Alternative Law Journal

Media Release

6 July 1999

In May 1974, the Fitzroy Legal Service began publishing a newsletter for its members. Produced on a typewriter, roneoed and naming its ‘superstar’ of May to be Gough Whitlam, it was the birth of the Legal Service Bulletin a publication that would ultimately become the Alternative Law Journal.

The editors of this issue, Chris Field and Ian Freckelton, in planning this special issue for the anniversary, asked their writers to look at their subject from a 1999 perspective looking back over 25 years and also looking forward to next century.

Lawyer criticises new Family Court ideology

‘The Family Law Act is now premised on, and the Family Court accepts and supports, the false ideology of modern fatherhood and the new father’ argues Renata Alexander in her provocative article on family law. ‘Fathers are promoted and marketed not only as breadwinners and providers but also as sensitive, caring male versions of mothers’. Alexander remains unconvinced that the ‘new father’ is a widespread concept certainly not deserving of the ‘high degree of community, judicial and legislative acclaim and praise received’.

Feminists question abortion laws

Jenny Morgan and Regina Graycar in their article on a quarter century of feminism in law maintain that ‘hard-won gains in law reform are not simple conclusions to campaigns’ and illustrate this through a case study of abortion. Events in Western Australia in the past year illustrated how the legislative arena can, on occasion, provide a sympathetic environment for feminist arguments in the abortion area.

Leading lawyer questions our policy on Aboriginals

Bryan Keon-Cohen, the Journal’s founding editor in 1974 says ‘Aboriginal affairs, especially traditional rights to land, have entered a new age, and that a serious struggle looms if indigenous people are to hold the line, let alone advance on it’.

Other topics covered in this issue are:

• effect of new corporate philosophies and practices on policing
• civil libertarianism: the future
• environmental regulation
• the new world of work and work organisation
• software: now a key part of our social structure
• codes of conduct: self-regulatory consumer protection
• the evolving role of the coroner.