New Government has an opportunity to make human rights gains
The newly elected Federal Government has a responsibility to ensure the principles set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are upheld. Amnesty International Australia will be engaging with the new Rudd Labor Government to pursue many human rights issues in Australia. Federal Labor has indicated that it will pursue key human rights issues including violence against women, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the use of the death penalty.
Violence against women
In 2007 the level of violence against women in Australia is unacceptably high. Everyday across Australia, thousands of women are beaten, raped, abused, harassed and stalked. Without an integrated strategy, including elements such as prevention, service delivery, justice and education, the situation for Australian women will not improve.
Amnesty International Australia, alongside more than 200 women's organisations, is calling for an integrated national strategy to address violence against women. Addressing violence against women requires a truly comprehensive strategy with the support of all Australian Governments.
Amnesty International Australia welcomes Federal Labor's policy commitment to a National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children. We look forward to working with Federal, State and Territory Governments to develop a comprehensive strategy to address violence against women.
Recognition for the rights of Indigenous peoples
Federal Labor's policy commitment to sign the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a positive step in recognising the rights of Indigenous peoples. The Declaration provides minimum human rights standards for Indigenous peoples. Amnesty International Australia encourages the new Government to prioritise its commitment for Australia to become a signatory to the Declaration, and to ensure that Federal Government policy and programs are consistent with fully respecting the human rights of Indigenous Australians.
Abolishing the death penalty
The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and violates the fundamental right to life.
We take a consistent and principled approach and opposing every execution: whether it is homosexuals in Iran, political dissidents in Africa, drug traffickers in Asia or convicted murderers in the United States.
Amnesty International will continue to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, in principle and in practice. We appeal to new Government to do likewise.
Meeting international standards
We will continue to push for these and other human rights issues to be recognised as priorities for now and into the future. We will be seeking to ensure that Australia meets our human rights obligations to refugees and asylum seekers, including those people currently on Temporary Protection Visas and detained on Nauru, and that Australian counter-terror laws protect our security in ways that do not compromise international human rights standards.
Comments
Fraser Maywood | Posted on 6 December 2007, 10:48PM | Report comment
I’ve just finished Julian Burnside QC’s book Watching Brief: Reflections On Human Rights, Law And Justice - the erosion of human rights in this country over the past 5 years is staggering as is our complacency to refugees. We all need to pressure the new government to right the wrongs.
Jiao Li | Posted on 2 December 2007, 03:00PM | Report comment
Those who are ignorant complain “we have so many refugees in this country”, OK, you don’t want any more refugees, help to improve the human rights in countries like China, Sudan, Burma first! When there’s no more persecution in those countries, people won’t need to flee to Australia or any other country for that matter!
They call themselves Christians, but do not show any care for their Christian “brothers and sisters” under persecution in other countries, they may pray for their own prosperity, but would not take a minute to read how severely Christians are persecuted in those countries. They say, we have our own business to mind, alas, I don’t even know what to say!
Jiao Li | Posted on 2 December 2007, 02:53PM | Report comment
The western tourists who go to China and return gladly are PATHETIC! They only say, how great their trip was, enjoyed the food, saw lots of modern high rises, and treated like VIPs. When I pointed out, “WE HAVE NO HUMAN RIGHTS THERE!!! WE HAVE NO FREEDOM OF RELIGION, NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH, NO FREEDOM OF ANYTHING!!” they just respond by “well, I didn’t see anything wrong there! I don’t know if what you are saying is true or not” or simply “I don’t want to talk about politics!”
Excuse me? It’s not politics, it’s our dignity, the rights that we are supposed to have been born with!
Now, our new PM is a Mandarin speaking ex-diplomat in Beijing. And I don’t dare to have any expectation. Australian voters want a better IR system, better economy, better environment, and, “why should we care about the suffering of others?”
Jiao Li | Posted on 2 December 2007, 02:53PM | Report comment
Australian people care more about how much money is in their pocket than say, if one day, their human rights would be abused legally because there’s no Bill of Rights; or, Australia is exporting uranium to China. TO CHINA!!! Hello?!!
That’s right, Chinese government is no longer killing thousands of students in one go, they just kill a few innocent people every day. I mean, not just the capital punishment, talking about death penalty in China is boring. let’s talk about something more exciting, how about each year, thousands of miners die at work?? Or, how about
ORGAN HARVESTING?
Organs are always ready from live Falun Gong practitioners, because they have concentration camps there in China, especially for the purpose of detaining Falun Gong practitioners, and harvest their organs by force, once there is any demand and match.
Jiao Li | Posted on 2 December 2007, 02:52PM | Report comment
Let’s take a closer look, we get to buy cheap clothes and other products as a result of all the sweatshops in China, if we want to protect the human rights there, who would provide us any more of the sweatshop goods? Australia’s economic prosperity to a certain degree relies upon the suffering of Chinese people. Neither of the big parties care about human rights, neither of them passed a Bill of Rights, and the 2 minor parties who do care are just that-minor parties, Democrats were voted out, and the Greens are not even holding the whole balance of power in the Senate.
Jiao Li | Posted on 2 December 2007, 02:51PM | Report comment
I don’t know, well Johnny said basically nothing functional to Chinese government in regards to the human rights violations there, although he made the decision to boycott the cricket tour in Zimbabwe. But China? His minister said, no matter how bad the human rights situation there is, they won’t boycott the Olympics in Beijing. Now, Johnny is out, let’s see Kevin’s attitude. He had already expressed that he was delighted to have been invited to attend the Beijing Olympics by President Hu Jintao of China. One of his sons is studying in Shanghai, two other sons are learning Mandarin, his daughter married to a Chinese migrant from Hong Kong. During Johnny’s reign, at least there was still some “human rights dialogue” (albeit useless) between Australia and China, under Kevin, I’m not sure if this pathetic “dialogue” would even be cancelled! Most voters don’t care about human rights even in Australia, let alone the human rights of Australia’s largest trade partner-China.
Joe Rich | Posted on 1 December 2007, 10:54AM | Report comment
Australia badly needs Human Rights legislation against which our treatment of Aborigines, asylum seekers,
suspected terrorists and other putative criminals can be measured. In addition, we need to play a larger part in urging respect for human rights, not only in countries such a Burma and Iran, but also in those with which we have more friendly relations such as the USA and Israel. In addition, we need to be more even handed in our opposition to capital punishment which is just as obnoxious when targeting terrorists who kill Australians as when used against Australian drug smugglers.
Helen Manos | Posted on 1 December 2007, 04:39AM | Report comment
I suggest that we all pressure our Federal MPs to lift the profile of Australia to better human rights. Howard’s 11-year backward rule has left us with a rancid taste in the mouth.
Jess O'Donnell | Posted on 29 November 2007, 06:05PM | Report comment
We are the only western liberal democracy not to have any kind of legislation regarding human rights. Australia commits some terrible acts against the indigenous population, same sex couples and of course asylum seekers. Something needs to be done in this new era.