google to fund journalism – here’s how

Privacy and fairness for consumers

The report recommends substantial changes to the Privacy Act and Australian Consumer Law to reduce the power imbalance between the platforms and consumers.

We know from research that most Australians don’t read online privacy policies; many say they don’t understand the privacy terms offered to them, or they feel they have no choice but to accept them. Two thirds say they want more say in how their personal information is used.

The solutions proposed by the ACCC include:

  • strengthening the consent required under our privacy law, requiring it to be express (it may currently be implied), opt-in, adequately informed, voluntary and specific
  • allowing consumers to require their personal data to be erased in certain circumstances
  • increasing penalties for breaches of the Privacy Act
  • introducing a statutory cause of action for serious invasion of privacy in Australia.



Read more:
94% of Australians do not read all privacy policies that apply to them – and that’s rational behaviour

This last recommendation was previously made by the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014 and 2008, and would finally allow individuals in Australia to sue for harm suffered as a result of such an invasion.

If consent is to be voluntary and specific, companies should not be allowed to “bundle” consents for a number of uses and collections (both necessary and unnecessary) and require consumers to consent to all or none. These are important steps in addressing the unfairness of current data privacy practices.

Together these changes would bring Australia a little closer to the stronger data protection offered in the EU under the General Data Protection Regulation.

But the effectiveness of these changes would depend to a large extent on whether the government would also agree to improve funding and support for the federal privacy regulator, which has been criticised as passive and underfunded.

Another recommended change to consumer protection law would make it illegal to include unfair terms in consumer contracts and impose fines for such a contravention. Currently, for a first-time unfair contract terms “offender”, a court could only “draw a line” through the unfair term such that the company could not force the consumer to comply with it.

Making such terms illegal would increase incentives for companies drafting standard form contracts to make sure they do not include detrimental terms which create a significant imbalance between them and their customers, which are not reasonably necessary to protect their legitimate interests.



Read more:
Soft terms like ‘open’ and ‘sharing’ don’t tell the true story of your data

The ACCC might also take action on these standard terms under our misleading and deceptive conduct laws. The Italian competition watchdog last week fined Facebook €10 million for conduct including misleading users about the extent of its data collection and practices.

The ACCC appears to be considering the possibility of even broader laws against “unfair” practices, which regulators like the US Federal Trade Commission have used against bad data practices.

Final report in June 2019

As well as 11 recommendations, the report mentions nine areas for “further analysis and assessment” which in itself reflects the complexity of the issues facing the ACCC.

The ACCC is seeking responses and feedback from stakeholders on the preliminary report, before creating a final report in June 2019.

Watch this space – or google it.



Read more:
How not to agree to clean public toilets when you accept any online terms and conditions


The Conversation

Katharine Kemp, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Co-Leader, ‘Data as a Source of Market Power’ Research Stream of The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The problem with Australia’s banks is one of too much law and too little enforcement

Posted on by


File 20180928 48665 1bm221p.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
bank cards.

Deborah Ralston, Monash University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg moved very quickly to deliver the interim report of the Royal Commission into Financial Services to the public. It was submitted to the Governor General, tabled in parliament (out of session), and made public on the same afternoon – Friday September 28.

The three-volume report is limited to findings from the first four rounds of hearings, on consumer credit, financial services, lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises, and experiences with regional and remote communities.

So far the commission has received almost 10,000 submissions, mainly related to banking (67%), superannuation (12%), and financial advice (9%). Most address issues relating to personal finance, superannuation, or small business finance.

In receiving the interim report, Frydenberg reiterated its key message that financial institutions have put “profits before people”.

It’s about the money

According to the report, poor culture and conduct in banks have been driven by their remuneration policies, with almost every instance of misconduct being directly linked to monetary benefit.



Read more:
Banking Royal Commission’s damning report: ‘Things are so bad that new laws might not help’

The interim report is also highly critical of the regulators, painting a disconcerting picture of their determination to detect and monitor misbehaviour and enforce compliance with the law.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission comes in for particular scrutiny, with Commissioner Kenneth Hayne noting that where the law had been broken, “little happened beyond an apology from the entity, drawn-out remediation, and an infringement notice or an enforceable undertaking that acknowledged no more than ASIC had reasonable concerns about the entity’s conduct”.

The penalties imposed were often immaterial, given the size of the institutions involved.

The letter of the law can smother its spirit

It’s hard to know how to regulate. On occasions, as with the Future of Financial Advice legislation, the spirit of the law has been lost in complexity about prescribed behaviour, and of course so-called “grandfathering provisions” which ensure commissions that began in the past can continue even though they would no longer be legal.

The interim report asks whether, rather than more legislation, the answer lies in less: in simplifying the laws to better reflect their intentions.



Read more:
Royal Commission shows banks have behaved appallingly, but we’ve helped them do it

It is something Labor had in the original version of the financial advice legalisation – an overarching obligation on advisers to act in their client’s “best interests”, an obligation the Coalition tried to remove on attaining office, arguing that specific provisions would do the job just as well.

On releasing the interim report, Frydenberg was asked where our regulators had been ineffective because they had been captured by industry or had inadequate resources.

Frydenberg replied that culture was indeed substandard, but that giving the regulators more resources would be seriously examined.

The government has already given ASIC and APRA more.

In August, ASIC received A$70 million in additional funding to strengthen supervision and give it the capability to embed its staff members inside major banks.

Earlier this year the government appointed a second ASIC deputy chairman, Daniel Crennan QC, to bolster its enforcement credentials.

The new chairman James Shipton appears to be reshaping the ASIC culture.

But that’s only the beginning of the changes we are likely to see.

It’s our turn now

Public submissions in response to the interim report are now open and are due by Friday October 26, 2018.

Two more rounds of hearings are yet to be held, with the final report due by February 1, 2019.The Conversation

Deborah Ralston, Professor of Finance, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Muslims in Bangladesh Beat, Deprive Christians of Work

Posted on by

Refusing to recant Christianity, victims are attacked on rumors of disrespecting Islam.

LOS ANGELES, November 2 (CDN) — Muslim villagers last month beat a 63-year-old Christian convert and his youngest son because they refused to return to Islam, the father told Compass.

The next day, another Christian in a nearby village was beaten and robbed in related violence in southwestern Bangladesh.

Aynal Haque, 63, a volunteer for Christian organization Way of Life Trust, told Compass that his brothers and relatives along with Muslim villagers beat him and his son, 22-year-old Lal Miah, on Oct. 9 when they refused to recant Christianity. The family lives at Sadhu Hati Panta Para village in Jhenaidah district, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of the capital city, Dhaka. It is in the jurisdiction of Sadar police station.

Haque’s relatives and villagers said that he had become Christian by eating pork and by disrespecting the Quran, he said.

“I embraced Christianity by my own will and understanding, but I have due respect for other religions,” Haque said. “How can I be a righteous man by disrespecting other religions? Whatever rumors the villagers are spreading are false.”

At a meeting to which Haque was summoned on Oct. 9, about 500 men and women from several villages gathered, including local and Maoist party leaders.

“They tried to force me and my son to admit that we had eaten pork and trampled on the Quran to become Christian,” Haque said. “They tried to force us to be apologetic for our blunder of accepting Christianity and also tried to compel us to go back to Islam. I told them, ‘While there is breath left in our bodies, we will not reject Christianity.’

“When we denied their allegation and demand, they beat us severely. They ordered us not to mix with other Muslim villagers. They confined us in our house for five days.”

Haque has worked on his neighbors’ land for survival to supplement the meager income he earns selling seeds in local markets, but the villagers have now refused to give him work, he said.

“Every day I earn around 50 taka to 100 taka [70 cents to US$1.40] from the seed business,” he said. “Some days I cannot earn any money. So, I need to work villagers’ land for extra money to maintain my family.”

His youngest son also worked in neighbors’ fields as a day-laborer, besides attending school.

“We cannot live if we do not get farming work on other people’s land,” Haque said.

Haque, his wife and youngest son received Christ three years ago, and since then they have faced harassment and threats from Muslim neighbors. His other grown son and two daughters, as well as a son-in-law, also follow Christ but have yet to be baptized. There are around 25 people in his village who came to Christ under Haque’s influence; most of them remain low-profile to avoid harassment from the villagers, he said.

The weekly worship service in Haque’s shanty house has been hampered as some have been too fearful to attend, and the 25 members of the church fear the consequences of continuing to meet, Haque said.

Officials of Way of Life Trust tried to visit the area to investigate the beating of Haque and his son but were unable due to security risks, said Jatish Biswas, the organization’s executive director. They informed the district police chief, who instantly sent forces to provide safety for the Christians, Biswas said.

Villagers thought that if they were able to get Haque to renounce Christianity, then the other Christians would quickly return to Islam, according to Biswas.

 

Reverberation

Hearing of the incident in Sadhu Hati Panta Para the next day (Oct. 10), Muslims in Kola village about five kilometers (nearly three miles) away beat a Christian friend of Haque’s and robbed his seed shop.

Tokkel Ali, 40, an evangelist in one of the house churches that Way of Life Trust has established, told Compass that around 20 people arrived at his shop at about 11 a.m. and told him to go with them to Haque’s house.

“The presence of so many people, most of whom I did not know, and the way they were talking, seemed ominous to me, and I refused to go with them,” Ali said. “I said, ‘If he wants me to go to his house, he could call me on my mobile.’”

One person in the crowd pointed toward Ali, saying that he was a Christian and had made otherwise innocent people Christians by them feeding pork and letting them disrespect the Quran, said Ali. Islam strictly prohibits eating pork.

“That rumor spread like wildfire among other Muslims,” Ali said. “All of a sudden, a huge crowd overran me and started beating me, throwing my seeds here and there.”

Ali said he lost consciousness, and someone took him to a nearby three-storey house. When he came to, he scrambled back to his shop to find his seeds scattered, and 24,580 taka (US$342) for buying seed had been stolen, along with his bicycle.

Accustomed to earning just enough each day to survive, Ali said it would be impossible for him to recover and rebuild his business. He had received loans of 20,000 taka (US$278) from Grameen Bank (Nobel Peach Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus’ micro-finance entity), 15,000 taka (US$209) from the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and 11,000 taka (US$153) from Way of Life Trust to establish the business. Ali ran a similar seed business in Dakbangla market in Kola village.

“How can I pay back a weekly installment of 1,150 taka [US$160] to the micro-credit lending NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations]?” he said. “I have already become delinquent in paying back some installments after the looting of my money and shop. I’ve ended up in deep debt, which has become a noose around my neck.”

Ali said he has not dared filed any charges.

“If I file any case or complain against them, they will kill me, as this area is very dangerous because of the Maoists,” he said, referring to a banned group of armed rebels with whom the villagers have links. “Even the local administration and the law enforcement agencies are afraid of them.”

Ali has planted 25 house churches under Way of Life Trust serving 144 people in weekly worship. Baptized in 2007, he has been following Christ for more than 10 years.

“Whenever I go to bazaar, people fling insults at me about that beating,” he said. “Everyone says that nothing would have happened if I had not accepted Christianity, an abhorrent religion to them. People also say that I should hang myself with a rope for renouncing Islam.”

Since the beating, he has become an alien in his own village, he said.

“Whatever insinuation and rumors they spout against me and other believers, there is no language to squash it,” he said. “I have to remain tight-lipped, otherwise they will kill me.”

He can no longer cross the land of one of his neighbors in order to bathe in a nearby river, he said.

“After that incident, my neighbor warned me not to go through his land,” he said. “Now I take a bath in my home from an old and dysfunctional tube-well. My neighbors say, ‘Christians are the enemy of Muslims, so don’t go through my land.’ It seems that I am nobody in this village.”

Biswas of Way of Life Trust told Compass that Christians in remote villages lack the freedoms guaranteed in the Bangladeshi constitution to practice their faith without any interference.

“Where is religious liberty for Haque and Ali?” Biswas said. “Like them, many Christians in remote villages are in the throes of persecution, though our constitution enshrined full liberty for religious minorities.”

Way of Life Trust has aided in the establishment of some 500 house churches in Bangladesh, which is nearly 90 percent Muslim. Hinduism is the second largest religion at 9.2 percent of the 153.5 million people, and Buddhists and Christians make up less than 1 percent of the population.

Report from Compass Direct News

Muslim Boys in Pakistan Accused of Raping Christian Girl

Posted on by

DNA results match their semen samples in case filed by family of fatherless 14-year-old.

LAHORE, Pakistan, June 3 (CDN) — Forensic DNA results of semen samples in a sexual assault case show they match those of the Muslim boys a 14-year-old Christian girl accuses of raping her, according to advocacy organizations.

The girl accuses Muhammad Noman and Muhammad Imran, both 17, of abducting her from her school in Kamboh colony, Lahore, in Punjab Province, on May 6 and drugging her prior to sexually assaulting her, according to Khalid Gill, president of the Christian Lawyers Foundation (CLF), and officials of the National Commission of Justice and Peace (NCJP).

The minor, whose name was withheld, told the organizations that she was waiting for her younger sister at the main gate of S.M. Foundation School after class hours when Noman and Imran told her that a girl named Hira wanted to see her.

The girl said that she told them she was not familiar with anyone named Hira, but that she was not afraid because there was no problem meeting a girl. She told the NCJP that as she stepped off the school grounds, Noman and Imran overpowered her, tightly covering her mouth to stifle her cries for help. Later they gagged her with a band of cloth.

NCJP General Secretary Peter Jacob reported that they took her by motorbike to a place unknown to her and compelled her to consume a soft drink containing tranquilizers. Able to see but unable to move as she began to lose consciousness, she was unable to stop them as each boy raped her, she told the NCJP. She said she later became totally unconscious.

The CLF’s Gill said the boys later left her on a road near the school’s main entrance.

The girl’s father, Rehmat Masih, is deceased. Her mother, Aysha Bibi, said that she had fearfully begun searching for her and had contacted a school administration official, who said that her daughter had left the school on foot. Several Christian neighbors also participated in the search.

Christian neighbor Shehzad Masih found her unconscious on the road near the school gate and brought her home, according to the NCJP’s Jacob. As the 14-year-old regained consciousness, her mother and others brought her to the Millat Park Police Station and filed an application to register a case against Noman and Imran.

After investigating, on May 9 Millat Park Police registered a case against Noman and Imran for abducting “with intent to commit adultery.”

Although Muslims commonly commit crimes against Christians in Pakistan assuming law enforcement officials will not prosecute, the two boys were arrested on May 26. Police sent DNA samples of the semen of both Muslim youths to a forensic laboratory, and the results linking them to the crime returned this week, CLF and NCJP’s Jacob said.  

A urine test indicated the girl was not pregnant, CLF and NCJP officials said.

Report from Compass Direct News

Pastor, Wife Killed in Northern Nigeria

Posted on by

Suspected Islamists kidnap, slay couple in Bauchi state.

LAGOS, Nigeria, April 20 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists last week abducted and killed a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor and his wife in Boto village, Bauchi state in northern Nigeria.

The Rev. Ishaku Kadah, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Selina were buried on Saturday (April 17) after unidentified assailants reportedly whisked them from their church headquarters home on Tuesday (April 13) and killed them. Their burnt bodies were found hours later.

On Jan. 22, suspected Islamic extremists had set fire to their church building days after Christians displaced by violence in Plateau state had taken refuge on the church premises.

“This is yet another case of unprovoked killing of Christians, which we condemn, and demand that the law enforcement agents must fish out the perpetrators of this act,” Bishop Musa Fula, state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bauchi state, told Compass.

Police have reportedly arrested two suspects and have launched a man-hunt for several other accomplices. Authorities are not releasing the names of the suspects.

Boto is located in the predominantly Christian Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of Bauchi state, which has a history of Muslim attacks on Christians.

“Police claim they are working on it and we want to believe them,” Fula added. “We need assurance that our people are safe. We will soon meet later on the matter to decide our next line of action on these kind of attacks.”

The murdered couple’s son, Simeon Kadah, said an eyewitness who had come to the church premises to collect some rented chairs saw men dragging the pastor and his wife out of their house. Kadah said the men asked the eyewitness if he was a Muslim, and when he told them that he was, they told him to leave the area and tell no one what he had seen.

The Rev. Ladi Thompson of the Macedonian Initiative, an organization fighting anti-Christian persecution, decried the killing of the pastor and his wife, saying it is an indication of the great dangers Christians are exposed to in the predominantly Muslim north.

“This kind of mindless killing follows the same pattern that we have been campaigning against, which many state governments in northern Nigeria are not paying due attention to,” Thompson said. “The government cannot afford to continue to pay lip service to protecting Christians when some people in the name of religion can take the laws into their hands.

Unless we get to the root of cases like this, there will be no end to it.”

Following attacks on Christians near Jos in Plateau state in January and March, sporadic killings of Christians reportedly continue. Previously hundreds of Christian villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death on March 7 in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas. 

On March 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen assaulted two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children. In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from Jos.

On Jan. 17, two pastors and 46 other Christians were killed in an outbreak of violence in Jos triggered when Muslim youths attacked a Catholic church. Police estimated over 300 lives were lost in subsequent clashes, in which 10 church buildings were burned.

Report from Compass Direct News