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Australia must ‘work for improvement’ on its human rights performance
By Chris Hook
The Federal Government’s “unprecedented display of arrogance” in threatening to pull out of the United Nations’
treaty committee system has emerged as a key human rights development, according to this year’s Australian Human Rights Register.
The report is issued annually by Melbourne’s Catholic Commission for Justice,
Development and Peace.
The latest issue recalls that after critical reports last year from two UN human rights committees on Australia’s treatment of Indigenous people and asylum seekers, the Government had
said it would formulate recommendations on how the treaty system could better function.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock and Attorney-General Daryl Williams said they
believed steps to reform the system would ensure “Australia gets a better deal from the UN treaty committees”.
The government’s recommendations have yet to be announced.
The subjects covered in the
latest issue of the Australian Human Rights register include:
•the mandatory detention of asylum seekers
•ongoing inequalities faced by Aboriginal Australians
•treatment of prisoners
•welfare issues, especially the homeless
The register was established in 1997 after concerns were raised about the impact of government policy on the human rights of individuals and the lack of accountability
of government for such decisions.
The first register, which was issued in 1998, collated hundreds of reports from non-government organisations across the country on both positive and negative developments in
human rights in Australia.
Notably, this year’s register saw a marked increase in positive reports, which doubled to almost 13 per cent of all reports.
Among the positive reports were amendments by
the NSW Government to freedom of information legislation – to provide greater public access to information – and programs to help younger prisoners with life skills and education at a Melbourne prison.
However, the register warns that Australia “is slipping in its performance as a nation in the manner in which we deal with our own internal human rights issues”.
“Australia, if it is to have any credibility,
when it speaks to other nations of their human rights standards, cannot afford to refuse to have its own efforts scrutinised and must, in order to be a credible advocate for human rights on the world stage, make all
efforts to work for improvement on its human rights performance in Australia,” the register says.
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