Very exciting news. Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls will launch the Human Rights are Aussie Rules Project on Friday 11 September 2009. This is something that I have been working on for a number of years with ECLC and others.
The launch will take place at Eley Park, 87 Eley Rd Blackburn between 1-2pm.
There will be performances of the unique dramatic production FRED's Fair Play and a choir from the Blackburn English Language School.
Fantastic stuff.
04 September 2009
26 August 2009
Beyond left and right
I have become an insomniac after the birth of my kids. Like my mother and my pop before me, I am now plugged into a little radio beside my bed, swapping between late night talk back radio. Thank God for Trevor Chapel.
So it was 4am-ish, sometime in June, when I woke to an early morning repeat of Radio National's law report featuring an entire program of reasoned argument about why a bill of rights was not a good thing for Australia. The program was obviously timed to coincide with the closing date of submissions to the consultation. An anti-rights book was being launched by Major Peter Cosgrove with fanfare and praise. As I listened to argument after argument I became irritated.
Irked, not because of the quality of the arguments from the oppositionl, but because of the lack of any media from the pro-human rights lobby. Where had the Australian Human Rights Group gone? Where was the campaign? Time for a wake up call.
You can check out my wake up call to the pro-rights lobby at New Matilda here:
http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/02/dont-let-them-kill-bill
You can read Janet Albrechtsen's shameless exhumation of my article for her own ends here:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/contempt_for_democratic_process/
Being both the left and the right's punching bag on this issue makes me think I may have said something useful for once.
So it was 4am-ish, sometime in June, when I woke to an early morning repeat of Radio National's law report featuring an entire program of reasoned argument about why a bill of rights was not a good thing for Australia. The program was obviously timed to coincide with the closing date of submissions to the consultation. An anti-rights book was being launched by Major Peter Cosgrove with fanfare and praise. As I listened to argument after argument I became irritated.
Irked, not because of the quality of the arguments from the oppositionl, but because of the lack of any media from the pro-human rights lobby. Where had the Australian Human Rights Group gone? Where was the campaign? Time for a wake up call.
You can check out my wake up call to the pro-rights lobby at New Matilda here:
http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/02/dont-let-them-kill-bill
You can read Janet Albrechtsen's shameless exhumation of my article for her own ends here:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/contempt_for_democratic_process/
Being both the left and the right's punching bag on this issue makes me think I may have said something useful for once.
30 June 2009
A pandering spectacle
The public hearings on human rights, commencing tomorrow in Parliament House Canberra, are nothing more than a pretty spectacle for participants, a pandering to high profile public faces on both sides of the human rights debate.
The program for the next three days reveals alot about the likely direction of the National Human Rights Consultation, the behind the scenes skirmishes and the effectiveness of pro and anti rights campaigning to date.
If the program is anything to go by, the national consultation has been ineffective at engaging ordinary people in a discussion about rights, with less than 25% of the hearings allocated to the interests of ordinary people. Instead, the public hearings are once again dominated by the usual suspects - lawyers and politicians. All the hard work of the Panel, travelling the country taking statements from locals, has been undercut by the obvious bias towards elite expertise.
The interests of victims of human rights abuses are marginalised in the program. Only half of Day 1 has been allocated to talk to people affected by the lack of human rights protection in Australia. Surely the most important and convincing testimony is from these people and should have been spread out across the entire first day.
Although Indigenous People, Muslims, Gay and Lesbians, the Poor, Homeless and Social Security Dependant, the disabled and the elderly are represented, each group has only ten minutes to set out why they need better human rights protection. Of these groups, the consultation has chosen to speak to only one direct victim of human rights abuse - a Tampa asylum seeker. The interests of all other marginalised groups are represented by the Executive Officers of peak bodies and NGO's.
In the draft program released late last week one group was conspicuous by its absence - Youth. Clearly, some significant lobbying has gone on behind the scenes this week, with Tiffany Overall of Youth Law, a community legal centre championing young people's rights, now allocated a timeslot. Tiffany has an odd, solo spot at the end of the first day. The scheduling makes young people look like an afterthought and unfit for interaction with adults.
Children have been repeatedly left out of the Consultation. The writer is aware that in a token last minute attempt at consultation, the Panel realised its neglect and began scurrying to youth foundations desperate to talk to kids. In the absence of national and state based human rights curriculum at primary and secondary level, how young people input and receive human rights education, is fundamental to developing a culture of human rights in Australia. It's hard to see how young people are marginal to the debate.
The program also reveals the significant influence faith is having on the outcome of the consultation, with an entire session devoted to exploring moral issues such as euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage. This session is being called The Hot Button Issues, a patronising euphemism that elevates a minor rights based conflict - the battle between freedom of religion and freedom of choice - to holy war status. A better name for this session would have been, WWJDAHR? (What would Jesus Do about Human Rights)? Astutely, Brennan has avoided chairing this session.
Faith based opponents to human rights are not just confined to this session. Jim Wallace of the Autralian Christian Lobby also makes an appearance on Day 3, sandwiched between Get Up and Amnesty International. This session is meant to explore civic engagement in human rights, but that is a falsehood. The session is merely an opportunity for the three most effective lobbying agencies to synthesise thousands of submissions obtained from their members.
There are also some absurd participants worth mentioning.
Firstly, Alan Anderson, former advisor to the Attorney-General Ruddock, Liberal Party Member and On-Line Opinion Commentator. In a session intended to compare the legal framework in Australia to that of the UK, Alan Anderson will be punching well above his weight against the big legal guns in the pro-rights arsenal - Charlesworth and Williams. Anderson, I assume, has been placed in this session, along with Julian Leeser of the Menzies Research Centre, to provide a quasi-legal/academic authority to the Conservatives No Bill campaign.
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland presides over an organisation that regularly perpetuates the most outrageous abuses of human rights. How seriously can the panel take his comments while Victoria Police actively lobbies against an independent corruption commission, undertakes unlawful, degrading strip searches, uses excesive force against peace protestors and continues its trigger happy tradition whenever someone with a mental illness comes within five metres of a junior constable. A session devoted to law enforcement, without a victim of police misconduct present, is a farce.
But perhaps the biggest mockery of the entire public hearing process is the exlusive twenty minute session for Susan Ryan and Bob Carr to make out the political case for and against rights protection in Australia.
The ultimate insiders insiders, Ryan and Carr have direct and indirect access to Cabinet, the ultimate arbiters of the human rights debate. Is anyone really suggesting that they need a special hearing to speak to Brennan and Kostakidis? The prioritisation given to their their voices has turned public hearings of the National Human Rights Consultation into a mere paegeant for the chattering class, instead of an opportunity to chat with ordinary Aussies.
The program for the next three days reveals alot about the likely direction of the National Human Rights Consultation, the behind the scenes skirmishes and the effectiveness of pro and anti rights campaigning to date.
If the program is anything to go by, the national consultation has been ineffective at engaging ordinary people in a discussion about rights, with less than 25% of the hearings allocated to the interests of ordinary people. Instead, the public hearings are once again dominated by the usual suspects - lawyers and politicians. All the hard work of the Panel, travelling the country taking statements from locals, has been undercut by the obvious bias towards elite expertise.
The interests of victims of human rights abuses are marginalised in the program. Only half of Day 1 has been allocated to talk to people affected by the lack of human rights protection in Australia. Surely the most important and convincing testimony is from these people and should have been spread out across the entire first day.
Although Indigenous People, Muslims, Gay and Lesbians, the Poor, Homeless and Social Security Dependant, the disabled and the elderly are represented, each group has only ten minutes to set out why they need better human rights protection. Of these groups, the consultation has chosen to speak to only one direct victim of human rights abuse - a Tampa asylum seeker. The interests of all other marginalised groups are represented by the Executive Officers of peak bodies and NGO's.
In the draft program released late last week one group was conspicuous by its absence - Youth. Clearly, some significant lobbying has gone on behind the scenes this week, with Tiffany Overall of Youth Law, a community legal centre championing young people's rights, now allocated a timeslot. Tiffany has an odd, solo spot at the end of the first day. The scheduling makes young people look like an afterthought and unfit for interaction with adults.
Children have been repeatedly left out of the Consultation. The writer is aware that in a token last minute attempt at consultation, the Panel realised its neglect and began scurrying to youth foundations desperate to talk to kids. In the absence of national and state based human rights curriculum at primary and secondary level, how young people input and receive human rights education, is fundamental to developing a culture of human rights in Australia. It's hard to see how young people are marginal to the debate.
The program also reveals the significant influence faith is having on the outcome of the consultation, with an entire session devoted to exploring moral issues such as euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage. This session is being called The Hot Button Issues, a patronising euphemism that elevates a minor rights based conflict - the battle between freedom of religion and freedom of choice - to holy war status. A better name for this session would have been, WWJDAHR? (What would Jesus Do about Human Rights)? Astutely, Brennan has avoided chairing this session.
Faith based opponents to human rights are not just confined to this session. Jim Wallace of the Autralian Christian Lobby also makes an appearance on Day 3, sandwiched between Get Up and Amnesty International. This session is meant to explore civic engagement in human rights, but that is a falsehood. The session is merely an opportunity for the three most effective lobbying agencies to synthesise thousands of submissions obtained from their members.
There are also some absurd participants worth mentioning.
Firstly, Alan Anderson, former advisor to the Attorney-General Ruddock, Liberal Party Member and On-Line Opinion Commentator. In a session intended to compare the legal framework in Australia to that of the UK, Alan Anderson will be punching well above his weight against the big legal guns in the pro-rights arsenal - Charlesworth and Williams. Anderson, I assume, has been placed in this session, along with Julian Leeser of the Menzies Research Centre, to provide a quasi-legal/academic authority to the Conservatives No Bill campaign.
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland presides over an organisation that regularly perpetuates the most outrageous abuses of human rights. How seriously can the panel take his comments while Victoria Police actively lobbies against an independent corruption commission, undertakes unlawful, degrading strip searches, uses excesive force against peace protestors and continues its trigger happy tradition whenever someone with a mental illness comes within five metres of a junior constable. A session devoted to law enforcement, without a victim of police misconduct present, is a farce.
But perhaps the biggest mockery of the entire public hearing process is the exlusive twenty minute session for Susan Ryan and Bob Carr to make out the political case for and against rights protection in Australia.
The ultimate insiders insiders, Ryan and Carr have direct and indirect access to Cabinet, the ultimate arbiters of the human rights debate. Is anyone really suggesting that they need a special hearing to speak to Brennan and Kostakidis? The prioritisation given to their their voices has turned public hearings of the National Human Rights Consultation into a mere paegeant for the chattering class, instead of an opportunity to chat with ordinary Aussies.
23 June 2009
Waiting for the Great Leap Forward from the Campaign for a Human Rights Act in Australia
Australia needs a Human Rights Act, but the prospects of securing one are diminishing.
The June 15 deadline for submissions to the National Human Rights Consultation has passed with little fanfare. Aside from Amnesty International's exchange of 10,000+ submissions to panel member Mary Kostakidis, there was very little pro-rights media to mark the event.
Infact, the only other event to get National media attention was the No Bill campaign's launch of Don't Leave us with the Bill, a book commissioned by the Menzies Research Centre. Championing the No Bill case was guest speaker, former Defence chief and prominent Catholic, Peter Cosgrove. The No Bill campaign achieved National radio airplay on ABC's The Law Report.
Where was the Australian Human Rights Group, that loose affiliation of progressive organisations strategically promoting the pro-rights cause? Regretably, nowhere to be seen.
I am waiting for a great leap forward from the Campaign for a Human Rights Act.
Revolution, says Billy Bragg, is just a t-shirt away. How you can run a pro-rights campaign without a centralised slogan, badges and branding and a tailored media strategy aimed at getting round the press's hostility and lack of interest is anyone's guess.
The June 15 deadline for submissions to the National Human Rights Consultation has passed with little fanfare. Aside from Amnesty International's exchange of 10,000+ submissions to panel member Mary Kostakidis, there was very little pro-rights media to mark the event.
Infact, the only other event to get National media attention was the No Bill campaign's launch of Don't Leave us with the Bill, a book commissioned by the Menzies Research Centre. Championing the No Bill case was guest speaker, former Defence chief and prominent Catholic, Peter Cosgrove. The No Bill campaign achieved National radio airplay on ABC's The Law Report.
Where was the Australian Human Rights Group, that loose affiliation of progressive organisations strategically promoting the pro-rights cause? Regretably, nowhere to be seen.
I am waiting for a great leap forward from the Campaign for a Human Rights Act.
Revolution, says Billy Bragg, is just a t-shirt away. How you can run a pro-rights campaign without a centralised slogan, badges and branding and a tailored media strategy aimed at getting round the press's hostility and lack of interest is anyone's guess.
Writing about rights
Human rights are powerful principles placing compassion for the individual and respect for human dignity ahead of corporate and government interests. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights distills the essence of freedom, the poetic promise of human potential.
Today there is no greater political project in the world than the promotion of human rights. It is essential for future peace and prosperity. The success of this project depends on human rights expression being rescued from lawyers and elites and returned to the people through poetry, novels, films, music, sport and art.
This blog is dedicated to human rights as a common language between all cultures, races and religions.
Today there is no greater political project in the world than the promotion of human rights. It is essential for future peace and prosperity. The success of this project depends on human rights expression being rescued from lawyers and elites and returned to the people through poetry, novels, films, music, sport and art.
This blog is dedicated to human rights as a common language between all cultures, races and religions.
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