Good Evening!

I love to watch docuseries on Netflix there are two things coming out that I am excited to watch.

The first is “Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King”, The gripping new documentary follows a group of Bitcoin investors who lost their money after the strange death of Gerald “Gerry” Cotten, founder of the cryptocurrency company QuadrigaCX.

The second is the Harry & Meghan docuseries, the six-part doc series is a vulnerable look into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s high-profile relationship.

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Quote for Today

Today in History

1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers "Day of Infamy" speech to US Congress a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

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A few headlines from this morning :

• Indonesia has freed Bali attacks bomb maker Umar Patek after serving only about half his sentence.

• Australia's government has not yet reached a decision to cap coal and gas prices ahead of a key energy meeting, but "temporary" interventions are on the table.

• A merger between UniSA and the University of Adelaide is now back on the card, both universities received support from their respective Councils to explore the possibility of combining these great institutions to create a new university for the future.

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Australia does not have a Constitutional Bill of Rights, nor does it have a Charter of Human Rights or Human Rights Act at the national level.

Due in large part to a strong attachment to the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, Australia has decided that Parliament should be the body to assess whether new federal laws are compatible with Australia’s human rights obligations generally, rather than have the courts decide in individual cases.

RMIT University Lecturer Dr Adam Fletcher said between 2019 and 2022, the Australian Parliament passed a number of laws that had major effects on Australians’ human rights, including in relation to hot-button issues such as health, welfare and immigration.

“Human rights issues were regularly ignored in the last parliamentary term, and many laws with insufficient rights safeguards were passed as a consequence.” He said.

He said there were laws dictating how people could spend their income support (in a trial that ran for two years longer than it should have), national security laws with inadequate rights safeguards, and even laws made by the Executive which prevented citizens from returning to Australia. 

“Clearly, the last few years saw the Australian Parliament and Government dealing with a national emergency, and some rights-restrictive laws were to be expected in response.” He added.

“Australians are waking up to the fact that we lack a national Charter of Human Rights, and that the political system needs more checks and balances to ensure our rights cannot be trampled.” 

He explained, in the absence of human rights law enforceable in the courts, the parliamentary human rights scrutiny regime (headed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights) is our flagship human rights protection mechanism.” 

“However, its advice on human rights implications of new laws too often goes unheeded. In fact, the research conducted for this report showed that 60% of all Bills raising rights concerns in the last parliamentary term were rushed through before the Joint Committee could scrutinise them properly.”  

“Australians could all benefit from more effective mechanisms to ensure human rights are protected in new federal laws.” 

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Every year Google look back at the moments, people, trends and around the most popular questions as well as topics searched for Australians during 2022.

1. Wordle“Wordle” was the top trending search globally, as guessing five-letter words every day became a way of life.

2. Australian OpenThe Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia.

3. World CupThe FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football), the sport's global governing body.

4. Shane WarneAn Australian international cricketer, whose career ran from 1991 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria.

5. UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country that Russia invaded in February.

6. Novak DjokovicNovak Djokovic is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record total of 373 weeks and has finished as the year-end No. 1 a record seven times.

7. AshesThe Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia.

8. Ash BartyAn Australian former professional tennis player and cricketer. She was the second Australian tennis player to be ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women's Tennis Association after fellow Aboriginal Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley.

9. Olivia Newton-JohnDame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top ten singles including 5 number-one singles.

10. Betty WhiteBetty Marion White was an American actress and comedian. A pioneer of early television, with a television career spanning almost seven decades, White was noted for her vast work in the entertainment industry and for being one of the first women to work both in front of and behind the camera

GOOD VIBES

Torrens University's virtual fashion studio wins the third award for the year

Torrens University’s innovative extended reality virtual fashion studio has won another award – this time taking out a 2022 ASCILITE award in the innovation category. 

It is the third award Torrens University has won in 2022 for the unique learning tool that transports students inside a virtual fashion studio and teaches them about the operations, activities, tools, and equipment used in the industry. 

Eoghan Hogan, Director of Product Innovation at Torrens University, said the award reflects the university’s commitment to shaping the future of higher education. 

“It’s part of our vision of delivering education without borders, allowing students, regardless of where they are in the world to build the skills, experience, and confidence they need to take into a design studio,” said Mr Hogan. 

“Using immersive extended reality gaming technology, the virtual design studio, which was created for the Bachelor of Branded Fashion Design, allows students to engage in authentic, simulated activities that typically occur in real-world fashion studios.”  

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