Pharmacist misconduct: the pitfalls of practice

This article identifies the changing role of pharmacists in the provision of health care and analyses 78 complaints against pharmacists over a recent 12-year period in New South Wales, finding that the majority of complaints were in relation to the oversupply of particular medications, from which some pharmacists made significant financial gains. A number of other areas of complaint were identified, including issues in relation to the recording and labelling of medications and the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists, dispensing errors, fraud, and sexual misconduct. As the roles of pharmacists continue to expand, with the growth of "compounding chemists", and the suggestion that pharmacists are now performing basic medical tasks which were once the domain of a general practitioner, it is increasingly important that pharmacy take its place in any debates about the provision and regulation of health services.     

Indigenous rights discourse in Australia

The ability of Australia's indigenous people to create their own cultural identity and social reality is shaped profoundly by the Australian legal system in various ways. The 1992Mabo decision of the Australian High Court ‘created’ a right to land tenure for Australia's indigenous people. This ‘right’ has been further explicated by federal legislation in the post-Mabo era, in and around law. This essay analyzes the 1992Mabo decision in the context of governmental, judicial and wider social responses to indigenous issues. At several sites, it examines ‘indigenous rights’ discourse to illustrate the shifting meaning of ‘rights’ in legal currency in the indigenous debate. The essay suggests that the ‘rights’ discourse of legal liberalism has not yet provided meaningful plurality in the recognition of indigenous rights.     

AIDS Audit – HIV and Human Rights: An Australian Pilot

This article explores the Australian pilot of a human rights audit using ten indicators in the specific area of HIV/AIDS. The new methodology has three main roles: a monitoring device to measure human rights protection in a jurisdiction's legal system against international standards; an intervention to raise local dialogue and consciousness of rights-based legislation; and an advocacy tool to stimulate law reform. It uses a tripartite process balancing independent experts, government, and community representatives. This approach attempts to overcome some of the democratic deficits identified by Power's hypothesis on the explosion of regulatory audits (1997).