Senator HANSON-YOUNG (9:59 AM) —Given that 10 December is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I move:

   That the Senate—

(a)   notes that:

(i)   9 December 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and

(ii)   10 December 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

(b)   pays tribute to those Australians who played leading roles in the development and adoption of these important instruments of international law and who, since then, have contributed to their implementation;

(c)   recognises, with regret and disappointment, that in the intervening 60 years, violations of human rights have continued to occur in Australia and in other countries;

(d)   affirms that ‘the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want [is] the highest aspiration of the common people’;

(e)   declares its own ‘faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women’; and

(f)   renews its commitment to the principles contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to their promotion within Australia and through Australia’s international policies and activities.

Question agreed to.