Australian Human Rights Commission
e-bulletin
May 2010
Welcome
Welcome to the Australian Human Rights Commission's monthly e-bulletin, where we will keep you up to date with our latest programs, projects and news. Please forward to friends and colleagues who have an interest in human rights.
In this e-bulletin
- Commission given responsibility and resources for integral part of government’s Human Rights Framework
- New methods needed to challenge problems posed in cyberspace
- New online resources available to help the conciliation process…
- See below for more...
Commission given responsibility and resources for integral part of government’s Human Rights Framework
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Commission President Cathy Branson QC, with federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland at the Commission in Sydney earlier this year. |
Commission President Cathy Branson QC, said the Australian Human Rights Commission would focus on building understanding and respect for rights through a range of community engagement and human rights education programs following recent announcements by the federal Government.
She said the focus on human rights education followed the government’s Human Rights Framework announcement in April, which committed $6.6 million over four years to the Commission to enable it to expand its community education role and programs.
“We will be working closely and in partnership with local government, the business community and the non-government sector to ensure Australians are equipped with a sound understanding of what their human rights and responsibilities are, in the workplace, home, school and community,” she said.
"The Commission has recently restructured its policy areas to enable a more comprehensive approach to human rights issues.
“From 1 July, the Commission will use funding to support a new community engagement team which will work closely with the Strategic Policy and Projects Team to develop community engagement strategies.
“This will enhance the Commission’s capacity to respond to the most pressing human rights issues of the day,” Ms Branson said.
New methods needed to challenge problems posed in cyberspace
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Peter Croneos, Chief Executive of the Internet Industry Association, and Race Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes, at the Cyber-racism summit. |
The Commission held a ground breaking cyber-racism summit last month, attended by more than 50 people including the Internet Industry Association and representatives from facebook, MySpace and YouTube.
Race Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes said the summit encouraged the building of a central place in cyberspace where people could go to find the tools they needed to address the worrying increase in cyber-racism.
“Cyber-racism and cyber bullying is a new problem requiring new solutions,” Race Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes said.
He said the summit confirmed that more regulation was not necessarily the way to deal with the problem. “More regulation is a bit like putting a mouse in a cardboard box: it will just chew its way out and go somewhere else.”
Commissioner Innes said the community needed to be better empowered to challenge cyber-racism. He said online social networks needed better complaint tools and processes so they could remove offending material more quickly, and regulators needed to develop a central place on the net where people could complain.
“The summit has started a conversation about our next steps and over the next few months we will be continuing that conversation and finding solutions.”
See the Summit Communiqué at: www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2010/38_10.html
Or listen to the podcast which discusses cyber-racism at: www.humanrights.gov.au/podcasts/index.html
New online resources available to help the conciliation process…
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A conciliation in action. |
The Commission’s conciliation register has been updated with more than 200 de-identified conciliations now available online to help parties prepare for conciliation and to provide a broader understanding of the Commission’s conciliation work. New cases will be added to the register at regular intervals.
“The Complaint Handling Unit has pulled together this new tool to record more detailed and de-identified case summaries in a consistent format to help people understand what sort of complaints can be made to the Commission and how they can be resolved through conciliation,” Commission President Cathy Branson QC said.
“We hope that making information available in this format will help people across Australia to better understand what their rights and responsibilities are.”
The Conciliation register can be found at www.humanrights.gov.au/complaints_information/register/index.html
…And to help students understand human rights
The Commission launched rightsED last month, providing teachers and students with a new range of online interactive human rights education resources.
rightsED brings together nine resources including: Understanding human rights, Commemorate Human Rights Day, Child rights, Bringing them home, Face the Facts, Voices of Australia, Disability Rights – What about Doug’s Rights?, Young people in the workplace, and Tackling sexual harassment.
“rightsED has been developed over the last 12 months in an effort to streamline and update the Commission’s existing education resources,” Ms Branson said.
“It fits neatly with the Government’s emphasis on human rights education announced last month.
“I encourage teachers and students to use this very useful, practical resource,” she said.
All resources are available free online at: www.humanrights.gov.au/education
The new rightsED features nine resources.
Recent media releases
- Senate report: ‘Hear us’ - Now we need action (13 May 2010)
- Enhanced focus on human rights education and community engagement programs (13 May 2010)
- A national children’s Commissioner would improve protection of children’s rights (12 May 2010)
Recent publications
- Listening Tour Report A report of the Listening Tour consultations in 2007-08
- rightsED: Human rights education resources for teachers
- Background paper: Immigration detention and visa cancellation under section 501 of the Migration Act
Recent submissions
- National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 and Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Bill 2010 (6 May 2010)
- Information provided to the OHCHR study on challenges and best practices in the implementation of the international framework for the protection of the rights of the child in the context of migration (April 2010)
Recent speeches
- The role of the Australian Human Rights Commission in protecting and promoting human rights in Australia (27 April 2010)
- 2010 Children’s Law Awards (16 April 2010)
Recent podcasts
Pod Rights is a series of podcasts looking at different human rights issues over a series of fortnightly installments.
The most recent Pod Rights features Mr Mozelle Thompson, a member of facebook's Advisory Board, speaking about the ways that facebook is addressing the issue of cyber racism (15 minutes).
Go to www.humanrights.gov.au/podcasts/index.html for the audio and transcript.
Subscribe to RSS feeds for Pod Rights at: www.humanrights.gov.au/rss/podrights.xml
Get involved - upcoming events
- May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
- May 25: Workplace Investigations Officer Program
- May 26: National Sorry Day
For the latest media releases, speeches, opinion pieces, go to the media centre on the Commission’s website at: www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/index.html
