National Human Rights Consultation
Eastern Community Legal Centre encourages all community services, groups and individual residents in the Eastern Region to consider making a submission to the National Human Rights Consultation.The consultation process in Victoria that preceded the establishment of our Charter proved a most productive and important exercise in raising community awareness of human rights as well as achieving the positive outcome at its conclusion. Here we are again with another opportunity on a national level… Let the conversation begin!
Attached is a fact sheet produced by ECLC which provides information about the consultations to encourage community services to think about theirs and their community’s contribution to the process. Contributions can range from full submissions, to sending an SMS or joining a Facebook group!
Also attached is a feedback form providing an opportunity for services to contribute by submitting their stories for inclusion in ECLC’s submission. This form also has a number of useful real-life case studies to get people thinking about how human rights might be used in community services.
ECLC looks forward to hearing people’s thoughts about the process and about community services’ experiences with human rights. Please don’t hesitate to contact Amy Johnstone on 9285 4822 if you have any questions or would like to discuss things further.
ECLC National Human Rights Consultation fact sheet
ECLC National Human Rights Consultation agency feedback sheet
ECLC welcomes the anouncement of the National Human Rights Consulation
ECLC has welcomed the announcement of the National Human Rights Consultation. The Centre supportd the need for a Charter or Bill of Rights in Australia. Within Victoria, both the consultation process and the Charter itself have provided important opportunities to promote and educate the community about human rights.
ECLC’s Human Rights on the Festival Stage project (Fred’s Fair Play) has used sport and the arts to promote human rights to children and their families. The Centre is active in developing this education work in its community in a range of contexts.
Letter to the editor:
10th December 2008
WE are delighted that the Rudd Government has now announced a National Human Rights Consultation, led by a skilled and diverse committee. To date, the human rights debate has been dominated by two opposing groups-well-meaning lawyers who believe formal legal protection is essential, and anti-rights opponents who believe a bill of rights creates a lawyers’ picnic.
There is a way around both of these groups for the Government-minimise the legal aspect of the debate and replace it with the principles of fair play and good sportsmanship. In other words, to talk of human rights as Aussie Rules, something more analogous to a sporting code than a legal document.
The Government needs to ensure that the format of the review is accessible to ordinary Australians, with community consultations conducted within local sports and community groups and schools and submissions that are as easy to submit as footy tips.
Further, it is the Government’s duty to educate Australians to think of human rights as more than lofty, inaccessible ideals or regulations only lawyers understand. An elitist legal document without public education connected to fair play would ultimately have very little meaning to ordinary Australians.
Michael Smith and Tanja Kovac
Eastern Community Legal Centre
Box Hill, Vic
Open letter to the Commonwealth Attorney-General:
1st December 2008
Dear Attorney,
We understand that on 10 December 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is a strong prospect that the Rudd Government will announce a review into human rights protection in Australia. We also understand that the details of the review are still being finalised.
To date, the human rights debate in Australia has been dominated by two opposing groups - well-meaning, progressive people (mostly lawyers) who believe formal legal protection is essential, and anti-rights opponents who believe human rights protection is unnecessary and will merely create a lawyers’ picnic.
We believe there is a way around both of these groups, and the key is to minimise the legal aspect of the debate, and replace it with the principles of fair play and good sportsmanship. In other words, to talk of human rights as Aussie Rules, more analogous to a sports code, than a legal document.
As an active and progressive community legal centre, we are in a position to understand the limitations of turning something as important as human rights protection into a debate only about law reform. To do this would be elitist and have little meaning to ordinary Australians.
We believe that through the metaphor of sport, particularly the national game Australian Rules football, the need to protect the potentially nebulous ideals of human rights can be explained better to the community. For this reason we make the following suggestions on the format of the review:
- Appoint a panel of eminent Australians to review human rights protection in Australia and receive submissions from the general public, ensuring that there is at least one high profile sportsperson known for their fair play on the panel. A sportsperson will give the panel accessibility and profile, while also emphasising the connection between good sportsmanship and human rights. Further, an indigenous person must be on the panel - an indigenous sportsperson of the calibre of Michael Long or Cathy Freeman would be even better.
- Delegate responsibility for community consultation on human rights to National Sporting Bodies, ACOSS (and its state members) and schools. By funding local discussion forums through these organisations, the Government will hear from ordinary people, not just lawyers, academics and lobbyists.
- Make submissions as easy as submitting footy tips. Submissions should be able to be completed online through guided prompts. People should be able to tick-a-box beside the rights they think are important.
While the review is important, we believe that human rights education - to children, young people and to the broader community - should be the paramount goal of the Rudd government.
Many of the arguments against formal human rights protection federally stem from a belief that we already have adequate human rights protection and anything more is unnecessary. If that is the case, then it is the Government’s duty to educate Australians to think of human rights as more than lofty, inaccessible ideals or regulations only lawyers understand. Instead human rights should be principles of fair play directly relevant to everyday lives.
That is why we have been working on ways to communicate about human rights in an accessible manner - through the metaphor of sport and the medium of the arts - and to deliver this education in a way that reaches out to people within local communities.
At community festivals throughout 2007, we presented interactive performances of Fred’s Fair Play, a play about human rights aimed at children and their families. The play combines sport, music and dance to highlight the importance of Fairness, Respect, Equality & Dignity (FRED). The project reached over 300 children and importantly their families.
While this stage of the project is completed, we are now embarking on a plan to extend the program into local schools - public, Catholic and independent. To date the whole project has been run for $5000. If the government prioritises human rights protection this term and indeed embarks on an education campaign, we hope that you might consider helping us continue this work and pilot it in other regions of Australia. We particularly think that the Human Rights are Aussie Rules Project would make fantastic links into young indigenous communities, where Australian Rules football is a respected vehicle for building young leaders.
Once again, while it might seem counter-intuitive for a community legal centre to suggest it, we advocate less involvement of lawyers in the consultation process, to ensure that human rights protection in Australia is not merely an exercise in creating an elitist, legal document that ultimately has very little meaning to ordinary Australians.
Tanya Kovac and Michael Smith
Tanja is a writer, lawyer and lobbyist for a human rights act. She is currently working on an education campaign for ECLC, Human Rights are Aussie Rules, using sport to teach young people about Human Rights
