It is imperative that all police-related deaths – and there are an average of 16 per year in Victoria alone – are investigated by a body that is fully independent of police, writes the HRLC's Anna Brown.
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This 2012 report documents 101 case studies from the first five years of the operation of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights. They show that the Charter has delivered benefits including greater government accountability, more responsive public services, and a better deal for some of Victoria’s most vulnerable groups, such as people with disability, people with mental illness and people experiencing homelessness.
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An unprincipled and myopic approach to human rights will fail in West Papua just as it did in East Timor, writes the HRLC's Tom Clarke, Australia needs a new approach, underpinned by a principled and persistent commitment to human rights, to addressing conflicts in our region.
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Kevin Rudd needs to show the same attention to human rights issues in Australia’s region as he did in Libya, writes Human Rights Watch’s Elaine Pearson, and Sri Lanka would be the perfect place to start.
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The HRLC’s Phil Lynch looks at how principled leadership and energetic action in key priority areas will help to realise the vision of a nation which respects and protects human rights.
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When it comes to rebuilding Afghanistan Save the Children’s Rebecca Barber urges the benchmark to be set higher than merely denying a safe haven for terrorists.
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It's time for Australia to take a principled and proactive stand on human rights in Asia and the Pacific, writes the HRLC's Tom Clarke. Starting with West Papua. Today.
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Secretary General of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, reflects on his recent fact finding mission and argues Australia needs to improve its own act if its voice in the region is to be heard with the clarity that it deserves
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Given Victoria Police use force, on average, every 2.5 hours, it seems they might have achieved their monthly quota in the space of a Friday morning. An alarming statistic when one considers that the spike was due, not to a surge in knife crime or even petty theft, but a gathering of people seeking to exercise political freedoms protected under the law. Whatever one’s views on the Occupy Melbourne protesters and their aims, the decisions and actions taken by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and the Victoria Police to forcibly evict peaceful demonstrators from City Square raise a number of serious questions about infringement of fundamental civil and political rights and the excessive use of force by Victoria Police.
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Given Victoria Police use force, on average, every 2.5 hours, it seems they might have achieved their monthly quota in the space of last Friday morning. An alarming statistic when one considers that the spike was due not to a surge in knife crime or even petty theft, but a gathering of people seeking to exercise political freedoms protected under the law.
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DLA Piper’s Nicolas Patrick looks at the pressures on pro bono lawyering in the wake of global trends of decreased public legal funding.
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Reform of the regulation, training and monitoring of police use of force is necessary to enhance community safety and ensure Victoria Police comply with human rights.
Victoria Police use force, on average, every 2.5 hours. Almost three quarters of these incidents involve the use of capsicum spray. There have been at least 12 people shot dead by Victoria Police in the last decade, while numerous others have died in police custody.
Read the background research paper here [PDF]
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Will Victoria further strengthen our fundamental rights and freedoms or become the first state in the modern democratic world to wind back or weaken them? Asks the HRLC’s Ben Schokman
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Kevin Rudd, or @kruddmp to his online followers, likes to tweet. I strongly support his use of Twitter – social media is an important new tool in the world of digital diplomacy – but I was struck by one message from the Foreign Minister on 4 July. It read ‘4 corners tonight on Sri Lanka deeply disturbing. UN Human Rights Council can't simply push this to one side. Action needed. KRudd’.
Read MoreAmidst mounting international pressure over Australia’s human rights record, the HRLC’s Phil Lynch and Ben Schokman examine the recent commitments made by the Government at the UN.
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Chair of the Australian Human Rights Group, Susan Ryan, highlights the pressing need to engage in efforts to improve human rights protections.
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Retired judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, discusses society’s deep-seated desire for justice and equality.
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The Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Sarah Joseph, examines the role of Twitter and Facebook, in promoting human rights and democracy.
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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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Human rights education and parliamentary engagement with human rights will be enhanced under a new ‘Human Rights Framework’ for Australia, announced by the Attorney-General on 21 April 2010 in response to the recommendations of the National Human Rights Consultation. However, the Rudd Government’s failure to commit to a comprehensive, national Human Rights Act — a key recommendation of the Consultation which was supported by over 87% of a record 35,000 public submissions — is a missed opportunity to strengthen Australia’s democracy and build a fairer, more inclusive community.
Read MoreNext February, Australia’s human rights performance will be under the spotlight at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Australian delegation, likely led by the Attorney-General, will be questioned about what Australia does and why it does it. The Government will receive bouquets and brickbats – and a long list of recommendations about what it should do better and how.
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