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Thursday, 10 May 2012
Page: 3276

Senator SINGH (Tasmania) (21:03): I want to take this opportunity, as the Senate adjourns, to speak on the state of human rights in Australia and our obligations in the context of the international system—something very opposite to the contribution from Senator Fierravanti-Wells. The affirmation of human rights, those things that are fundamental and intrinsic in all members of the human family, is the foundation of the international community. Indeed, at the heart of the United Nations are the joint responsibility and the shared concern that we have for each other and for the dignity of humanity. The international community, therefore, has an important role in ensuring that member states are fulfilling their duties to their populations: respecting the rights which we all have.

I am an unabashed multilateralist. I believe our responsibility to our friends, our neighbours and our family overseas is just as significant as to those within our borders. But I recognise that for some time, especially in the latter years of the 1990s and into the new millennium, the international architecture in respect of human rights was liable to sometimes provide perverse or incredible advice. But from 2006, following the process of reform embarked upon by one of the most impressive and resilient advocates for global justice of recent decades, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the international institutions for human rights monitoring improved greatly. The replacement of the Commission on Human Rights by the UN Human Rights Council provided the catalyst for a boost in accountability by both members of the council and members examined by the council.

Part of this reform process was the introduction of the universal periodic review, known as the UPR, a process which assesses the human rights records of all 193 UN member states once every four years. During the UPR, each state is able to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their country and to fulfil their obligations under the human rights instruments to which they are party. The process is consultative and the concluding observations of the UPR routinely note a large number of recommendations that have enjoyed the support of the country under review and commenced as a result of that process under the UPR. Such recommendations are as wide-ranging as Turkey's acceptance of Australia's recommendations on judicial independence; East Timor being supported to accede to a number of international instruments; or calls for Vietnam to reassess its use of the death penalty, which led to the small but important step of greater humanity and transparency. Australia appeared before the Universal Periodic Review in its tenth session, on 27 January 2011. During the review, 53 countries asked questions of Australia with regard to its human rights record. Their conclusions, made after a process that included giving Australia a chance to respond to their concerns, included 145 recommendations on a wide variety of topics, including the treatment of asylum seekers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, multiculturalism and racism, and the status of Australia's obligations under international human rights law. The Australian government accepted the majority of the recommendations and has been working towards incorporating those recommendations into the National Action Plan on Human Rights, as well as providing an update to the council prior to Australia's next UPR, in 2015. There is no doubt that that update, as was the case with Australia's statement to the UPR in 2011, will contain a great deal of progress on delivering better protection for human rights in Australia.

Since Labor was elected into government, human rights have been a continued focus across a number of areas that were damaged or ignored by the coalition government for 11 years. Indeed, slightly over one year into the Rudd Labor government, on 10 December 2008, the government initiated the National Human Rights Consultation. The consultation both responded to and fostered community discussion about how best to guarantee human rights in this country. It was partly initiated by calls for strong legislative protections, like a bill of rights.

The government's response, like its response to the UPR, included a range of very substantial improvements to human rights in Australia, many of which saw considerable progress in this week's budget. Human rights are about freedom, they are about opportunity, they are about being able to participate in one's community and economy; fundamentally, they are about a fair go. In fact, the core parts of this week's budget relate directly to human rights and respond directly to the obligations raised not just by international human rights instruments but by the conscience of this country.

Many of the reforms relate to issues that have been outstanding in our community for too long and I am pleased that Labor has now had the courage to tackle them. Those reforms are things like the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, with $1 billion over four years committed to this by this Labor government. The National Disability Insurance Scheme will start in Australia from July 2013 in up to four locations across the country. From mid-2013, up to 10,000 people with significant and permanent disabilities will receive support. By July 2014 that figure will rise to 20,000.

The NDIS is not just a safety net. It is fundamental to addressing the opportunities of people who live with disability to access care, support and the things they need in order to be full and active participants in our community. Full and active participation is their human right. Inclusion and assistance are our responsibility, and I am so proud that the Gillard Labor government has made this commitment, pushing the agenda of necessary social reform forward.

One of the recommendations from the UPR was that the Australian government review its reservation to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The government has committed to doing just that. It will review all of its reservations to human rights instruments.

The budget also included an initiative designed to improve outcomes for children by supporting the establishment of a federal children's commissioner. Also, a significant announcement by the Gillard Labor government in recent months was that the Australian government will ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, OPCAT. This matter is now before the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, of which I am member. OPCAT provides for a system of oversight and inspection for all places that hold people deprived of their liberty, including prisons, custodial centres and immigration detention centres. There is no doubt in my mind that OPCAT will provide an opportunity to significantly improve the conditions, treatment, observance of human rights and natural justice and rehabilitative outcomes in the places of detention to which it will apply.

These initiatives demonstrate a dedication to human rights and a dedication to action. But this government has also undertaken important reform to ensure that the legislation that passes through this parliament in the future will be consistent with the observance of human rights. Last year, this parliament passed the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 in partial response to the National Human Rights Consultation. The parliamentary scrutiny bill recognised the rights and freedoms declared by the seven core United Nations human rights treaties. In doing so, it strengthens and emphasises the important place of these treaties in our national consciousness and our national discourse. It brings the benchmark for human rights closer to Australians and those people under Australian authority. And, importantly, it establishes a requirement for us in this place never to take for granted those fundamental principles upon which our legislative power should rest. The creation of a Joint Standing Committee on Human Rights, charged with the task of soberly and systematically testing legislation against the human rights framework, in many ways mirrors the UPR. The committee compels parliamentarians to consider the effect of our words and deeds in this place on the freedoms of all whom we have the power to affect. Where we have determined to balance or to violate those freedoms, we shall have to make our case. It requires us to have that conversation, informed by the language and the meanings of rights, to temper our impulses against the basic principles of human dignity and, in doing so, be certain at what cost we wield the power that comes with democratic liberty. I am confident that, should the actions of this government be tested against the expectations of human rights—as it should properly be—in cooperation with the UPR, it will be done so. ((Time expired)