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Rights debate heats up as report handed down
ISSUE 188 - 16 Oct 2009
By Madelaine Sealey
ISSUE 188, October 15, 2009: A report into the findings of nationwide human rights consultations has found overwhelming support for a Human Rights Act in Australia.
It also found that the protection of Indigenous rights is still a central concern.
The National Human Rights Consultation Report, outlines the findings of The National Human Rights Consultation Committee, which was commissioned by the federal government in December last year to determine which human rights should be protected and promoted in Australia.
The Committee, which was asked to consider how Australia could better protect human rights, found that one of the most frequently discussed topics throughout the process was the rights of Indigenous people.
"There was widespread acknowledgement that the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 'generally less favourable' than those of other Australians," the report said.
"There was less agreement, however, about the types of strategies that are needed to respond to disadvantage and whether the situation justifies the invoking of specific 'Indigenous-only' rights."
The majority of the participants - who took part in 66 community roundtables, three days of public hearings and about 35, 000 submissions - sought to highlight to the Committee the plight of our most vulnerable.
The controversial measures of the Northern Territory intervention, implemented by the former Howard government in June 2007 in the wake of the Little Children are Sacred report into child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities, did not escape scrutiny.
Two years on, the intervention's 'special measures', which include compulsory income management of people living in prescribed communities and the suspension of the RDA, have continued under the current federal government.
In light of these concerns, the report recommended that, "a 'statement of impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' be provided to federal parliament when the intent is to legislate exclusively for those peoples, to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act" or "to institute a special measure".
"The statement should explain the object, purpose and proportionality of the legislation and detail the processes of consultation and the attempts made to obtain informed consent from those concerned," the report said.
The Committee also recommended that the Federal government, work in partnership with Indigenous communities to develop and implement a framework for self-determination.
It said that this should outline consultation protocols, roles and responsibilities and strategies for increasing "Indigenous Australians' participation in the institutions of democratic government".
President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Cathy Branson said on Tuesday that while the Commission welcomed the Committee's recommendations, it was concerned by the report's recommendation of limited protection of economic, social and cultural rights under a Human Rights Act.
"There is still significant scope for the government to improve the protection of [these rights]," Ms Branson told NIT.
"The Commission believes that economic, social and cultural rights should be treated, so far as possible, in the same way as civil and political rights."
Ms Branson said that if the federal government were to extend the functions of the Australian Human Rights Commission to include economic, social and cultural rights (including the rights of Indigenous people) as has been recommended in the report, the Commission would be able to assess and monitor whether Australian law is consistent with protecting these rights.
"[We] will also be able to receive complaints of breaches of those rights by the Commonwealth government and people acting on its behalf...," Ms Branson said.
"[If the] Commission finds those rights have been breached, it will report those breaches to Parliament... We will be urging the government to implement [the reports] recommendations to help build a stronger human rights culture in Australia."
The federal government has said that it will carefully consider the recommendations made by the Committee's report and outline its response in the coming months.
• To read Cathy Branson's full response to NIT's written questions, please see NIT's online download section at http://www.nit.com.au/downloads
• For analysis on what the report said and didn't say about Indigenous rights, see POINTED VIEW: More rights than wrongs by Professor Larissa Behrendt.
 
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