attached is the 6th periodic report put to the australian government by the united nations (un) asking how, and if, the australian government is implementing or complying with the above named covenant of which australia is still to incorporate the covenant into domestic law.
questions asked are relative to several areas of human rights that are under international law.
areas covered include the compliance, or not, of the covenant by australia in handling human rights issues of their citizens and others;
it is my strong opinion that federal governments could not care less in breaching human rights in some areas of australian society. any displeasure or concern from the united nations is merely brushed away as 'outside interference in the business of how australia is run. certainly this is so relative to aborigines and torres strait islanders and asylum seekers. more below.
counter-terrorism measures and respect for guaranteed rights;
as in other self-nominated democracies, australian citizens have lost many of their social and legal rights in the name of an amorphous terror that has yet to be perpetrated specifically in australia. as several knowledgeable pundits have stated the bali bombing was not aimed at australian tourists but against us forces spending r & r from their many wars. it is believed that the us became aware of the possible attack and pulled their troops out but failed to inform the australian government. was this to be seen as australia's pearl harbour thus locking us further into the us-led war on terror? i doubt that we will ever really know.
measures taken to introduce valid and operable non-discrimination and equality issues;
this is still a discriminatory country and much still needs to be done but i cannot see that it will be done by our racist and xenophobic governments. we very much need a bill of rights to protect all citizens at a federal level, the better to protect us all from the periodic quirks of our governments.
to provide updated information on what legal, administrative and any other measures have been taken towards eliminating all violence against women and especially aboriginal and torres strait women and women with disabilities;
whilst domestic violence is a brutal and heinous social crime against women and children it must not be allowed to hide the fact that men are also victims of domestic violence. the horror for women and children in aboriginal communities is well known and has disgraced us all both as a society and as a country for its continuance over too many years. such violence is mostly fuelled by alcohol, drugs, lack of money, a sense of cultural failure, chronic unemployment, among other social issues. every person of a sound and moral mind wants to stamp it out but history tells us it has virtually always been ever thus, mainly by men but also including some women. with the initial introduction of howard's intervention i was not as censorious of banning alcohol and drugs in the nt communities. i had no problem with extra police being put into these communities. we needed a circuit breaker to bring the violence and mayhem to a stop. tragically at best it may have slowed things down a bit but the other aspects of the intervention have done nothing but create other life pressures. besides which the whole political attack was based on the false premise of child abuse whilst it was really aboriginal land that they coveted. the 'nests of paedophiles' never existed and none were found in the nt communities. in wa - yes, in sa - yes, in cape york, qld - yes, but not in the nt communities. what was occurring was consensual teenage sex and despite girls of 12, 13, etc being involved so too does this happen in non-aboriginal australia. what the intervention did increase was the tragic and alarming number of youth suicides and deaths in custody.
actions to recognise the innate right to life and strict prohibition of torture and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or forced extradition of asylum seekers to their home country if risks to their life or safety are likely to occur;
as someone correctly said, "there is no such thing as boat-people, there are only people who come in boats as asylum seekers". so bloody true! governments from bob hawke on have shamed both me and my country by their evil and criminal actions against, mostly, genuine asylum seekers who have every international legal right to flee their home country if they and their families are at risk due to their ethnicity, religion, sexuality or for some other valid reason. australia is a signatory to the refugee convention and, i believe, was a forceful supporter of its raison d'être after ww2. when the vietnamese asylum seekers came here seeking both sanctuary and a new life after the vietnam war then-pm malcolm fraser accepted them here. it was gough whitlam who wiped the white australia policy off the books but this did not change the mind-set of most australians. fraser however slowed then stopped the leaky boats from coming not by introducing draconian separatist policies but by going to the refugee camps in asia and taking some 50 000 plus refugees and bringing them to australia as welcome new australians. we did not accept our vietnamese-australians because we had fought and helped the us to destroy vietnam, a failed and deadly exercise, but due to the un declaration and the leadership of fraser at that time. we have now been forced to watch our governments break these international conventions and covenants and to race to the bottom in not recognising our international responsibilities. we are forced to watch as this un covenant is criminally dismissed as asylum seekers have been sent back to afghanistan, iraq, sri lanka and elsewhere whilst studies by human rights groups have shown that some, not all - but enough, of those forced returnees have been killed, gaoled and tortured and/or forced to live as third class citizens in the countries from which they fled. i repeat again, these governments do not speak for me! i say welcome to the asylum seekers to aboriginal land.
steps taken to eliminate slavery and especially sexual trafficking and so-called 'guest workers';
to the best of my knowledge we are not too hot in this area either. reports i have read show that the sex slaves are indeed charged, gaoled and then deported. underpaid and abused overseas workers are better assisted by their appropriate trade unions, such as the cfmeu, amwu and others. governments appear to do little if anything.
rules and requirements targeted to those in australia's gaols and juvenile justice centres including the too high incarceration rates for aborigines and torres strait islanders;
for a country that was invaded and used as a gaol for mother england, the general attitude of the descendants and others is totally strange to me and others involved in gaol issues. unless those gaoled are direct family members or friends they become non-people. there is no real interest in how our gaols are managed, for good or ill, or the assaults, rapes or deaths that happen within them. for aborigines, however, it is a simple lesson of an invasion history. our family members remain of great importance to us and being placed in gaol, regardless of crime, is not accepted as a shame factor as in non-aboriginal society. there is a very strong acceptance that all ills befalling aboriginal people is based on the historical acts of colonialism and the ongoing racism arising from the invasion 225 years ago. there are those who do not accept this as a legitimate cause of aboriginal social disadvantage as they prefer, generally based on their own upbringing and life experiences, that it is up to the individual, regardless of personal circumstances, to lift themselves up to the non-aboriginal society. it is a false dichotomy to argue that differing life experiences do not alter what then becomes possible for individuals. there are always mitigating or underlying causes and effects leading to both actions and inactions. this was recognised by the commissioners in the aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission but the process was mutated by the police and gaol unions. but that is another story. it really matters not, i suppose,which social dialectic is acceptable or, perhaps, even right. my argument is that the covenant looks at the courts and the gaols as a solution whereby i strongly believe that our combined focus must be on the racist action of the australian police forces and especially when they interface with aborigines, both adult and youth. the historical mindset of the original troopers remains very much alive in the police forces of today.
what protections are in place to ensure the rights of the child whilst in juvenile justice centres including the abolition of mandatory sentencing for children;
juvenile justice issues in nsw have long been a vexed issue when looking at aboriginal numbers in the jj system. for over 20 years governments have attempted to deal with these issues but whilst some programmes showed initial success, that success did not continue over time to make the required change where it was most needed, aboriginal numbers. some years ago after a new bail program was introduced and evaluated the government of the day vigorously claimed that jj numbers were falling, and so they were. but not for aborigines detained in the centres because the changes to the bail system did not allow for the differing circumstances between the aborigines and non-aboriginal detainees. family, accommodation and social issues differed in each group. did the government make changes to remove the onerous requirements for bail for aborigines? no, they just went quiet and began fudging the figures. currently our aboriginal youth make up some 60%, perhaps even more, of the jj centres and the reasons why this is so cannot be slated to bail issues or whether aboriginal youth have some dna defect that makes them more likely to commit crime. the maori, the first nations of canada, american indians, among others, all suffer from this social defect but governments and society look only to our courts and incarceration units for answers. perhaps it is an education or health issue? maybe if we just assimilated? maybe if we just completed the genocide? the un, our governments and we as a nation must look to the police for the real solution to the problem but as has been proved many times, governments and their departments are loath to do so.
what needs apply to the discrimination of aborigines and torres strait islanders, arab and/or muslim australians, african refugees and international students;
easy! change the current government policies of exclusion to those perceived as 'others' and become more inclusive of our multicultural way of life. actively promote the death of the white australia policy and positively recognise the national circumstances of australia today with all of its multicultural hues. junk the current australian constitution, one based on british values of class and whiteness, and structure an australian constitution that reflects and respects the real values of australia today. we as the descendants of the traditional owners of the aboriginal nations are more than just custodians of the lands; we own the lands by birthright and not by invasion and conquest. we are more than just a footnote in australian invasion history; we are 60 000+ years of our history. we are very much here and, regardless of our skin colour, we always will be. so to our brothers and sisters from overseas, whether by boat or plane.
measures to allow full participation of all ethnic groups in all aspects of australian life;
we still have a long way to go to meet this one.
it is my opinion that australia, like other countries, only accepts what politically suits them from time to time and what they believe the public, or at least the majority of them, will let them get away with. for many years australia has been taken to task by the un and its rapporteurs on its human rights failings and yet such criticism falls on very stony ground indeed. we know that australia spent millions to curry favour from other nations for a seat on the un but it was a seat that was bought and not earned by our human rights successes. some aborigines, including myself, loudly voiced our concerns on why australia should not be given access to a seat on the un council whilst their human rights abuses against aborigines and torres strait islanders, asylum seekers and refugees are to continue. along with our sickening acquiescence to us politics. we are nothing but a vassal state to the hegemony of us power.
we have been sliding back, hr-wise, since the 1980's and it seems to me that as the us will slowly lose power in world affairs, as other previous powers have done before them, we intend to go down with them.
fkj
ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association
isja01@internode.on.net
(m) 0450 651 063
(p) 02 9318 0947
address 1303/200 pitt street waterloo 2017
www.isja.org.au
we live and work on the stolen lands of the gadigal people.
sovereignty treaty social justice
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