This article discusses the legal regulation of parenting in lesbian and gay families in Australia. This landscape of regulation includes laws that govern such families both before and after they are formed; that is, laws controlling access to potential family formation options in addition to laws that govern the status of parents and children in families that are formed through alternate means. There have been a number of important developments in these areas in recent years, including: challenges to laws that restrict access to fertility services; reforms to adoption laws in three jurisdictions; and deemed parental status for co-mothers in lesbian families formed through assisted reproduction in three jurisdictions. This article will detail how the new parental status reforms interrelate, including difficult questions regarding the recognition of this new parental status in other States and their interaction with federal law.

One notable outcome of the 2004 federal election is that no Indigenous Australian was elected to federal Parliament. Since July 2005, when Aden Ridgeway’s term as Senator expired, there have been no Indigenous Australians among the 226 members of the national Parliament. This article explores briefly why this is the case, and then moves to consider the viability of Australia adopting a quota system whereby ‘dedicated’ or ‘reserved’ seats of Parliament would be created for Indigenous Australians.

In this article, I address the question whether religious vilification laws are contrary to the implied freedom of political communication affirmed in the High Court's decision in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I will focus on three key issues. First, can the implied freedom extend, in principle, to religious speech, meaning speech that is motivated by religious belief as well as speech that simply deals with religion or religious topics? Secondly, do religious vilification laws place a relevant burden upon communication about political or governmental matters? Thirdly, are religious vilification laws reasonably appropriate and adapted to achieving some legitimate objective in a manner which is compatible with the constitutionally prescribed system of representative government? The latter two questions derive directly from the test formulated by the High Court in Lange for determining whether a law is contrary to the implied freedom of political communication.

This article investigates the possibilities for promoting and implementing a more progressive or essentially social democratic political and constitutional agenda within the existing institutional and constitutional constraints of federalism. Although this question has been a long debated and much discussed one in social democratic political and constitutional theory, this article seeks, indeed, to bring new light to this (traditional social democratic) perspective by emphasising the potential advantages of federal theory and the federal structure for a developing and contemporary social democratic agenda. Particular attention is devoted to the progressive possibilities which inhere in the States and their accompanying (State) constitutions and the consequent potential which State constitutionalism has to support a renewed and more distinctively progressive political (and constitutional) practice.

P G Sharp's paper entitled ‘The First Paragraph of Section 55' was a valuable and interesting contribution to analysis of one of the more interesting, yet little discussed, sections of the Constitution. He provided a rich historical background to the section and its interpretation, and essentially made the argument that, following Permanent Trustee Australia Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue (Victoria), there is no further need for legislative drafters to split taxation legislation into a ‘Taxing Act’ and an ‘Assessment Act’.

However, Sharp's argument leaves a great deal unsaid, and I have constructed four questions to set against his article, inviting further comment.

This Comment considers the High Court's recent decision in Sweedman v Transport Accident Commission. The issue dealt with at greatest length in the judgments was the suggested conflict between New South Wales and Victorian enactments and the related suggestion that constitutional principles would enliven to resolve this conflict. A second issue, the potential application of the s 117 prohibition on State residence discrimination, attracted less detailed treatment. Nevertheless, the Court's resolution of this second issue is significant in its apparent departure from the approach taken in the landmark case of Street v Queensland Bar Association. While this Comment will explain the Court's reasoning on both issues, analysis of the decision will focus on the s 117 issue.