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Julian Burnside, leading human rights lawyer has called for the federal government to either scrap or rework, the NTER. |
Rudd govt should rework or scrap intervention: QC
ISSUE 188 - 16 Oct 2009
By Tara Ravens
ISSUE 188, October 15, 2009: A leading human rights lawyer says the federal government must rework or scrap racist elements of the intervention program in remote Indigenous communities and honour Australia's obligations under international law.
Labor is moving to reinstate the legislation that allowed some of the more controversial measures to be rolled out.
But Julian Burnside, QC, said Australia would fail as a signatory to a number of UN conventions and violate its own laws, unless there are changes to the intervention's "overtly discriminatory" measures.
"This is a moral obligation on the part of the government and nothing less would be acceptable," he said in a statement.
"The removal, or redesign, of special measures is an essential starting point."
The former Howard government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to allow for the intervention's more extreme measures, such as compulsory welfare quarantining.
But the Rudd government announced plans to reinstate the Act when it gave public support to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Mr Burnside said that if Australia wanted to abide by the agreement it made with 144 other countries in April, it had to take into account the findings of the UN's special rapporteur on Indigenous rights.
Professor James Anaya described the intervention as racist and discriminatory following his tour of Australia in August.
He singled out compulsory welfare income management, land take-overs and alcohol bans and said the measures - which failed to comply with Australia's international obligations - would have been illegal had the Racial Discrimination Act not been suspended.
"It is essential that the directions provided by Professor Anaya be given serious attention, as government strives to implement new legislation that will fully comply with its international obligations," Mr Burnside said.
"As legislation is drawn up to reinstate the Act, any 'special measures', if still deemed necessary, must be redesigned to ensure their compliance with international human rights principles."
Mr Burnside, who received an Order of Australia this year for his work as a human rights advocate, said the gap in Indigenous disadvantage would only close when Aboriginal people had their rights protected.
 
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