Mr NUGENT(4.41 p.m.) —As Chair of the parliament's human rights subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and Chair of the Parliamentary Amnesty International Group, I am particularly pleased to support this motion today on International Human Rights Day. As you will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, human rights are long understood but only comparatively recently defined in international law by the international bill of rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, plus the international covenants in 1996 on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights. Other conventions have followed, giving greater definition to internationally acceptable rights.

The standards defined in the various covenants are both broad and basic and therefore difficult to dispute: the preservation of the inherent dignity of human life, the right to life, liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and the pursuit of justice and peace. The importance of universality and indivisibility was reaffirmed at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in June 1993. All nations then agreed to the principles in the final declaration. Therefore, there is an international consensus that there is no cultural difference in what constitutes human rights.

The end of the Cold War should offer opportunities to implement human rights standards in a way that was impossible when the world was sensitive to a moral competition between two political philosophies, yet any cursory look at the state of the world would recognise a bleak prospect indeed. Fierce internal disputes of considerable savagery have broken out in most continents: Rwanda, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

More than any other issue, the international community should address the issue, it seems to me, of minority rights—the most urgent and the most vexed issue facing the United Nations and the major threat to world security. There is a need to rethink the idea of national self-determination, remove from it its secessionist tendencies and its inherent approval of national ethnic purity. It is a dangerous and divisive notion in a mobile world.

Moreover, governments cannot maintain national cohesion by force and the continual oppression of minorities. Effective and successful multiracial and multi-ethnic states need to express their diversity in institutions and political structures which genuinely accommodate the aspirations of their minorities. Failure to make that accommodation—or worse, abuse and oppression of minorities—gives moral force to claims for independence and secession. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

It is essential, if man is not to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.

The pursuit of human rights is a matter of great importance for Australians. It is one of our defining characteristics, expressed colloquially as the `fair go' philosophy. There is broad cross-party support in the parliament for human rights principles. The human rights subcommittee in this parliament gets an enormous volume of correspondence from Australian citizens. There is considerable consensus of view expressed by people on their expectations on this issue.

There is, and always has been, a gulf between theory and practice. Implementation is the real test of commitment. All nations, including our own, have weaknesses that must be addressed. Just as the values underpinning human rights are universal, so the human weaknesses—cruelty, tyranny, racial intolerance and war—are universal. For us, the flaws in our record are in the treatment of Aboriginal people, the homelessness amongst youth, the treatment of the mentally ill, violence against women and violence against children, which is particularly topical at the moment.

Australia is generally well served by its legal framework, and its record overall is a laudable one. Australia genuinely tries to live up to the obligations that it has agreed to. We believe in the rule of law and the protection of the weak against the strong. Having said that, however, we should also be aware that any failure to maintain the highest standards undermines the fundamental principles upon which the nation defines itself: vigilance is ever important. I thank the House.