WGAR: Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Australia)
WGAR Website: http://wgar.info/
- UN CERD's Report on Australia
Advance Unedited Version - 27 August 2010 - Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
[download] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/co/CERD-C-AUS-CO-15_17.doc
2 –27 August 2010: "15. ... Drawing the attention of the State party to the Committee’s general recommendation 23 (1997) on the rights of indigenous peoples, the Committee reiterates its recommendation that the State party increase efforts to ensure a meaningful reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and that any measures to amend the Australian Constitution include the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as First Nations Peoples. In this regard, the Committee recommends that the State party consider the negotiation of a treaty agreement to build a constructive and sustained relationship with Indigenous peoples. The Committee also recommends that the State party provide the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples with the adequate resources to become fully operational by January 2011 and support its development."
- Media Releases
Rachel Siewert: UN report damns Australia’s failure to end discrimination
http://rachel-siewert.greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/un-report-d...
31 Aug 10: "The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has delivered a damning report on Australia's failure to meet international commitments on eliminating discrimination. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, Spokesperson for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs says the report lends its voice to international calls for Australia to negotiate a treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is not surprising that the UN is disappointed with Australia's failure to deliver on its human rights commitments, especially those concerning Indigenous Australians,” Senator Rachel Siewert said today. “Racial discrimination is embedded in the Australian Constitution and continues to be enacted in the laws and policies of our states and territories.“"
'concerned Australians' - Australia's Entrenched Racism
http://wgar.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/media-release-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%98co...
28 Aug 10: " ‘concerned Australians’ welcomes the report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The report calls for numerous changes to the way Australia deals with ‘entrenched discrimination’. One Committee Member, Patrick Thornberry, [UK] referred to, “structurally embedded discrimination in the way the Aboriginal intervention was being handled in the Northern Territory.” The report calls for the full reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) in the Northern Territory in a manner which ensures that the Act will “prevail over all other legislation which may be discriminatory on the grounds set out in the Convention”."
Intervention Rollback Action Group - UN condemns Labor’s new NT Intervention laws
http://stoptheintervention.org/uploads/files_to_download/CERD/MR-IRAG-UN...
28 Aug 10: "A report released overnight by the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has again condemned the NT Intervention as discriminatory. This despite recent changes to the legislation from the Labor government that purported to bring the Intervention into line with the Racial Discrimination Act. Barbara Shaw from the Intervention Rollback Action Group in Alice Springs helped launch the original complaint to the CERD with other people from Prescribed Areas in 2009. She says that Labor's new laws will perpetuate racism and reiterated calls for the Intervention to be scrapped."
ANTaR: CERD report requires serious Government response
http://www.antar.org.au/cerd_report_requires_serious_government_response
28 Aug 10: "ANTaR today calls on the Federal Government to act on the findings and recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). ‘The CERD report has raised a number of concerns about racial discrimination against Indigenous Australians. These are serious concerns and they require a serious Government response’, said Dr Janet Hunt, ANTaR President. ... ANTaR calls on the Federal Government to act on the Committee’s recommendations to strengthen protections against racial discrimination, including by fully reinstating the Racial Discrimination Act to all Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) measures."
Human Rights Law Resource Centre: United Nations Report Card on Racism in Australia
[download] http://www.hrlrc.org.au/files/Press-release-CERD-Concluding-Observations...
27 Aug 10: "“The CERD Committee’s report raises serious concerns about a range of Australian laws, policies and practices, including the Northern Territory Intervention measures, the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, our treatment of asylum seekers, the impact of Australian counter-terror laws and the violent assaults against international students and Indian people,” says Ms Howie. [Director, Advocacy and Strategic Litigation at the Human Rights Law Resource Centre] “The CERD Committee clearly states that in addition to addressing these particular issues, the Australian Government must act to create legal structures to protect people from discrimination. If the Racial Discrimination Act can be suspended to allow the government to pass racist laws, then better protection is needed.”"
Australian Human Rights Commission: UN Committee urges more progress on race discrimination
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2010/84_10.html
27 Aug 10: "Commissioner Innes said the [CERD] Committee has reiterated the need for:
* the recognition of the special place of Indigenous peoples in the Constitution;
* full reinstatement of the Race Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory;
* the constitutional entrenchment of protection against racial discrimination;
* better protection of Indigenous languages, and adequate resourcing of bi-lingual education;
* a national multi-cultural policy, and a co-ordinated resourced anti-racism strategy;
* that race hate become a federal criminal offense."
‘concerned Australians’ - NT Aboriginal Elders Take their Message to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in Geneva
http://www.ncca.org.au/departments/natsiec/advocacy/issues/172-northern-...
http://stoptheintervention.org/uploads/files_to_download/CERD/MR-concern...
http://wgar.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/media-release-%e2%80%98concerned-au...
15 Aug 10: "Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks are on their way home from Geneva where they had been attending the 77th Session of the Committee for Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. According to Dr. Djiniyini this was an important meeting for both of them. He said, “We were able to present evidence first hand. We were able to close the information gap”. He continued, “We were able to speak from the soul. The environment in which we were speaking was one focused solely on human rights; it was not intruded upon by politics. We were able to reach the heights in dialogue and understanding that we hadn’t expected.”"
- Report after visit to CERD
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
Report written by Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM on behalf of himself and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM on visit to CERD
http://natsiec.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/report-written-by-rev-dr-djiniyi...
http://wgar.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/international-convention-on-the-eli...
16 Aug 10: "The UN was able to hear us express that the NTER and intervention are not a special measures. It shows that what the Australian Government is trying to do is target the First peoples of this country. By going to the UN, we are asking the Australian Government to take our concerns seriously. ... Visiting the UN has helped me to see that we are not alone in the struggle for human rights. There is a platform for all indigenous people of the world where we can go and share our concerns. Both Rosalie and myself felt great relief at being able to share our pain, on behalf of our people in Central and Northern Australia, in this forum."
- Speech to CERD
Australian Human Rights: Commissioner appears before CERD Committee at the UN
Graeme Innes AM, Race Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/speeches/race/2010/20100811_CE...
11 Aug 10: "Rosie and Djiniyini, you are descendants of ancient peoples, the world’s oldest continuing culture, and you do not need me, or the Australian Government, to speak for you. But may I repeat your messages:
* You did not consent to the Northern Territory Intervention.
* You said that the Intervention is not a special measure.
* You said that it [special measure] is not a positive or concrete measure to strengthen your communities, culture or customary practice. It has had the opposite effect. It has removed people from their lands, and their own distinct practices and world values. And you said that without land and community at your spiritual centre, every Aboriginal person in Australia will be lost."
- Radio
ABC AM: UN says racism entrenched in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2996077.htm
"The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has issued a rebuke to the Australian Government over its treatment of Indigenous people. ... Our Europe correspondent Emma Alberici spoke to human rights lawyer and UN committee member Patrick Thornberry who told a press conference overnight in Geneva that discrimination had become embedded in Australian attitudes towards Aborigines."
- Analysis / Opinion
SMH: Can do better: the UN verdict, yet again, on discrimination in the land of the fair go
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/can-do-better-the-un-verdict-yet-...
30 Aug 10: "Every five years, Australia is birched by the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. ... Our turn has come again in time for the independents - if they wish - to make this the issue it wasn't in the election campaign. Last week the UN committee, CERD, took apart Australia's record on race in calm but deadly diplomatic language." David Marr
Institute for Cultural Diversity: What happens next on Australia's UN Racism charge?
http://www.culturaldiversity.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=ar...
30 Aug 10: "Crikey writer Robyn Seth-Purdie points to the down-stream implication of the ICERD report condemning Australia. She notes that: "the UN committee on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (the committee) has given Australia another serve in its latest report on Australia’s progress in implementing the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)." Robyn Seth-Purdie
See Crikey article by Robyn Seth-Purdie: CERD committee serves; ball in Oz court
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/30/cerd-committee-serves-ball-in-oz-court/
Countercurrents.org: UN Anti-Racism Committee Slams Apartheid Australia Racism
http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290810.htm
29 Aug 10: "Australia's explicitly racist policies against Indigenous Australians and refugees have been slammed by a recent Report from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva. The human rights-abusing Rudd-Gillard Labor Government violated the Australian 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Northern Territory Indigenous Australians, Afghan refugees fleeing the Afghan Genocide and Tamil refugees fleeing the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka." Dr Gideon Polya
- News
ABC: Australia 'pretending racism isn't there'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/29/2996351.htm
29 Aug 10: "The Race Discrimination Commissioner says the next federal government must amend the constitution to make it impossible to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act. The act was suspended in 2007 to roll out the Northern Territory intervention in Aboriginal communities and has yet to be fully reinstated. A United Nations report has condemned the intervention saying it shows discrimination is structurally embedded in Australia."
SMH: UN slams treatment of Aborigines
http://www.smh.com.au/national/un-slams-treatment-of-aborigines-20100828...
29 Aug 10: "The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva blasted Australia for harbouring an ''unacceptably high level of disadvantage and social dislocation'' among Aborigines, particularly those in the Northern Territory. The committee welcomed Kevin Rudd's apology but said that saying sorry wasn't enough."
ABC: UN says discrimination embedded in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/28/2996007.htm
28 Aug 10: "The United Nations human rights panel has rebuked the Australian government over its treatment of Aboriginals. At the release of a report from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva, one of the authors said discrimination has become "embedded" in the Australian way of life."
ABC: UN 'shocked' by NT intervention
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/17/2985720.htm
17 Aug 10: "A traditional owner from the Northern Territory says a United Nations convention in Europe was shocked to hear how the Australian Government treats its Indigenous people. Reverend Doctor Djiniyini Gondarra from the Arnhem community of Galiwinku has just arrived back from the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva."
Ed Note: the next edition of WGAR News will include links to submissions to CERD.
WGAR News acknowledges the contribution of a special STICS compilation to the making of this newsletter:
http://stoptheintervention.org/facts/icerd
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'WGAR News' monitors the media, including alternative media, focusing on the Australian Federal government intervention into Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities along with other Aboriginal rights issues.
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WGAR: Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Australia)