Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Before I present a copy of the draft report of the working group on the Universal Periodic Review I would like to make a relatively short statement giving some context to that document.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to update the House on Australia’s appearance at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva for its first Universal Periodic Review on 27 January 2011. The Universal Periodic Review was established in 2006 to create a regular process of review for all countries who are members of the UN to ensure they comply with their international human rights obligations.

This government firmly believes that a nation that respects fundamental human rights is a nation that is safer, more resilient, productive and stable. Australia was an active participant in the negotiations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation for the standards of human rights and freedoms around the world. Since then, Australia has engaged actively in the development of international human rights treaties. Australia’s first appearance under the Universal Periodic Review marks another significant moment in Australia’s history of promoting human rights at the international level.

The Australian delegation was led by Senator the Hon. Kate Lundy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and included Australia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr Peter Woolcott, as well as senior Australian government officials. I had hoped to lead the Australian delegation, but was unable to do so due to my responsibilities for emergency management and the unprecedented floods crisis across Australia.

Australia’s appearance at the Human Rights Council was an excellent opportunity to discuss our strong human rights record. Since the Labor government was elected in 2007, we have taken significant action on human rights, including:

• becoming a party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol;
• acceding the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women;
• signing the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture;
• giving support to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and
• issuing a standing invitation to Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council to visit Australia.

We have also taken steps to implement our obligations in legislation such as recent amendments passed by the parliament to introduce a specific Commonwealth offence of torture and to prevent the death penalty from being introduced anywhere in Australia in the future. The Australian delegation was also able to inform the council of key elements of Australia’s Human Rights Framework, which I launched last year. These elements include:

• legislation currently before the Senate to improve parliamentary scrutiny of human rights considerations in new legislation, including the establishment of a new Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights;
• consolidating federal anti-discrimination laws into a single act;
• investing more than $12 million into a comprehensive suite of education initiatives to promote a greater understanding of human rights across the community; and
• creating an annual NGO Human Rights Forum—of which the inaugural forum has already been held—to enable comprehensive engagement with non-government organisations.

A number of countries at the Human Rights Council made the specific point of praising the government’s Human Rights Framework initiatives. During the interactive session, 53 countries asked questions of and made recommendations to Australia. Australia received 145 recommendations. Issues raised included international human rights treaties, domestic implementation of our human rights obligations, the rights of Indigenous peoples, the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, our counterterrorism laws, the rights of persons with disabilities and the rights of women and children.

The Universal Periodic Review is an important opportunity to reflect on progress we have made and to renew our determination that in the fields of human rights, equality and opportunity, we can always achieve more. During the review, we announced a number of new commitments in the area of human rights, including:

• funding to restore a separate full-time Race Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission, in addition to funding recently committed to a full-time Age Discrimination Commissioner. This will significantly increase the commission’s capacity, providing six full time commissioners in total; and
• providing $2.35 million to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights through AusAID’s Human Rights Fund to help promote human rights, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, in addition to $650,000 for the Asia Pacific Forum to help establish and strengthen human rights institutions in the region.

We also committed to increasing Australia’s monitoring of our international human rights obligations domestically by:

• tabling in parliament all concluding observations made by UN treaty bodies to Australia, as well as recommendations made to Australia in the Universal Periodic Review;
• establishing a systematic process for the regular review of Australia’s reservations to international human rights treaties;
• establishing a publicly accessible, online database of recommendations from the UN human rights system, including recommendations made by UN human rights treaty bodies to Australia as well as recommendations made to Australia in the Universal Periodic Review; and
• using the recommendations made during the Universal Periodic Review and accepted by Australia to inform the development of Australia’s new National Human Rights Action Plan.

If honourable members desire more information on Australia’s appearance and these measures, they can be found at http://www.ag.gov.au/upr. This government is committed to a fairer and more inclusive Australia where everyone has the opportunity to participate fully in the economic, political and social life of our nation. The government welcomes the opportunity to engage with the international community on these important issues.

The draft report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of Australia includes the 145 recommendations made by the Working Group of the Human Rights Council. In consultation with states and territories, the Australian Human Rights Commission and non-government organisations, the government will give consideration to the range of recommendations made and respond to the council in the coming months. I present:

The draft report of the working group on the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Australia.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Curtin to speak for a period of seven minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Curtin speaking for a period not exceeding seven minutes.

Question agreed to.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition has always been a strong supporter of human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, believing that those who live in freedom should defend and advance the human rights of those who do not live in freedom. The Universal Periodic Review is one of the important processes that come with membership of the United Nations, and I welcome this update on Australia’s participation in that process.

I remind the House that one of the Howard government’s significant foreign policy achievements was the establishment in 1998 of a ministerial-level human rights dialogue with China, after Prime Minister Howard proposed such a dialogue on a visit to China in 1997. The issues raised in the ministerial dialogue include: freedom of assembly, of speech and of religion; human rights in Tibet; treatment of ethnic minorities; the death penalty; and the treatment of prisoners, including political prisoners. This remains the only ministerial-level human rights dialogue China has established with another country, which I believe reflects a high level of respect for Australia’s approach to human rights. Australia has also held regular human rights dialogues with Vietnam, and I was pleased to attend the most recent dialogue, held in Canberra on 18 February. The discussion was constructive, with both sides willing to have an open debate on matters of some sensitivity.

While I welcome the update on the Universal Periodic Review from the Attorney-General, I am disappointed he did not voice any concerns at all about the operation of the United Nations Human Rights Council. While no nation can claim a perfect record on human rights, it is somewhat hypocritical for the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country known for its increasing repression of civil society, to raise concerns about Australia’s alleged:

… systematic discrimination on the basis of race in particular against women of certain vulnerable groups …

I note that Iran has also called for Australia to:

Take effective legal measures to prohibit the use of excessive force and “Tasers” by the police against various groups of peoples …

Given Iran’s repeated brutal and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests, please forgive me if I find this particular recommendation somewhat galling. There were others, and I am surprised the Attorney-General took no issue with Iran’s stance. This feeds into broader concerns about the operation of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which, for the purposes of the periodic review, included Cuba and Libya. While I welcome the decision to suspend Libya from the council due to the appalling events in Libya in recent days, I have concerns about how Libya came to be on the council in the first place, given that, through membership on the council, countries should be held to the highest standards of the council’s mandate.

Problems associated with the United Nations’ approach came to a head at the 2001 Durban Review Conference on racism, which had Libya as chair of the preparatory committee and Iranian President Ahmadinejadas a keynote speaker. Delegates from numerous nations, including Australia, walked out of the conference in protest at his speech, the key theme of which was anti-Semitism. Eight years later, the United Nations appeared to have learned little from the 2001 experience. A draft working paper for the Durban II conference was circulated, with an almost exclusive focus on alleged human rights abuses by Israel and with a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism. Some nations announced they would boycott the conference while others urged a radical redraft of the document. The final version of the document was more acceptable, but concerns remained about the conduct of the conference.

At the time I urged the then Rudd government to show moral leadership and announce a boycott of the conference, which it finally agreed to do but only at the very last moment. My fears were well grounded as Iranian President Ahmadinejad was keynote speaker and launched into an extraordinary but predictable tirade against the United States, Israel and numerous other Western nations. Once more, his speech triggered a mass walkout of delegates. If regimes with scant regard for human rights are allowed to use the United Nations Human Rights Council as a global platform from which to air their repugnant views it will cause serious damage to the reputation and credibility of the council itself.

I note that the Human Rights Council replaced the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2006 after the commission had been discredited because of highly politicised bloc voting patterns that allowed pariah states to gain membership and thereby effectively avoid criticism. A 2009 background paper by the US based Council on Foreign Relations stated:

Despite a high-profile effort to reform the world’s top human rights panel, the new UN Human Rights Council continues to face the same criticisms that plagued its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights … bloc voting, loose membership standards, and bias against Israel are keeping the two-year-old council from living up to expectations as a responsible watchdog over global human rights norms.

There is a clear need for ongoing reform of the council. It is reported that more than 70 non-government organisations have written to the United Nation’s Secretary-General raising concerns about voting practices that undermine the intended work of the council.

I can understand the motivation of regimes that abuse human rights for wanting to dominate the council, thereby seeking to claim some form of moral equivalence with countries that consistently embrace basic freedoms and human rights and thus diverting attention away from themselves and avoiding scrutiny. However, it is the responsibility of those nations which genuinely support universal human rights to prevent those regimes from achieving their goals.

The coalition strongly supports the work of the United Nations in promoting and advancing human rights globally. We urge the United Nations to reform its processes to ensure that it protects the integrity of bodies such as the Human Rights Council. It is not in our national interests, nor in the interests of the oppressed peoples of the world for this work to be subverted by those with ignoble intentions.