Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes that the 24 October is United Nations Day, celebrating the entry into force of the United Nations Charter (UNC) on 24 October 1945;

(2)

celebrates Australia’s key role in the formation of the United Nations and the drafting of the UNC;

(3)

recognises that Australia has been a consistent and long term contributor to United Nations’ efforts to safeguard international peace and security and to promote human rights, for example, by being the thirteenth largest contributor to the United Nations’ budget; by contributing to many United Nations’ peacekeeping operations; and by firmly committing to increasing Australia’s development assistance and seeking real progress towards the Millennium Development Goals;

(4)

notes further the Australian Government’s commitment to the multilateral system as one of the three fundamental pillars of Australia’s foreign policy; that Australia is determined to work through the United Nations to enhance security and economic well-being worldwide; and to uphold the purposes and principles of the UNC;

(5)

notes that as the only truly global organisation, the United Nations plays a critical role in addressing the global challenges that no country can resolve on its own and that Australia is determined to play its part within the United Nations to help address serious global challenges, including conflict prevention, international development, climate change, terrorism and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction;

(6)

notes also Australia’s commitment to, and support for, reform of the United Nations’ system in order to ensure that the organisation reflects today’s world and is able to function efficiently and effectively; and

(7)

reaffirms the faith of the Australian people in the purposes and principles of the UNC.

Last Saturday, 24 October 2009, was United Nations Day, which is an annual celebration of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter on 24 October 1945 and of the role of the UN and its constituent member states in safeguarding international peace and security, eliminating poverty and promoting human rights. Tonight I come directly from the annual UNICEF Parliamentary Association function, which was well attended by members and senators from all parties. The guest speaker was the head of UNICEF’s global HIV-AIDS division, Jimmy Kolker.

Last month we also celebrated the inaugural dinner of the new UN parliamentary group with guest speaker the Hon. Robert Hill, former Australian Ambassador to the UN, who was recently elected as the new president of the United Nations Association of Australia. I take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Hill on his election and to pay tribute to outgoing UNAA President Professor John Langmore, a tireless advocate for the United Nations. At last month’s dinner we also heard from Richard Towle, the regional head of UNHCR, and Chris Woodthorpe, the new director of the UN Information Centre here in Canberra.

I note that two of the objectives of the United Nations as set out in the preamble to the UN Charter are as follows:

• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained …

Unfortunately, despite our key role in the articulation and adoption by the UN of the body of international human rights law, Australia has never fully incorporated our own international obligations into domestic law, and we remain the only advanced nation in the world with no charter or bill of rights.

To those who say Australia does not need a charter of rights, the report of the National Human Rights Consultation points to numerous unfortunate cases in this country’s recent history, including Al-Kateb, Cornelia Rau and Dr Haneef. There are also many less-well-known cases involving Australia’s elderly, persons with disabilities and people living in rural and remote areas who have not been treated with dignity by institutions and agencies of the state or those acting on its behalf.

Last Monday, I received from the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee of WA a petition regarding the death on 27 January 2008 of a much loved and respected Aboriginal elder from the Warburton community in WA, Mr Ward. Mr Ward died of multiple organ failure caused by heatstroke after being transported 360 kilometres, from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, for three hours and 45 minutes in the back of a prison van with no air conditioning or ventilation on a day with outside temperatures over 40 degrees. The state coroner noted deep burns on Mr Ward’s abdomen from contact with the boiling metal of the van’s floor and found that Mr Ward had ‘suffered a terrible death while in custody which was wholly unnecessary and avoidable’. The van was operated by government contractor GSL Custodial Services, now G4S, a company that continues to carry out prisoner transport services for the WA Department of Corrective Services.

This appalling event took place a mere 18 days before the national apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples and 107 years after Labor member for Coolgardie Hugh Mahon moved a motion in the first year of the federal parliament calling for a royal commission into the conditions for Aborigines in northern Western Australia and into the administration of justice in the lower courts of Western Australia as it affected Aboriginal people.

There is a striking similarity between Mr Mahon’s motion of 1901 and the petition by the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee of WA presented to the parliament last week which called for, inter alia, a review of the standards within the criminal justice system and an inquiry into the extreme overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in that system. That we could be here 108 years after Mr Mahon’s motion still speaking of the same issues is shocking and shaming.

There could be no greater repudiation of the treatment of Mr Ward and others who have suffered terrible injustice, and no greater celebration of shared UN and Australian principles—concerning the dignity and worth of the human person—than Australia’s adoption of a human rights act.

Far from being a law for the elites, as it is often characterised, a human rights act would be a law for the ordinary person, for the weak and the powerless vis a vis the state and those acting—sometimes in a criminally negligent fashion, as we have seen—on the state’s behalf. A human rights act would be the very embodiment of the ‘fair go’ principle that is embedded in our national character and, I suggest, in the UN Charter. This is an opportunity that Australia cannot allow to pass by. Carpe diem.

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