Welcome to AUSPUBLAW
Gabrielle Appleby & Sean Brennan
05.05.2015
When we talk about public law we are referring to those laws, processes, practices, customs, mechanisms, institutions and people involved in regulating and exercising government power. Government power is exercised on behalf of the Australian people but can adversely affect people’s interests too.
With this in mind, the creation of AUSPUBLAW, the Australian Public Law blog, has been motivated by two purposes.
Our first purpose is to provide a site at which the Australian community can access timely explanations, analysis and commentary from leading Australian academics and practitioners about public law issues. The people of Australia have a legitimate interest in understanding their public law system. What are the fundamental values that ought to underpin a public law system? Is the current system upholding those values? Are proposed reforms to that system likely to enhance or detract from those values? Are the Government, the Parliament, the Courts and other public officials applying the law in a way that is consistent with those values? The posts on this blog will provide interested members of the public with information and analysis to assist in answering these questions and holding to account the exercise of government power.
Our second purpose is to provide a forum for people researching, writing about and practising public law in Australia to engage with each other and strengthen their work. The blog will provide scholars and practitioners with updates on research being undertaken in public law that might provide the sparks for new projects and collaborations, allowing our understanding of Australian public law to grow in depth and diversity. Scholars and practitioners will be able to access different perspectives on public law issues that may inform their own scholarship and practice, making it more robust.
This blog joins a number of other great blogs on Australian public law. Why, then, have we decided to open another? This blog will host contributions by scholars and practitioners from across Australia (and beyond), regardless of where they work. This allows us to seek out the best contributors wherever they are located and offer readers greater breadth and diversity in our content. It will be a national and collaborative public law platform.
The blog is hosted by the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW Law and we are responsible for commissioning and reviewing the posts. We are excited about the opportunity to publish great work not just from our Centre colleagues but from the wider Australian public law community.
If you are interested in becoming a contributor to AUSPUBLAW, please refer to the ‘Make a Submission’ page for more information.
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Gabrielle Appleby, Blog Coordinator
Sean Brennan, Director, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW Law
Suggested citation: Gabrielle Appleby and Sean Brennan, ‘Welcome to AUSPUBLAW’ on AUSPUBLAW (5 June 2015) <https://www.auspublaw.org/blog/2015/06/welcome-to-auspublaw>