Human Rights
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. Robert Manne v Ramesh Thakur v Gillian Triggs: What on Earth is Going On?
If one were ever in this situation, who would one wish to speak for them: George Brandis or Gillian Triggs? That’s the choice. Continue reading »
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CHRIS SIDOTI. 30th Anniversary of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Part 2 of 2.
Human rights work has a cost, and we need to remember the cost and the toll that it takes on the people who are doing it. Those who are paying the price need the support of those who are not paying so much. Continue reading »
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CHRIS SIDOTI. 30th Anniversary of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Part 1 of 2.
Chris Sidoti recounts the context for the establishing of the AHRC, (formerly called the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) and records the frequent conflicts over the years between the AHRC and the government of the day. This is an edited first half of the speech. The second half will appear in the next P&I. Continue reading »
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BRUCE THOM. Agonies of an American scientist under Trump.
A truly great nation must be compassionate, loving, kind, rational and celebrate diversity. Continue reading »
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PETER DAY. Homelessness v houselessness
We need to change the way we do charity and welfare; we’re out of kilter: lots of giving and receiving of things, but too little giving of ourselves – we just don’t have the time. It hardly needs saying, “People need people.” Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. AHRC President Gillian Triggs: a year of living dangerously. Part 3 of 3.
In hearings before a Senate estimates committee on 18 October, Triggs said her interview had been inaccurately reported, with quotes taken out of context and even fabricated. When the paper’s editor replied they held an audio recording of the interview, Triggs acknowledged that ‘the article was an accurate excerpt’. Continue reading »
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I am ashamed to be Australian.
I decided to become a photojournalist to help refugees tell their stories, and to show their plight. I was stunned by the lack of compassion and the outright racism I saw in my countrymen. I was angry as only a teenager can be with the politicians who fanned the flames of xenophobia. Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. AHRC President Gillian Triggs: a year of living dangerously. Part 2 of 3.
Asylum seekers and children in detention There are four separate issues that typically get lumped into one confusing debate: the policies on asylum seekers, boats turnback and offshore detention; and the treatment of detainees. Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. AHRC President Gillian Triggs: a year of living dangerously. Part 1 of 3.
Increasingly, voters are frustrated with parties captured by special interests or catering to noisy minority activists. Citizens want competent governance that promotes the general welfare. Continue reading »
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Australia’s Death by Numbers
The dead refugee had a name. But even in death Australia did not want to humanize him. For years now he had been no more than a registration number — BRF063 — under the country’s cruel refugee deterrence system known as “offshore processing.” Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Japan’s New Blood
The Australian servicemen who left behind mixed-race children during the postwar Occupation of Japan set in motion changes that are chipping away at a nation’s stubborn myth of racial homogeneity. Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. ‘Fighting Monsters’
Australians, Americans and Japanese have been ‘fighting monsters’––the monsters of war remembrance––since 1945. A high-profile visit to Pearl Harbor during the week seemed to suggest another monster was being laid to rest. But while that piece of theatre left much to be desired, especially in its aftermath, another recent attempt, away from the spotlight, gives Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. UN rebuffs Netanyahu and Trump.
The United Nations Security Council’s pre-Christmas condemnation of Israel’s construction of settlements in the occupied territories surprised many and infuriated Israel. The move was rebuff to both Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to incoming US President-elect Donald Trump. How did it happen? And what will be the likely ramifications. Continue reading »
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Broken men in paradise.
‘The world’s refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia’s island prisons.’ In this long, searing account in the New York Times, Op-ed columnist, Roger Cohen, describes what he found on a recent visit to Manus Island. Continue reading »
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ANDREW AILES. Peace on earth – the children of Aleppo.
Peace on Earth Peace on earth. Goodwill to men, Echoes like Sullivan’s Great Amen: The chord he lost when sitting by, His brother as he watched him die. Continue reading »
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Shakespeare on refugees, strangers and inhumanity.
In a series of speeches written by Shakespeare, Thomas More makes the argument for the humane treatment of those forced to seek asylum after being expelled from their homeland. This is a repost from August 23, 2016. Continue reading »
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ROBERT MANNE. The Australian’s attacks on Gillian Triggs.
The attack launched by the Australian on Gillian Triggs and the Human Rights Commission has been obsessive, petty, relentless, remorseless and ruthless. Continue reading »
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. The Federal Government Attacks its Watchers
In recent years, the Federal Government has made an art form of undermining the autonomy of independent statutory offices established to hold it to account. One by one, statutory offices have been subject to forceful governmental and media assaults. Continue reading »
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TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. The ‘information war’ hits Sydney.
This action by a small number of Japanese in Australia harms the Japanese community itself and demeans the work of those in Japan and elsewhere who have fought so long and hard for historical truth and justice. Continue reading »
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BRUCE ARNOLD. Open Government, Open to interpretation
If we are indeed open to Open Government a salient demonstration would be facilitating Australian Human Rights Commission access to what is happening on Australia’s behalf in offshore detention centres. That would be a fine national Christmas present from Turnbull, Dutton and Brandis, with or without tinsel. Continue reading »
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s government appears unable – or unwilling – to halt what some describe as ‘ethnic cleansing’.
The Rohingya in Myanmar are facing increasing attacks and harassment. Australia and the region must be prepared to respond. Continue reading »
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Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration – the desperate situation of Rohingya in Myanmar.
Situation in Rakhine State in Myanmar of grave concern – the region must be on high alert. Mass displacement inevitable if violence continues to escalate. Continue reading »
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IAN WEBSTER. Amid chaos, ethics.
Speaking particularly of the treatment people in Manus and Nauru, Professor Ian Webster argues that in this secular and chaotic world, the values and principles of the professional codes of health workers could be used to frame their future contributions to a civil and humane society. Continue reading »
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PETER JOHNSTONE. The Royal Commission and the Catholic Church’s Dysfunctional Governance
In May 2016, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released Issues Paper 11 – Catholic Church Final Hearing, inviting submissions for its final Catholic Church hearing scheduled for three weeks 6-24 February 2017. That hearing will review the horror of clerical child sexual abuse and the Church’s cover-up and Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. The Tragedy of Trump
If nothing else Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election is compelling evidence that the neo-liberal project has been a catastrophic public policy failure. Blindly believing that he is their saviour, the victims of neo-liberalism’s caustic consequences have seized the moment by voting for Donald Trump. They view him as some kind of Continue reading »
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ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A Bigots’ Frenzy: how race, class and gender still matter in the Australian politics of Section 18C.
Australia is a democratic pluralist society and there lies the rub. Democracies privilege freedom, while pluralism requires civility. In the increasing hyperbole surrounding the question of the impact of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act many are arguing that freedom of speech should trump freedom from hate, and others that the current “balance” Continue reading »
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ROBERT MANNE. It’s Time
The Turnbull government has recently introduced new asylum seeker legislation into parliament. It has two parts. The first part aims to prevent any asylum seeker who tried to reach Australia after July 19 2013, including those who have been found to be genuine refugees, from ever being allowed to settle in Australia. The second Continue reading »
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FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Dog-whistling again on asylum seekers.
Labor has decided not to support the Turnbull government’s latest asylum bill which was announced in a most hamfisted way on the Sunday morning before last, and which contains very unacceptable overreach measures. So now it will be a matter for the Senate cross benchers. The Turnbull-Dutton bill is a disgraceful mishmash of dog Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. U.S. finally starts to ease its Cold War punishment of Cuba
It is astonishing that an impoverished speck on the rump of the most powerful country in the world has managed to intimidate it for more than half a century. Cuba, only 144 kms off the coast of Florida, has had to suffer Uncle Sam’s unforgiving wrath because it became a Communist regime, locked up Continue reading »
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PHIL GLENDENNING. We Need To End Australia’s Refugee Shame. Now
‘Human beings are never a means to an end. They are an end in themselves’. Emmanuel Kant’s words in the seventeenth century echo down the centuries in stark contrast to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus Island. The recent Four Corners program, The Forgotten Children gave Australians an all Continue reading »