Penrith community discusses human rights

Sophie Peer 10 March 2009, 11:27AM

© robt (Flickr)

I recently attended the Human Rights Consultation roundtable in Penrith, NSW. This was the second such public meeting held by the independent committee tasked with travelling the country to hear what people think about human rights protection in Australia.

I attended not as an Amnesty member nor Amnesty staff member on leave, but as a concerned community member. I was impressed to find many other individuals there for the same reasons. Even more impressive considering there was no real advertisement of the event and it was held on a working day between 1pm and 3pm in the afternoon.

Only two of the four committee members, were present at the Penrith meeting - Mary Kostakidis and Father Frank Brennan. Both were approachable, open and knowledgeable. They were assisted with administration on the day by staff of the Attorney General's office.

About 100 people attended the two hour public session. Overall it was a positive atmosphere and there were many points of view, areas of interest and some personal experiences of abuse shared.

The Committee showed they are willing to adapt and change the meeting format as they travel and learn. The first meeting in Queenbeyan, ACT had no method for people to leave their own stories, this Penrith meeting gave us each a double sided A4 piece of paper to leave or send in our personal story if we wished. Perhaps future meetings could include a video recorder set up for people to tell their stories. I do hope that some changes are made after the meeting I was part of.

I didn't particularly like the structure of the two hour meeting. After about 25 minutes as a large group sharing broad comments, we were separated into tables of four to eight people and asked as groups to answer the Government's three questions. My experience was fine, but that's because I was in a group with three others who essentially shared my views! We all agreed that human rights in Australia were not adequately protected and in many cases were abused.

“It is certainly a positive and unique thing that Australians are coming together to discuss human rights, and that there is a Government-appointed panel who must report on what we think and make recommendations based on these views.”

Frank, Mary and the Attorney General's staff moved about the room, but really conversations were facilitated by individual table members with one person documenting the groups' thoughts on butchers paper. If someone was too domineering, too quiet, had different views to others, felt threatened or many other possible small group scenarios there would be nothing to support or assist conversation. I think it would be far more effective to have larger groups each with a dedicated trained facilitator (maybe the four committee members could each take a group).

After about one hour in our small groups we came back together as a large group to address the question of what sort of human rights protection was needed in Australia. From both of the open floor sessions there were people concerned with civil liberties, the right to privacy, right to protest, right to food and water, our current anti-terror laws, rights of youth, rights of same sex couples, rights of the elderly and many more. There were some opponents to change who thought our present system was fine and we simply needed to make the judiciary more accountable.

It is certainly a positive and unique thing that Australians are coming together to discuss human rights, and that there is a Government-appointed panel who must report on what we think and make recommendations based on these views. I am glad I went and I do feel that, along with making a submission, it has allowed me to have a say.

I do however, look forward to hearing that the Committee makes amendments to the structure. We met in a licensed venue that required an address for entry, there were no ads in local papers / radio etc and there was no alternative to the Friday 1pm to 3pm time slot - and this was to hear from those West of the Sydney CBD, a big and diverse group.

I highly recommend getting along to a roundtable near you. If you do I'd love to know what you thought of it - please leave your comments below. If there is no roundtable near you, let us know that too.

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