LOSS OF RIGHTS - the Despair of Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory
A submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – Australia
Prepared by
Professor the Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC
Michele Harris OAM
Georgina Gartland
July 2010
"There is certainly nothing dignified about losing your human rights as a human being, based on being an Aboriginal citizen," Yananymul Mununggurr
Aboriginal people in Australia are the oldest surviving culture on earth. They are a proud and gentle people, deeply spiritual in their relationship with the land and in their relationships with family and cultural heritage.
Over the last five years centralising policy moves by government have stripped Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory of their rights and their dignity. History has been ignored by government. The advice given to them by a former serving Minister for Indigenous Affairs is quoted in the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Melarle, “Little Children are Sacred report,”
"And one of the things I think we should have learned by now is that you can’t solve these things by centralised bureaucratic direction...you need locally based action, local resourcing, local control to really make changes.
But I think governments persist in thinking you can direct from Canberra, you can direct from Perth or Sydney or Melbourne, that you can have programs that run out into communities that aren’t owned by those communities, that aren’t locally controlled and managed, and I think surely that is a thing we should know doesn’t work.” Fred Chaney (April 2007) Government’s failure to listen to and engage with Aboriginal people at the local level has led to implementation of policies in the NT that have only further disadvantaged those most in need of genuine assistance.
Some of the worst human rights violations in the Western world today are taking place in the Northern Territory of Australia. The need for Aboriginal people to be listened to has never been greater.
This submission to the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is in two sections. Part One provides a legal overview, an analytical discussion on the current issues related to Aboriginal rights in the Northern Territory which has been prepared by former Chief Justice of the Family Court, Professor the Hon. Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC (Articles 1 & 2). Part Two provides a framework within which the voices of Aboriginal people from across the Northern Territory are able to provide some insight into their desperation (Articles 1& 2,5d, 5ei, 5eiii, 5eiv, 5ev). It is in this way that the submission seeks to compliment the excellent Australian NGO Report. Quotations used throughout this submission have come from a range of sources. These include the transcripts of the government’s community ’consultations’ at Ampilatwatja, Utopia and Bagot Community, of June to August 2009. Quotes are also taken from a forum in May this year with two ‘concerned Australians’eminent elders, Rev. Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra OAM of the Dhurili People of Galiwin’ku and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM of the Anmatjerre/Alyawarr people of Utopia.
Additionally quotes have been taken from a survey conducted with elders/leaders from 24 communities across the NT during the month of June 2010. Those elders/leaders invited to participate in the survey are those identified or acknowledged by community members as representing them. The same survey was carried out in the community of Galiwin’ku at the request of elders with all community members who wished to participate.
The participating communities included homelands as well as major centres and centres identified as future growth centres. Both surveys are to be found in Appendices 1 and 2. We would especially like to thank staff at Jumbunna House of Indigenous Learning, University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) for assistance with the survey.
A very special thank you is given to those communities who participated in the survey and to those who shared their deep concerns with us.
The Failure of the Rudd Government’s Aboriginal Policy
Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS) Forum, NSW Teachers Federation Building, 23-33 Mary Street Surry Hills NSW, Monday 29 March 2010
An Address delivered by Professor the Honourable Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, Honorary Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne
Former Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia
Professor the Hon. Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, former Chief Justice of the Family Court
Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens spokesperson on Aboriginal issues (click here)
Launch of This Is What We Said: Commentary on proposed Legislation purporting to reinstate the provisions of the Racial Discrimination act 1975 in the Northern Territory
By Professor the Honourable Alastair Nicholson, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 9 February 2010
A Failure in Leadership? The reluctance to enforce human rights requirements in Australia
Archbishop Daniel Mannix Memorial Lecture, Newman College,
University of Melbourne, Tuesday 6 October 2009
An address by Professor the Honourable Alastair Nicholson, AO RFD QC.
Former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia,
Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne
The Law of Customary Adoption: A Comparison of Australian and Canadian Approaches to its Legal Recognition
Paper delivered by Professor the Honourable Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC,
Founding Patron, Children’s Rights International, Former Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne
World Congress on Family Law and Children’s Rights,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Convention Centre, Halifax Monday 24 August 2009
Legal Aid of Cambodia’s (LAC) juvenile justice project in the Battambang region.
The justice system in Cambodia lacks structure as local
authorities and police have very little expertise and
no basic legal knowledge of children’s rights or legal
documents. Once children are arrested and detained
by the police, they are typically “punished” in some
extrajudicial way if the offence is minor. If a child
is prosecuted and enters the court system, the lack
of a separate juvenile justice system condemns the
child to be tried in adult courts, under adult laws. If
sentenced to prison, the child will be incarcerated
alongside adult inmates.
All children in conflict with the law – and child offenders serving prison sentences – have rights under the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC), an international human rights treaty that Cambodia has ratified and acknowledged in
the Cambodian Constitution.
Cambodia is therefore required to ensure that children in conflict with the law, and those already incarcerated, receive appropriate treatment as a right in order to meet international obligations under CRC.
Legal Aid Cambodia (LAC) is at the forefront of the struggle for children’s rights in Cambodia. This video gives you an insight into the magnitude of the work still to be done.
Bill Jackson CEO CRI
Projects in Tamil Nadu, India, supported by the Lasallian Foundation
Children Rights International’s Patron, The Hon. Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, and a volunteer film crew visited Tamil Nadu with Paul Smith, the Lasallian Foundation’s CEO, to produce a film to help the Foundation raise funds for its children’s programmes in India.
These programmes work to assist child labourers, street children, and rejected and orphaned children to help them live safe and full lives.
Summary of necessary legal reform to achieve full prohibition
Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children
Prepared by EPOCH
Settings where explicit prohibition is necessary
home, schools, penal system, alternative care settings
Is there a legal defence for corporal punishment which must be repealed?
The near universal acceptance of corporal punishment in childrearing means that legal provisions against violence and abuse are not interpreted as prohibiting corporal punishment and provisions confirming a right to use “reasonable” punishment provide a legal justification for the use of corporal punishment. The following legal defences for the use of corporal punishment should be repealed/amended and the law clarified to state that all forms of corporal punishment are unlawful: New South Wales Crimes Act (s61), Northern Territory Criminal Code Act (s27), QueenslandCriminal Code Act 1899 (s280), South AustraliaCriminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (s20), TasmaniaCriminal Code Act 1924 (s50), Western Australia Criminal Code 1913 (s257) and the relevant common law defences in Australian Capital Territory and Victoria.
SayNo4Kids is inviting everyone to sign an online national petition to remove pornography from childrens access and view in the public arena (e.g. milk bars, petrol stations, convenience stores etc.). Click on the link below for more information
Broadcaster abused young woman's basic human rights
The Chief Executive of Children’s Rights International, Bill Jackson supports the media statement below and is shocked by the broadcasters abuse of this young woman’s basic human rights
50th session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Informational Notes on
Juvenile Justice related
issues
Defence for Children International www.dci-is.org
February 2009
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is the UN body responsible for monitoring the implementation, by States Parties, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as its two optional protocols, namely: the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Every year, the Committee on the Rights of the Child holds three sessions in January, May-June and September.
States Parties are expected to submit reports to the Committee on the implementation of the Convention. The reporting cycle is as follows: 2 years after ratification, a State Party has to submit an initial report. After this initial report, additional reports are due every
five years.
After reviewing the reports submitted by States Parties, the members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child address their concerns and recommendations in the form of concluding observations.
The 50th session was held in Geneva from 12 to 30 January 2009. During the three-week session, the Committee on the Rights of the Child considered reports on how the Convention on the Rights of the Child is being implemented in each of the following States Parties: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Netherlands and Republic of Chad, Republic of Moldova. Under the optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, members of the Committee reviewed the reports of Maldives and Netherlands. Under the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, the Committee on the Rights of the Child considered the reports of Maldives, Republic of Moldova and Tunisia.
As on previous occasions, the International Secretariat of Defence for Children International attended the session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in order to follow the presentation of country reports from Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Netherlands and Republic of Chad, Republic of Moldova.
Defence for Children International is happy to present the following information notes on
issues concerning juvenile justice. These notes are intended to provide the reader with
relevant information on the state of juvenile justice in the countries under review, in a
concise manner.
International Conference on Child Labour and Child Exploitation
The International Conference on Child Labour and Child Exploitation was held on Sunday 3rd - Tuesday 5th August 2008, Cairns, Australia. The International Conference evaluated the progress and achievements made in relation to the eradication of the worst forms of child labour and will explore the challenges ahead in securing rights for children in the 21st century and meeting the UN Millennium Goals by 2015.
The Conference reflected on whether the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), as defined by the ILO in Forms of Child Labour Convention No.182 (C182) and its associated Recommendation (R190), address the right issues, in the light of 21st century concerns with nationalism, identity and globalisation, or whether new approaches to protecting children’s rights are needed. The Conference focussed on the role of the organizations representing employers and workers, non-government organisations as well as governments. The Conference engaged the corporate sector with a view to bringing a concrete reality to the much vaunted concept of responsible corporate citizenship. It highlighted steps taken by some companies and organisations operating internationally to address the worst forms of exploitation in their labour obligations and their attempts to try to set higher standards.
We had become increasingly concerned about the position of children in countries where economic boom conditions has created an enormous demand for labour and particularly cheap labour, which children can provide. These and many other issues were addressed at a highly successful conference.
Journal Issue No.6: Working Children - an Indian perspective
CRI Journal Issue 6 (2008)
Exploitative Child Labour, still a harsh reality
By Bill Jackson, Margaret Harrison, Sasha Trikojus and accredited sources
Both India and China are increasingly used by the west as sources of cheap manufactured goods, as emerging economic tiger states and, particularly in the case of China, as consumers of raw resources. However, the profits that flow from the export industries of both countries are heavily dependent on the supply of cheap labour. There is, however, a fear that the Indian and Chinese hunger for global success is increasing the chances of worker exploitation in those countries through competition to produce goods at ever-lower cost.
Welcome from the Hon. Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC.
Founding Patron of the Children’s Rights International.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified treaty in human history. Despite the good will of the signatory nations the sad truth is that the basic rights of children are still not universally recognised and children suffer violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination in increasing numbers every day.
LOSS OF RIGHTS - the Despair of Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory
The Failure of the Rudd Government’s Aboriginal Policy
Australia - Country Report
50th session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child