Debt Seduction And Other Disasters

Based on a detailed study of Australia's earliest civil court records - a million handwritten words about daily life and trade - Debt, Seduction and Other Disasters covers the turbulent years in the penal colony. This was a period when starvation was barely averted, emancipated convicts contended with one another to become wealthy through trade, and Aborigines fought for their land. Soldiers and governors struggled for power, culminating in the overthrow of Governor Bligh, the only military coup on Australian soil. In this important and entertaining book, Kercher: shows the remarkable egalitarianism of life in the colony, even for serving convicts and married women discusses the invention and legal consequences of tickets of leave and the central role of law in creating the local version of freedom reveals details of daily social and economic life unavailable elsewhere: the seduction cases and sexual scandals; details of the wheat farm at Woolloomooloo; the problems of the grain growers at the Hawkesbury provides unique information about working conditions of: convicts the seal killers in New Zealand and Macquarie Island sailors the very few Aborigines who worked alongside Europeans details:the first case in Australia in which an Aborigine sued (he lost) the first recorded sale of a wife (at Windsor in 1811; sale void) the case in which Mary Reibey was alleged to have blown up the bakery next door (she won) the sharp practices of Tommy the Banker, Dick the Needle and the petty bankers who deliberately wrote their documents in fading ink describes the lives of the convict women who lived with officers but were abandoned explodes the myth that rum was a major currency and explains the use of alternative currencies, such as wheat, and establishes the crucial role of pigs in town life.

This book examines the law and practice of debt recovery from consumers in Australia. It is the second edition of Australian Debt Recovery Law which was published in 1990. The new edition is updated to meet changes to the law in the past decade, but more than that it now has three authors from three quite different backgrounds. The academic author of the first edition, Bruce Kercher has been joined by one of Australia's leading financial counsellors, Betty Weule and by the principal solicitor of the Wesley Legal Centre (which concentrates on consumer credit issues), Richard Brading. It is stronger in its focus on the actual practice of debt recovery law, while retaining its statement of the law and its historical analysis and arguments for legal change. An early chapter considers debt recovery outside the courts, including an analysis of the law governing the constant problem of harassment. It then moves through the various stages of obtaining judgments, presenting defences and enforcement of judgments. The book concludes with a new chapter on bankruptcy law. The principal aim is to present the law concisely, accurately and with as little legal jargon as possible, while also showing how the law is used as a tool of bargaining and threats.

In the early history of Halifax (1749-1766), debt litigation was extremely common. In Law, Debt, and Merchant Power, James Muir offers an extensive analysis of the civil cases of the time as well as the reasons behind their frequency.

Featuring contributions from leading lawyers, historians and social scientists, this path-breaking volume explores encounters of laws, people, and places in Australia since 1788. Its chapters address three major themes: the development of Australian settler law in the shadow of the British Empire; the interaction between settler law and First Nations people; and the possibility of meaningful encounter between First laws and settler legal regimes in Australia. Several chapters explore the limited space provided by Australian settler law for respectful encounters, particularly in light of the High Court's particular concerns about the fragility of Australian sovereignty. Tracing the development of a uniquely Australian law and the various contexts that shaped it, this volume is concerned with the complexity, plurality, and ambiguity of Australia's legal history.

New analysis and interpretation of law and legal institutions in the "long eighteenth century". Law and legal institutions were of huge importance in the governance of Georgian society: legislation expanded the province of administrative authority out of all proportion, while the reach of the common law and its communal traditions of governance diminished, at least outside British North America. But what did the rule of law mean to eighteenth-century people, and how did it connect with changing experiences of law in all their bewildering complexity?This question has received much recent critical attention, but despite widespread agreement about Law's significance as a key to unlock so much which was central to contemporary life, as a whole previous scholarship has only offered a fragmented picture of the Laws in their social meanings and actions. Through a broader-brush approach, The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century contributes fresh analyses of law in England andBritish settler colonies, c. 1680-1830; its expert contributors consider among other matters the issues of participation, central-local relations, and the maintenance of common law traditions in the context of increasing legislative interventions and grants of statutory administrative powers. Contributors: SIMON DEVEREAUX, MICHAEL LOBBAN, DOUGLAS HAY, JOANNA INNES, WILFRED PREST, C.W. BROOKS, RANDALL MCGOWEN, DAVID THOMAS KONIG, BRUCE KERCHER

Delgamuukw. Mabo. Ngati Apa. Recent cases have created a framework for litigating Aboriginal title in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The distinguished group of scholars whose work is showcased here, however, shows that our understanding of where the concept of Aboriginal title came from – and where it may be going – can also be enhanced by exploring legal developments in these former British colonies in a comparative, multidisciplinary framework. This path-breaking book offers a perspective on Aboriginal title that extends beyond national borders to consider similar developments in common law countries.

Citizenship in Dalit and Indigenous Australian Literatures examines the difference in citizenship as experienced by the communities of Dalits in India and Aboriginals in Australia through an analysis of select literature by authors of these marginalised groups. Aligning the voices of two disparate communities, the author creates a transnational dialogue between the subaltern communities of the two countries, India and Australia, through the literature produced by the two communities. The Covid-19 pandemic has made the divide that exists between the performative citizenship rights enjoyed by the Dalits and the aboriginals and the respective dominant communities of their countries more apparent. The author addresses the issue of this disparity between discursive and performative citizenship through a detailed analysis of select Dalit and Australian aboriginal autobiographies, in particular the works by Dalit autobiographers, Baby Kamble and Aravind Malagatti and aboriginal autobiographers Alice Nannup and Gordon Briscoe. The book uses the dominant tropes of the individual autobiographies as a background to unfurl the denial of citizenship, both in the discursive and the performative form, using the parameters of equal citizenship. In doing so, the author also raises important, groundbreaking questions: How is the performativity of citizenship foregrounded by the Dalits and aboriginals in the literary counter-public? How does this foregrounding evoke violent retribution from the dominant sections? And does the continued violation of performative citizenship point to the dysfunctionality of the performative citizenship status accorded to the Dalits and the aboriginals? Questioning the liberal legacy of political, civil and social citizenship, this book will be of interest to researchers studying Dalit and Aboriginal Literature, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and World Literature, South Asian Studies and researchers dealing with the question of citizenship.

A fascinating exploration of the tavern as a significant and fluid social space in colonial Canada.