Human Rights Day address
Speech delivered by Chris Sidoti, Human Rights Commissioner, Centrepoint Convention Centre, Sydney, 15 December 1996
Forty eight years ago this Tuesday, on December 10 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration was a response to the trauma that many of the world’s nations had experienced in World War II. The trauma was especially strong among the nations of Europe, particularly because of the Holocaust, but it was also evident in East Asia, South Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific.
When towards the end of the War the international community agreed on the formation of the United Nations it included among the functions of the new organisation the promotion and protection of human rights. This was seen as an important element of international peace and security, the United Nations’ primary responsibility. There was a commitment to human rights in the United Nations Charter but more was needed. So the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted, negotiated and finally on December 10 adopted by the General Assembly.
A recent statement on human rights by the Australian Bah ...’i Community describes the significance of the Declaration well.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines ideals and values with ancient roots in the cultures and traditions of all peoples. The achievement of the Declaration was to bring together those traditions and to recognise that 'human' rights are, by their nature universal, inalienable and indivisible: that they belong to all people. They are a standard of achievement which the world acknowledges as the minimum to which every human being is entitled.
This statement sees the Declaration as arising from 'the cultures and traditions of all peoples'. Certainly I find in our Australian culture and traditions three fundamental values that are strongly reflected in the Declaration: the equality of all people, the right of all to a fair go and acceptance of people on the basis of who they are. The Prime Minister has described us rightly as 'a tolerant society ... a compassionate society'. We have not always lived up to these values, these ideals, but they are present in our tradition and continue to inspire us.
In observing the anniversary, it is important to do three things: to celebrate achievement, to recognise and acknowledge failure and to make commitments for the future.
Celebrating achievement
Much has been accomplished for human rights since the Universal Declaration was proclaimed in 1948. We must remember and celebrate that.
During that time we have experienced the development of a comprehensive body of international human rights law. The Declaration was only the beginning of that. It was followed by stronger bindings statements of rights in the two International Covenants, one on Civil and Political Rights and the other on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These treaties create obligations on nations. They are not just statements of aspirations. I find it significant that they are called 'Covenants', a term of solemn commitment with almost religious connotations.
In addition there are other international human rights instruments: treaties that apply for the benefit of particular groups or regions or that cover particular activities, declarations, principles, rules and standards.
Parallelling the development of international human rights law has been the development of international human rights mechanisms to monitor and at times enforce that law. The United Nations and its organs, particularly the Commission on Human Rights, are the primary mechanisms. I have been encouraged to see in recent years the expansion of the United Nations’ peace keeping role to the prevention of gross violations of human rights. There is also The Hague War Crimes Tribunal which in the last few days has convicted and sentenced the first war criminal in almost fifty years. The Tribunal may well become what we have needed for a long time, a permanent international criminal court to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations.
The most successful advances for human rights have been achieved because of the growth of popular movements that support and are supported by international human rights standards. These movements over the last ten years have achieved the democratisation of Eastern Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union, the overthrow of military regimes in Central and South America and in East Asia, pressure for economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development and successes in the action against racism, most notably the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa.
There are many achievements we can point to in Australia. The Prime Minister recently described some of the most important of them.
There are few nations in the world that can boast such a record of democracy, such a record of fair treatment and such a record of harmonious blending together of people of different racial backgrounds than Australia. Australia remains one of the very few nations of the world that has been continuously democratic for the whole of this century. It pioneered many liberal reforms in many areas. Its record of achievement in integrating into a very harmonious and united nation people from all parts of the world is something of which all of us can be immensely proud and something to which all of us have made a special contribution.
In Australia too we have drafted and adopted laws to protect human rights and anti-discrimination laws. This has been difficult to do in a legal tradition that does not have a history of legal protection of human rights. Now even our courts are calling on international human rights law to develop Australian law, as we saw most significantly in the High Court’s Mabo decision on native title to land.
The Mabo decision itself is a cause for celebration. It overturned two centuries of legal lies by recognising the legal rights of Indigenous peoples for the first time, fundamentally altering the balance of power between Indigenous and other Australians.
There are many other Australian achievements for human rights since the Declaration. There is greater respect for self-determination of Indigenous Australians and recognition of their status as citizens. There has been an end to the death penalty, military conscription and physical punishment of children in almost all schools. The White Australia Policy has been abolished, leading to a society that is richer economically, socially and culturally.
Here too effective human rights institutions have been established. In fact December 10 is also the fifteenth anniversary of the first Human Rights Commission and the tenth anniversary of its successor, the present Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Under Australia’s federal human rights legislation the Commission and its predecessors have handled almost 28 000 complaints, primarily without monetary costs to complainants and the majority securing resolutions acceptable to both parties. The Commission has undertaken inquiries that have both brought significant (even fundamental) changes in law and policy and increased community understanding of human rights. They include inquiries relating to homeless children, people with mental illness, racist violence, women’s employment and over-award payments, compulsory retirement and its two current inquiries into children and legal process and the separation on Indigenous children from their families. The continued existence of the Commission has been in jeopardy at times. At the 1987 and 1990 elections, for example, the then Opposition was committed to its abolition. But it is now accepted by all major political parties as an essential part of the institutions of Australian democracy.
Recognising and acknowledging failure
Celebration of achievement is essential but it is not enough. We must also recognise and acknowledge failure. This is part of knowing our history as a whole, knowing the full truth and not some selective version of it. Knowing the past is necessary for knowing the present and planning for the future. What business can succeed if past performances are not objectively examined and analysed, weaknesses identified and addressed and strengths reinforced? If that is not done the business will soon be stagnant and then bankrupt. If we do not subject our history to the same critical analysis we will soon find ourselves intellectually stagnant and morally bankrupt as a nation. This requires a clear sighted view of history. We need to judge our history and to remember that in time history will judge us.
What then have been the failures since the Universal Declaration was adopted? The international ones are obvious. There have been many recurrences of genocide. The most obvious examples are Rwanda, Cambodia and in Europe former Yugoslavia, but these are not the only ones. There have been persistent human rights violations by undemocratic or semi-democratic regimes. We have had continued persecution based on race or ethnicity, religion, politics, gender and sexual orientation - the Bah ...’i community in Iran has been one of the victims. Poverty, disease, illiteracy and homelessness remain.
We must recognise our continuing failures at home too. Some have international dimensions. Australia’s development assistance has declined to about 0.3% of our gross domestic product, less than half the level the United Nations has set and Australia has promised to reach. We have a mixed and inconsistent record of addressing human rights violations in other countries. Our shortcomings are purely domestic issues: the treatment of children, unemployment and homelessness, the abuse of older Australians.
Our most significant failures however all seem to have a racial basis. Indigenous people are still the most disadvantaged by any measure. Their treatment is the wrong-doing on which today’s Australia is built. Racism is a continuing stain that has discredited much of our history and continues to infect our present. The current racist episode has caused great damage to many of our fellow Australians and others who share this country with us and indeed to our society itself. In recent months the number of complaints of race discrimination has reached record levels. Our Commission has been told of racist abuse and violence, often directed against children. A Queensland woman whose husband is of Asian descent told us of her children being abused on the streets. A NSW Aboriginal woman told us of her son being assaulted while abused for being Aboriginal. Reports of racism in school playgrounds are especially worrying. Queensland National Party Senator Bill O’Chee described the experience of schoolyard racism in a moving speech in the Senate on the day the bipartisan resolution was passed. Victorian Liberal Party backbencher Peter Nugent said that a school principal in his electorate has described racism in his school for the first time in over a decade. On the day Senator O’Chee spoke my own twelve year old daughter was told by a school friend 'your father is a bastard - he sticks up for Abos all the time'.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry recently published its 1995-96 report on anti-Semitism in Australia. The Council was notified of 275 incidents of anti-Semitism in the year to the end of September 1996. During that year the number of most serious incidents was up 26% on the preceding year, incidents involving personal violence up 29%, anti-Semitic telephone calls up 86%, to the greatest number in any year since 1990-91 (Gulf War), and racist graffiti up 10%.
Much of the recent racism has been justified as the exercise of free speech. Of course debate on matters of public importance is acceptable provided it is fair, truthful, sensitive and tolerant. But what we have been experiencing has not been debate. Debate requires logic, facts and rational argument. We have heard not debate but pure racism.
The bipartisan parliamentary motion on racism, immigration and Indigenous affairs was the turning point in this latest episode. The Prime Minister described that motion as a statement of 'some common Australian values which are held by all Australians, irrespective of whether they were born in this country and irrespective of whether their ancestors came from the British Isles, Europe, the Middle East or Asia'. The motion was welcome and unfortunately necessary but it will take quite some time to heal the wounds our community has suffered this year.
Recognising and acknowledging past and present failures is not for the sake of making people feel guilty for other people’s actions. It is about accepting responsibility for today’s society and for tomorrow’s, making the commitment to change. Last month the NSW Parliament passed a bipartisan motion similar to that passed by the federal Parliament. In the debate the Premier, Mr Carr, said of the policies towards Aboriginal peoples:
It was all done in the name of the State and in the name of this Parliament. That is why......I reaffirm in this place, formally and solemnly as Premier, on behalf of the government and people of NSW, our apology to Aboriginal people....I extend this apology as an essential step in the process of reconciliation.
Commitment to the future
Observing anniversaries, celebrating achievement and acknowledging failure are meaningless unless they are accompanied by a commitment to the future. Whether the past was good or bad we cannot change it. But we can and must change the present and together create a just and peaceful future for our country and in our world.
In the same speech Premier Carr said,
The claim which the Aboriginal people....make on Australia is exactly the claim we Australians of the fifth or first generation make for ourselves, no more, no less. It is the right to belong to Australia, in full dignity, worth and equality and justice.
This is the claim of every human being on all other human beings, on our governments and parliaments, on public and private institutions and organisations. It is the claim to have our human rights fully respected, protected and promoted, the claim to enjoy what our Australian tradition espouses: equality, a fair go, acceptance.
The dimensions of this claim are clear and the priorities are obvious:
- true national reconciliation between Indigenous and other Australians
- full acceptance, belonging, for all who share this country, on the basis of equality
- opportunities to contribute - through work, the arts, political and social participation - to the development of our community, our country and our planet
- access to education, health care, housing and other services for individual well-being and national advancement
- membership of the international community of peoples, sharing responsibility for the common good of all humanity.
These are the elements of the commitment for the future we are called to make today as we celebrate the 48th Human Rights Day.
Other anniversaries approach, the centenary of the Australian federation in 2001, the half centenary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1998. We look forward to being able to say on those occasions that we are well advanced in meeting our commitments.
Last updated 1 December 2001
