In SBS News

The lack of self-awareness in naming a site that excludes anyone who isn't a bigoted joyless monomaniac "Giggle" cannot be emphasised enough.

Last week, the Federal Court upheld a 2024 decision that it was discriminatory to exclude a transgender user from a women-only app.

The court had been considering an appeal from Giggle for Girls app founder Sall Grover over the 2024 finding that she discriminated against Roxanne Tickle by blocking her from using the app and refusing to reinstate her.

Grover and Giggle argued the decision to exclude Tickle was exempt from being classed as discrimination because the app aimed to achieve "substantial equality" and create a safe space for women.

On Friday, the Federal Court upheld its decision that the exemption did not apply, meaning similar arguments made in defence of single-sex spaces would likely also fail.

On Saturday, Opposition leader Angus Taylor said in a statement on social media that the finding confirmed "the Australian law does not properly protect single sex spaces for women and girls".

He vowed on social media to amend the Sex Discrimination Act if the Coalition won government, "to ensure that women and girls (and men and boys) have protections based on biological sex".

"We are not removing a single protection from anyone," he said.

"But we are recognising something that should never have been in doubt: biological sex is real, it matters, and women and girls deserve spaces where it is respected."

Taylor said a move to "define biological sex in the Act" as "the sex you are born" would be a first-term priority.

"This is not radical. It is common sense," Taylor said.

Sigh. Yes, we've heard it all before. It's reality that's being excessively radical, therefore we must legislate against reality.

TL;DR: Yes.

Being a law-abiding protester in Australia has become more difficult with each passing year, experts say, and some fear the right to protest is being slowly eroded.

Over the past two decades, at least 49 laws affecting protest have been introduced in federal, state and territory parliaments.

Most recently, Victoria announced a raft of proposed protest restrictions on 17 December, following a series of antisemitic attacks in Melbourne.

David Mejia-Canales, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said the public should be "very, very, very critical" about such legislation. 

[…]

Ohad Kozminsky, executive member of the Jewish Council of Australia — a group formed in the last year by progressive Jewish academics, activists and lawyers — said the laws were counterproductive.

"There are laws against hate speech. There are laws against firebombing and the destruction of property. We don't need additional laws to fight that," Kozminsky said.

The proposed measures also include banning protests outside of places of worship, something that Kozminsky also thinks is misguided.

"Religious institutions, irrespective of their denomination or their faith are legitimate sites of protest. We saw that perhaps most strikingly in the protests that took place in response to revelations about institutional, historic and contemporary sexual abuse of young people, of children," he said.

Mejia-Canales said: "If the premier thinks that these measures criminalising peaceful protest is going to fix antisemitism and other forms of racism, then she's deluded.

"This will not do that." 

Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said the rental affordability crisis prompted the organisation to look at the experience of those in employment.

“Essential workers are the backbone of our communities, yet they cannot afford to rent. Our snapshot shows that more and more essential workers are being pushed into serious rental stress,” she said.

The snapshot used the internationally accepted measure of rent exceeding 30 per cent of a household budget to be considered as causing financial stress.

“Virtually no part of Australia is affordable for aged care workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, nurses, and many other essential workers we rely on. They cannot afford to live in their own communities,” Chambers said.

According to Choice, third-party platforms such as Ignite, 2Apply and Snug regularly require users to hand over excessive amounts of personal data including bank statements, references from five jobs and photos of children.

Samantha Floreani, program lead at charity Digital Rights Watch, said: "The sheer volume and type of personal information that renters are being compelled to provide creates unreasonable privacy and digital security risks.

"It's often very unclear who gets access to this information, and how long it will be kept for."