The work of the ALRC on this topic has been studiously ignored by the current attorney general, George Brandis.
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has previously recommended this offence be wound back because it had "real concerns" that "disclosure of any information regardless of its nature of sensitivity" could be caught by the offence.
The terms of reference point to chapter four of the ALRC inquiry, which canvassed freedom of public discussion and conscience, academic and artistic freedom, freedom of religious worship and freedom of the press.
"In addition to the contemporary controversies over 18C, the reference to the ALRC report [in the terms of reference for the inquiry] … allows for broader consideration of the issues," Smith said Tuesday.
The terms of reference point to chapter four of the ALRC inquiry, which canvassed freedom of public discussion, freedom of conscience, academic freedom, artistic freedom, freedom of religious worship and freedom of the press.
"Rather than moving in line with recommendations we've made or the ALRC made, the disturbing thing is that the government is moving in the opposite direction to further criminalise public interest disclosures".
Having just graduated with an MA Hons from the University of Edinburgh, she had joined the Anti-Locust Research Centre (ALRC) in London, as a junior member of the geographical section, which had pioneered the mapping of locust records in order to identify outbreak areas and compare seasonal changes in locust occurrence.
In 1975, when we worked in Burkina Faso alongside disease epidemiologists for the WHO Onchocerciasis Control Programme for West Africa, she adapted the geographic approach developed at ALRC to investigate the spread of the black-fly vectors of onchocerciasis or "river blindness".
In the same decade, responsibility for desert locust forecasting and control co-ordination passed from Britain to FAO – and the ALRC became the UK government's Centre for Overseas Pest Research with a broadened remit to cover more general aspects of pest management in developing countries.
