We have had a big year, increasing our levels of activity, membership, and relevance to advocacy for human rights in Australia.
At the beginning of he year the ALHR Committee met for a planning day and resolved to pursue five activities for the year:
In hindsight we can add a sixth – engaging in human rights networks and relationships.
We didn’t specify targets or outcomes, daunted perhaps by the size of the task and the knowledge that we were trying to achieve it outside ordinary work, on a voluntary basis and with limited resources. Nevertheless we did achieve results in all these areas of activities, and we achieved a lost more besides. For the record I have summarised the year under those headings in an attachment.
I consider highlights this year to have been
ALHR is indebted to the following for their contribution to our success over the past year:
I am personally very grateful to those people for their significant contributions. As well I have enjoyed the support and company of the ALHR committee: Michelle Hannon, Rachel Francois, Robin Banks, Kate Eastman, Kate Fitzgerald, Ingrid Gubbay, David Kinley, Kerry Murphy, Naomi Sharp and Philip Tahmindjis.
Kate Fitzgerald, Ingrid, David, Kerry, and Philip are retiring at this meeting. I am grateful to them for their work for ALHR over the past few years, and for their promise to remain involved in our activities.
We need to maintain the momentum. This will mean organising our resources – our volunteer, part-time (after hours) labour – to keep up the information dissemination, and to consolidate our role as a significant source of technical human rights assistance.
I hope we will establish new forums for human rights education.
I hope we will find the necessary professional support to use the news media effectively as a strategy for informing public debate of human rights issues.
I hope we will advance our projects, again perhaps by structuring differently and establishing active working parties jointly with other interested agencies.
I hope we create more opportunities for the knowledge, skills and willingness of our members to contribute to ALHR’s involvement in current human rights issues in Australia.
For the third consecutive year we ran a very successful series of three seminars on human rights in legal practice, jointly with the Young Lawyers section of the NSW Law Society. I would like to see us next year runs such seminars outside the Sydney CBD, and in other States. As well, there are many opportunities for community and professional human rights education which ALHR is well placed to pursue in partnership with other organisations.
While ALHR said at the beginning of the year that it would make submissions and media comment, much of our activity expanded into what would more accurately be called campaigns: issues that were not, and couldn’t be, limited to a single act on our part. During the year ALHR made:
ALHR made a written submission to the Joint Standing Committee on treaties inquiry into Australia’s ratification of the International Criminal Court Statute, and appeared before the inquiry to give oral evidence.The Committee’s inquiry is still current.
ALHR made written submissions to the NSW and Federal Attorneys General in relation to proposals to amend anti-discrimination legislation so as to exclude ‘drug dependency’ from the definition of disability.The case that gave rise to the proposals has settled, and indications are that neither the NSW nor Federal governments will go ahead with their proposed amendments.
ALHR made written comments on the draft outcome statement for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children to the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department’s Community Consultation
The ALHR oral and written submissions to the NSW Parliamentary inquiry were made in 2000.The Committee’s report in 2001 contained extensive references to and extracts from the ALHR submissions.
ALHR joined the voices raised against the legality and inhumanity of the Federal Government’s position on asylum seekers.ALHR
ALHR wrote personally to every Senator urging them not to support the ‘anti-Teoh’ legislation.The legislation was opposed in any form by the Democrats, and was opposed by Labor unless amended.The Bill was defeated but a re-introduced Bill reflecting Labor’s proposed amendments would still be unacceptable.
ALHR has supported a campaign for the recognition of the rights of transgender people in Victorian prisons.
ALHR’s contribution was to mark up and host on its website the only HTML version of the Racism Action Kit.Its availability in this version on the site was known internationally.
Our success in having a media profile for ALHR and for legal perspectives on human rights issues, was very limited. We were able to place one opinion piece, on ‘activist’ judges and a Bill of Rights in the Sydney Morning Herald, to be interviewed on a few occasions for print media, and for SBS television. Some of these were in response to media releases.
Our decision to not charge a membership fee, and to promote membership online, has been very successful. We have gained many new members in a range of work/study places and from across Australia; our membership is now over 200, in every State and the ACT, and among ex-patriate Australians in England, the USA and South Africa.
ALHR in Brisbane was launched by Justice Michael Kirby at an event in the middle of the year.
ALHR’s principal activity in the year has been to maintain consistent distribution of current human rights information to members through an email list.
The new website went live in March 2001, carrying information about ALHR activities and an online membership form.The site continues to be hosted by the Law and Justice Foundation. It was designed and is maintained without fee by Jeremy Rice.
ALHR has developed a proposal for which it is seeking funding.Towards a budget for Stage 1 of $75,000, the Myer Foundation has given a grant of $20,000, and a private philanthropist has committed $10,000.. The balance is still to be raised, and a number of applications and possibilities are outstanding, including approaches to international foundations.
ALHR has proposed reviving a project which provided access to expert advice on making communications under human rights treaties to the relevant UN committees. A number of experts have agreed to take part. It remains for a reliable and sustainable secretariat function to be established.
ALHR has proposed the design and delivery of training in human rights for lawyers and other professionals.
ALHR is leading a project to get lawyers to Nauru to provide independent legal advice to asylum seekers there.
Simon Rice spoke at the National Conference of Community Legal Centres in Perth. He spoke on the need and opportunities to use human rights language and principle sin daily legal practice, particularly in community legal centres.
Naomi Sharp spoke at a conference of Women Into Politics. She spoke on constitutional issues in relation to a Bill of Rights, and about the place of women’s rights.
Siobhan McCann and Jane Stratton will speak at the Refugee Council’s conference in December on the Refugee Convention in light of Australia’s current official stance.
ALHR is a member of both the Attorney General’s and the DFAT’s NGO Forums on Human Rights.During the year ALHR was represented at their meetings in Canaberra.
ALHR maintained a wide range of relationships with various people and organisations in human rights advocacy in Australia. They include the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the Human Rights Council, Amnesty, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the World Conference Against Racism NGO Steering Group, the Women's Rights Action Network Australia, the Castan Centre, the Australian Human Rights Centre, the Diplomacy Training Program, and the National Association of Community Legal Centres.
Simon Rice
November 2001
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Last updated 2001/11/30