It is imperative that the five year review of Victoria's Charter of Human Rights be guided by evidence and real-life experience, not political hyperbole, argues the HRLC's Phil Lynch
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In light of cables released by Wikileaks, Dr Clinton Fernandes revisits Australia's response to the murder of the 'Balibo five' and mounts the case for prosecuting war crimes.
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The 100th year of International Women’s Day is an important occasion to celebrate and acknowledge the considerable achievements of women and men in advancing gender equality in Australia, write Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick.
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The Gillard Government is consolidating federal anti-discrimination laws into a single Equality Act. The process has been promoted as an exercise in addressing inconsistencies and reducing regulation. The Government should show that it is serious about achieving equality by ensuring that the draft Bill, due to be released later this year, also strengthens and modernises our laws, writes the HRLC's Rachel Ball.
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Proposed amendments to Victoria's equal opportunity laws will perpetuate discrimination and undermine fairness and equality, writes Rachel Ball
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The HRLC's Phil Lynch looks at what we have to gain from a human rights approach to foreign aid.
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The HRLC's Emily Howie looks at how Victoria's Charter of Human Rights has secured beneficial outcomes for people in different ways, with most of its impact not occurring in courtrooms, but in peoples’ everyday interactions with public services.
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Whilst welcoming Kevin Rudd's review of Australia's aid program, the CEO of ActionAid Australia, Archie Law, is concerned the primary focus is efficiency and delivering ‘value for money’.
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The recent death of a Sydney man after being tasered by police is tragic, made even more so because it is only the latest example of inappropriate and often outrageous use of these stun guns by some police officers. Governments and police services need to justify how it is in the interests of the community that police carry such devices. The recent death in Sydney was at least the third recorded Taser death in Australia. Two men also died last year, one after being tasered up to 28 times by police in Townsville.
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The recent death of a Sydney man after being tasered by police is tragic, made even more so because it is only the latest example of inappropriate and often outrageous use of these stun guns by some police officers. Governments and police services need to justify how it is in the interests of the community that police carry such devices.
Read MoreThis week, world leaders attended a United Nations summit to mark the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Declaration – a framework of measures designed to reduce extreme poverty, which was adopted by all 189 member states of the UN.The Millennium Development Goals, introduced with such ambition ten years ago, have been the focus of the global effort to improve the lives of billions of people around the world. They have achieved an extraordinary level of consensus and support. Nearly every government around the world, as well as business, financial institutions, UN agencies, donors, non-government organisations and individuals have committed to the goals in various ways.
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The reality, according to a 2009 VicHealth survey, is that nearly one in 10 of us do not believe that people of all races are equal or that inter-racial marriage should be supported. In the same survey, 37 per cent of respondents felt Australia was weakened by people of different ethnic origins ''sticking to their old ways''.
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Emily Howie, director (advocacy and strategic litigation) at the Human Rights Law Centre, argues that Australia must stop denying it has a racism problem.
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On 6 August 2010, in an historic decision, the High Court struck down legislation which resulted in the early close of the electoral rolls and denied over 100,000 Australians the right to vote. The decision was a landmark victory for representative democracy, political participation and accountable government.
Read MoreIn August 2010, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviewed Australia’s compliance with its international legal obligations to respect, protect and promote the human right to equality and freedom from racial discrimination. An NGO coalition, comprising the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, the National Association of Community Legal Centres and the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action, briefed the committee in Geneva, presented a major NGO Report, and provided the following Fact Sheets on Australia's compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:
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The unusual result of the recent British general election appears to have saved the country’s Human Rights Act from immediate extinction. The Conservative Party had been clear about its intention to repeal the Act if elected into government. Passed in 1998 at the very start of Labour’s long tenure in office, the Act requires legislation to be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and equips the courts to re-interpret legislation to achieve this end. But it does not allow the judges to strike down laws on the model of the US constitution or any of the many analogous European systems.
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Of the myriad issues inadequately covered in the 2010 Federal Election campaign, the issues as to Australian values and identity, and how these values shape the way we understand our role and responsibility in the world, must figure high. In the leaders' debate, for example, the only discussion of Australian foreign policy and our place in the world arose in the context of the 'Timor Solution' and the war in Afghanistan. This is not the way things should be. With real leadership, elections present an opportunity to tap into admirable but often latent aspects of national identity, a concept explored by Canadian political scientist Alison Brysk in her new book, Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy.
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The United Nations human rights treaty bodies constitute a cornerstone of the international human rights supervision system. The first of the ‘committees’ commenced its work in 1970. By now, there are 9 of them with a total of 145 elected members. We are just a handful of ratifications away from the creation of the 10th committee under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
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Rachel Ball, senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, argues that the major parties exploit prejudice to cast a small asylum seeker problem as a big crisis.
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Last month, the Rudd Government released a new ‘Human Rights Framework’ for Australia. Most commentary on this Framework has focused on the Government’s failure to commit to a Human Rights Act. This attention is warranted.
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